Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 23/09/2005 12:37, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> > > 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.
> >
> >
> > This sounds like an admission that your theory is dependent on 
> > presuppositions from Russian.
>
>
> Or that your theory depends on presuppositions from English? ...


I accept that my thinking can never be entirely free of presuppositions 
from English but seek to minimise them. Whereas you seem to openly proud 
that you are using presuppositions from Russian and inviting others to 
share them.

In fact the theory of aspects as a whole depends more on Russian grammar 
than on English. The theory of the Hebrew verb which I and most scholars 
hold to depends I think on close analogies noted between Hebrew and 
Russian - analogies which you have failed to recognise.


> ... How could we know what Hebrews meant by ci-yiqtol or "future in 
> the past"? ...


We cannot know exactly what Hebrews meant by KIY YIQTOL (although I 
don't see any particular link between these two words), which means that 
your description of its as "future in the past" is baseless speculation.


> ... Russian is a good candidate for comparison with Hebrew because of 
> the well-attested similarities: grammaticalized aspects ...


Indeed this similarity is well-attested, and you reject it! I accept 
that despite their genealogical separateness there are similarities, 
some coincidental and some perhaps based on idioms introduced into 
Russia by Hebrew speakers and perhaps through the Slavonic Bible. The 
existence of a few such similarities by no means implies that the 
languages are similar in any other respects.

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



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