Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 18/09/2005 06:58, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> Jack,
>
> You well may be right, I don't have a clue about Tagalog.
> It could be, however, that the same bias affected its study, as was for
> Hebrew.
> I guess, Polynesians don't have a large body of written literature, and are
> generally moderately educated (a guess, not an assertion), and cannot very
> well relay to scholars and translators subtle semantical differences, such
> as between tenses and the completion aspects. ...
>  

This guess is a racist slur. Please retract it.


> ... Myself, I don't see major difference between completed aspect ('having
> studied') and the past tense. I cannot imagine how scholars could establish
> that Polynesians mean aspect, not tense in this case. ...

Perhaps you can imagine how scholars can establish that the Russian 
perfective future is perfective or "completed" aspect but not past 
tense. If Russians are able to make such a distinction, so are Tagalog 
speakers.


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



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.1/104 - Release Date: 16/09/2005