Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 16:47:44 -0000

Dear Peter,

Please see my comments below.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Kirk" <peter AT qaya.org>
To: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 4:18 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)


snip

. And
we know that there were significant changes in the Hebrew verb system during this period. So, even if there was a clean and clearly defined verbal system at every one point on the diachronic scale, and instantaneous transitions from one system to another, we would not expect to see this clean system clearly reflected in the actual texts which we have.

To say that "we know that there were significant changes in the Hebrew verb system " is a very strong statement. I have carefully analysed the verbs of the Tanakh by relevant diachronic methods, and on the basis of the statistics of the use of verbs, studies of the context, and discourse analysis I see absolutely no example that the *meaning* of any verb form has changed, and I see no evidence of a grammaticlizing process in the verb system. There is some more use of participles together with finite verbs in the younger books, but still no meaning change. I would like to stress that I also have studied the claims of change of meaning, such as the claimed occurrence of short preterits in old Psalms. Circular reasoning is behind many of these claims. The last year I have worked a lot with Ugaritic texts, teaching them in the classroom and translating them. Interestingly, the evidence for a short preterit YAQTUL in contrast with a longer YAQTULU is absent. To the contrary! First, it is extremely difficult to distinguish morphologically between YAQTUL and YAQTULU (we need a final aleph+vowel in the verb for this). and second, in the cases where a distinction is claimed, both forms (if there are two forms) are used both with past and future reference. Therefore I so often ask for crieria and controls and not just theoretical claims.

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



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









Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page