Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 17/09/2005 07:53, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> > > Tense describes the reference time from narrator's point of view.
> > >
> > > That is to say, future tense must refer to the future from the narrator's
> > > deictic centre, and past tense likewise.
> > >
> > > Now, narrator's deictic centre might be shifted, and so future tense
> > > sometimes refers to the past events - from the point of view of the
> > >      
> reader
>  
>
> > > or of narrator's contemporaries. This is still future tense.
> > >
> > > Does that seem reasonable?
> > >
> > >      
> > Reasonable, but this definition of "future tense" does not apply to the
> > YIQTOL form in biblical Hebrew. This has already been demonstrated in
> > numerous examples.
> >
> >    
>
> I don't understand. In recent discussion, I demonstrated that yiqtols are
> employed consistently as future tense with deictic shifts - on all the
> examples offered by the respondents. And I saw no objections from you. Now
> you say that yiqtol is not future tense.
>  

No, Vadim, you asserted this, and others demonstrated that none of the 
examples you gave supported your assertion.

> Please offer me just one example, where yiqtol is not a future tense in the
> sense I described above.
>  

I will give you a lot of them already posted by Michael:

> Present tense
> Deuteronomy 1:44 "they pursued you, as the bees do"
> Genesis 32:32 "the children of Israel do not eat"
> Genesis 37:15 "What seekest thou?"
> 1 Samuel 11:5 ""What aileth the people that they weep?"
>
> Past tense
> Judges 11:40 "the daughters of Israel went from year to year"
> Job 1:5 "In this manner used Job to do all the time"
> Genesis 29:2 "out of that well they watered"
>
>  
You attempted to answer some of these examples, but in none of them did 
you demonstrate that the action is future relative to any deictic point 
assumed by the narrator. All you argued was that some of these are 
rendered in Russian and English by particular verb forms which sometimes 
have a future sense - but in these cases do not.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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