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  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:38:10 +1100

Hi Karl,

I can't say how accurate Rolf's statistics are because I do not have the time look at every verb myself. There will be some discrepancies, eg he listed a yiqtol as past tense the other day which to me was clearly future.

However, what I can say is this: 1. wayyiqtol is basically restricted to narrative past tense. 2. qatal has encroached on the meaning of wayyiqtol in direct speech, ie it is now part of the verbal paradigm whereas in pre-BH it was not. 3. In direct speech, the participle seems to have encroached on yiqtol, which may have been a present-future, but the participle has taken over some of the present tense function. 4. The default meaning of qatal in declarative non-stative clauses is absolute past. 5. qatal in non-paratactic constructions defaults to anterior tense (relative past tense). 6. Rhetorical/exaggerated future which can be explained based upon a past tense meaning. 7. qatal for politeness, which can be explained based upon a past tense meaning. 8. qatal restricted to temporal adverbs 'ethmol and 'emesh while yiqtol is restricted to temporal adverbs `attah and machar. 9. yiqtol sometimes used of future perfective actions. 10. qatal sometimes used of past imperfective actions.

Regards,
David Kummerow.



David:

A few days ago Rolf gave the following table referring to past references:

QATAL: 7,446 53.5 %
WEQATAL 357 5,9 %
YIQTOL 1,027 7.5 %
WEYIQTOL 50 4.4 %
WAYYIQTOL 13,539 93.1 %
Part act 1,739 32.7 %
Part pass 364 33.1 %
Infin con. 760 57.2 %
Infin abs 86 29.8 %

Now, when one adds to that that when one reads an unpointed text, the
WEYIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL are indistinguishable and possibly were not
separate in Biblical times, the past referent of the two combined is
most likely more like the QATAL than as in the chart.

Many years ago I studied Russian (long since forgotten) which
grammaticalized both tense and aspect. Those who have kept it up can
correct me on this, but at the time I noticed that the majority of
past tense verbs used were also perfective aspect, while the majority
of future tense verbs were imperfective. (That could have been the
pattern just of the materials chosen for class, it's been too long
ago.)

I don't claim that Biblical Hebrew aspects are exactly the same as
Russian, but I notice that the aspectual use as far as time referent
seems to follow a similar pattern. What that says (at least to me) is
that there is a certain amount of implied tense information within the
aspectual system without the tense itself being grammaticalized within
the language. And as I stated before, that implied tense could very
well be from the psychological understanding of the speaker of
complete vs. incomplete (in simple terms).

You claim that there was a shift from aspect to tense, can you show
that development among unambiguous native speakers from the early
(Torah) to late pre-Exile (Jeremiah)? What evidence of that shift can
be gleaned from Exile writers (Ezekiel, Daniel)? Can that change be
demonstrated among post Exile authors in Tanakh, or is it found only
in post-Tanakh Hebrew writings?

Does a study of cognate languages show that shift from aspect to
tense? For example, since Torah predates written Ugarit, does Torah
Hebrew show more aspectual usage than does Ugaritic? We have several
centuries of Aramaic texts, do they show that shift as well?

Rolf claims that he could find no diachronic differences, can you?

It's not that I utterly reject your claim, it's just that I need to
see more evidence.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.






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