Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

RE: [b-hebrew] tenses> Having reread your posts vadim it seems that you are 
saying the exact same thing as
Rolf but from a different perspective.

Well, not. Our positions with Rolf coincide where we both reject the idea of 
imperfective, since it obviously doesn't meet the majority of entries.
Rolf, as I understand him, argues for ad hoc translation based on very 
subjective views of the context.
I, on the contrary, argue that yiqtol is a future tense by default, and 
deviations from that meaning are idiomatic (etymologically related to future 
tense) or stemming from deictic shifts; in any case, non-future yiqtols are 
unambiguous from the immediate context. Thus, I translate the last phrase of 
Isaiah 53:12 as future, while Rolf *interprets* it as the past tense. My 
method, right or wrong, is reasonably objective; Rolf's - very subjective, 
thus not a method at all.

> You are saying that the major use is a future tense. Rolf says the same 
> thing.

> You are saying that there are cases where the same form is used with a 
> deictic
past reference (this you attribute to a 'deictic shift'). Rolf agrees that 
the same
form is used in past reference.

The point is that yiqtol under deictic shift is still future tense - from 
narrator's time reference point. Consider my earlier example of sports 
commentator reviewing playback of a match, "Now he will push forward!" This 
relates to past events, but is future tense. This is how deictic shift works.

> You are saying that the form does not have inherent aspect in the 
> traditional sense.
Rolf is saying the exact same thing.

This makes two of us. In fact, I have an impression that had Rolf been born 
into Russian as the mother tongue, and see the Tanakh through Russian 
grammatical assumptions regarding the use of future tense, we would have no 
problem coming to a common ground.

> In fact, in conclusion, you are saying that neither tense nor aspect is 
> grammaticalised
in the form yet it is evident which tense is the major usage. Rolf is saying 
the exact
same thing.

I don't recall saying that the tense is not grammaticalized. Rather, yiqtol 
was originally the future tense, and later, as in any language, acquired some 
idiomatic usage which does not invalidate yiqtol's major use as future tense.

Vadim Cherny