Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George Athas" <george.athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Hi David!
 
Firstly, thanks for keeping me on my toes. Your observations are, as usual,
astute.
 
Yes, you are right to say that 'some' research points towards verbal aspect.
However, the interesting thing I am finding is that people working
independently of each other are coming up with similar conclusions regarding
verbal aspect. This, of course, does not mean that it is correct, but it
does mean it is worth investigating.
 
As for your query from 2005 (sorry, didn't realise I had not answered): I do
not think that time is grammaticalised in Biblical Hebrew. Time is, from
what I can see, indicated by context and/or deictic markers. As such, I do
see verbal aspect being grammaticalised in the construction of verb forms.
Is this unique to Biblical Hebrew? No, I don't think so. Con Campbell has
just completed a dissertation on verbal aspect in Koine Greek, and comes up
with very similar conclusions to the ones I'm making in Biblical Hebrew (it
should be published in the very near future). Of course this does open the
need to investigate whether verbal aspect is a feature of other Semitic
languages, especially close cognates of Biblical Hebrew. My suspicion (and
this is purely speculative), is that verbal aspect began to die as ancient
societies became more dependent on written records and those records were
kept indefinitely. Time, I suspect, became a governing factor. Nonetheless,
that speculation needs to be tested.
 
There is still a long way to go on this whole question, but so far the
explanatory power of verbal aspect is, in my opinion, quite impressive for
both Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek -- enough to make for a working
hypothesis.
 
 

Best Regards, 

GEORGE ATHAS 
Moore Theological College (Sydney) 
1 King St, Newtown, NSW 2042, Australia 
Ph: (+61 2) 9577 9774 


-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of David Kummerow
Sent: Wednesday, 28 February 2007 8:46 AM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Tenses - Deut 6:4
Importance: Low



Gday George,

Could I suggest a rewording to: "According to some recent research..."
That is, not everyone writing recently argues for aspect. See, for
example, ch 5 of Matthew Anstey's dissertation "Towards a Functional
Discourse Grammar Analysis of Tiberian Hebrew," which I think you have
in your college library from memory.

Also, are you able to give some response to this unanswered post?

https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2005-August/025153.html

Thanks,
David Kummerow.