Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

My feeling is that the issue is really something of a continuum: at one 
end would be a language that has grammaticalised tense absolutely (even 
English would not fit here) and a language in which main-clause 
declarative verbs are entirely free. Between these two ends of the 
spectrum languages will scatter. Where do we position BH? My suggestion 
is around 3/4 to the tense end for the reasons I've outlined in previous 
posts.

Rolf's position seems to be inconsistent with real language, where a lot 
of languages do not fall entirely at one end or the other. Even in 
English there are various constructions where tense is neutralised. So 
too in Hebrew, but this is more widespread. The difficulty is really 
qatal, but all the uses can be constructionally defined and isolated.

Empirically, this answer is able to make sense of the debate that has 
raged for year after year between tense and aspect. That is, it is not 
surprising that there is such debate if the language fits somewhere on 
the continuum rather than totally at one end. Rolf's presentation in 
which he demonstrates no exceptions is at odds with the reality of real 
language where fuzziness exists because of incomplete absolute 
grammaticalisation.

Regards,
David Kummerow.


> > On 07/03/2007 16:01, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> > > ...
> > > Fine! Then, once more to the point: Regardless of the diachronic 
> > > evolution of the language, we have a text, namely the Masoretic one 
> > > and the DSS. David has claimed that the WAYYIQTOLs of this text 
> > > represent past tense. Then it is fully legitimate to ask on the basis 
> > > which criteria he has concluded that the WAYYIQTOLs represent past 
> > > tense, and the same is not true with other verb forms which refer to 
> > > past completed events. The case is  just as simple as that.
> > >
> > >   
> > I agree that this is a reasonable question. But did David in fact say 
> > that "the same is not true with other verb forms which refer to past 
> > completed events", or is his definition of "past tense" just something 
> > like "verb forms which refer to past completed events"? The latter 
> > definition might be somewhat fuzzy, but it might also fit real 
> > language better than the very precise definition which you insist on.
> >
> > But I don't agree that we have "a text". We have a selection of texts 
> > from various times in a period of perhaps more than a millennium, some 
> > of which may have been edited at various times during this period. 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.
> >
> >
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