Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Karl,

I agree with you in real language there is largely a correlation between 
aspect and tense as you say.

But, regarding BH, what do you do with the examples of the "incomplete 
aspect" used for "complete action" and the "complete aspect" used for 
"incomplete action"?

Regards,
David.


> Dear Rolf, Peter, David, et al.:
>
> I have been lurking on this thread, now to add my 2¢.
>
> While I agree with Rolf that there is no evidence of
> grammaticalization of tense in Biblical Hebrew, there is yet a
> psychological component to aspect, by which the narrator will tend to
> use the complete aspect to refer to the past, and the incomplete or
> completing aspect for the future. The major exception is where the
> completing aspect is used to complete (carry forward) a narration
> referring to the past. The complete aspect can be used for a future
> event, where the expectation is that the event will happen once and
> once only, otherwise the narrator will psychologically prefer to use
> the incomplete aspect as the event has at that time not yet been
> completed.
>
> While psychological preferences are not in themselves
> grammaticalization, they can give the appearance of such, hence
> David's claim.
>
> Strict grammar is one thing, but when analyzing written texts, we
> should not ignore the psychological element also involved with
> language use.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.