Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 20/09/2005 15:15, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> ...
>
> > We agree that a hypothesis must be falsifiable to be properly 
> > scientific. What we disagree on is whether this particular hypothesis 
> > is falsifiable.
>
>
> The tense hypothesis is easily falsifiable. If I cannot show, for the 
> counterexamples given, that either future tense or its derivatives 
> (idioms, deictic shifts) fit the context - and do so plausibly for 
> detached observers - then the hypothesis fails. Sure enough, we have 
> an issue of a detached reasonable observer. So far, I see your 
> comments on the context as reasonable.


Indeed we do have this issue. It seems that you, the promoter of the 
hypothesis, consider this deictic shift to be plausible, but several 
detached observers including myself have strongly disagreed. That 
suggests to me that you may be wrong. If on the other hand ypu can find 
detached observers who agree with you on the plausibility, you may be 
able to make your case.

> You seem to accept that yiqtols, where not straight future or 
> plausible deictic shift, could be approximated with "would." The main 
> part of our quarrel is whether "would" is future tense. But I don't 
> argue that either "would" or the corresponding yiqtols in Hebrew are 
> future tense. I say, they etymologically derive from future tense. ...


For English, this is questionable but irrelevant. For Hebrew, the issue 
is hard to determine, but it seems that the cognate of the YIQTOL form 
in other Semitic languages e.g. Arabic, Aramaic, Ugaritic is not so much 
a future as an imperfect. This would tend to support the scholarly 
theory that the Hebrew YIQTOL was originally an imperfective aspect 
which became a future tense, rather than your suggestion of an opposite 
process.


> ... Thus, my point is that originally all yiqtols were future tense; 
> later, they diversified. ...


But do you have any evidence for this?

> ... In some cases, yiqtols do not refer to the future. Such cases, 
> however, are rare, ...


They are not rare, they are the majority of cases in biblical Hebrew.


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



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