Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 07/03/2007 07:59, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> Dear David,
>
> You have not really answered my basic question, "How do we distinguish 
> between past reference and past tense?"  Your comments show that your 
> approach is completely theory-dependent. ...

But, Rolf, your own question here is "completely theory-dependent". You 
don't even ask the logically prior question whether there is a 
meaningful distinction to be made between past reference and past tense, 
or whether this distinction is part of David's theoretical framework. 
You simply assume that this is the most basic distinction which must and 
can be made, and then pressure David to make this distinction. But there 
are other possible and meaningful theoretical frameworks in which there 
is no such distinction, or in which this distinction is far less 
fundamental and less significant. And anyway it may well be that, even 
if the distinction is a valid one, the evidence from a dead language is 
insufficient for it to be made in this case - which would imply that 
your model of the Hebrew verb is a theoretically valid but practically 
unproductive one.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/