Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

Let us first consider a method. How do you expect me to prove narrator's
deictic center? Psychoanalysis? No.
What I can do - and what is the standard method of proof - is to show that
the observed facts are consistent with the hypothesis. Thus, for every
example of the supposedly irregular use of tenses (such as Michael's) I have
to show that:
a. The deictic center shift (assuming it happened) explains the usage of
tenses, and
b. That such shift is possible.
To prove b), I invoke Russian and English examples, and show that such
shifts are not alien to human mentality.
If you think of any different method of proof acceptable to you and other
correspondents, let me know.

Vadim Cherny


> 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.
>