Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Gday Herman.

In my view, "tenses" are an OK starting point with the BH verbal system 
in that in my view the verbal forms are prototypically used to make 
tense distinctions. However, with a system of only a few forms in a 
world in which more semantic distinctions than tense are necessary, of 
course the verbal forms can be, and are, used to make aspectual 
distinctions: perfective, imperfective, etc.

In other words, both the prototypical tense and aspect of a verbal form 
can be neutralised in certain constructions. This is important to 
notice, although it is yet to be sufficiently treated in BH grammar 
(again, in my view). BH is what typologically may be called a balanced 
language, that is, dependent clauses do not utilise unique verbs. 
Instead, clauses combine to form complex constructions which one main 
verb of one clause has scope over another main verb of another clause so 
that the tense-aspect of the second is neutralised. Winther-Nielson has 
done beginning work in general (see pgs  53-62 of the work below); 
Dallaire has done good work on volitives in general and Diehl 
specifically on imperatives.

Of course, all of this needs to be extended to other areas of the 
grammar. As such, I disagree that we don't need more BH grammars. Well, 
I agree that we don't need more introductory grammars etc, but we do 
need grammars seeking to integrate and undertake new research. I don't 
know of any grammar that has yet to work with a seven vowel system, even 
though this view has become pretty much the consensus outside the 
grammars. As such, we still await a grammar written with this view. I'd 
love a BH grammar along the lines of what Haspelmath has done for Lezgian!

Anyway, here are the references to which I've referred:

Dallaire, Hélène. "The Syntax of Volitives in Northwest Semitic Prose." 
PhD diss., Hebrew Union College, 2002.

Diehl, Johannes F. Die Fortführung des Imperativs im Biblischen 
Hebräisch. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 286. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 
2004.

Haspelmath, Martin. A Grammar of Lezgian. Mouton Grammar Library 9. 
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993.

Winther-Nielsen, Nicolai. A Functional Discourse Grammar of Joshua: A 
Computer-Assisted Rhetorical Structure Analysis. Coniectanea Biblica Old 
Testament Series 40. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995.


Sincerely,
David Kummerow.


> The same applies to the verbal tense categories that had been given to
> the qatal and yiqtol "tenses": I wonder if people still use the term
> "future" for the yiqtol, which is absurd. Unfortunately, Joüon-Muraoka
> (a weird book by the way) uses the word, [although I wonder if Muraoka
> actually believes Joüon on this point! I have attended Muraoka's
> classes on Hebrew grammar in Leiden and I think he knows better than
> that] and they say this book is widely used.
> "Perfect/imperfect" is already a little better. Using these terms
> started for Arabic by the way.
> David, do you also think there are no adjectives in Hebrew? Just that
> we cannot easily distinguish the form of adjectives from the form of
> nouns, is it an argument? In English we say there are adjectives, yet
> they usually don't have any morphological distinction from nouns
> either. But I'm open for any fresh understanding of this.
>
> You know? I think that a lot of people that have been studying Hebrew
> have this weird tendency to write a grammar of Biblical Hebrew. I
> think we have to suppress this tendency in ourselves. There are no
> plenty of grammars around and they'll all have something we disagree
> with. No wonder if they're grammars intended for the entire MT.
>
> So dear people out there: STOP writing GRAMMARS!
> ;)
>
> PS I was just thinking, let's call "wayyiqtol" the hebrew "Aorist" ;)
> ^^
> Regards, Herman