Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear David:

As I have stated before, even in a pure aspect-prominent verbal
system, there is still an implied tense within the use of the aspects.
As I understand it, that implied tense is the result of the
psychological makeup of the speakers.

Therefore, when I find a tense indicating adverb used as seldom as
`ethmol and `emesh, I find it less than convincing as a proof of
tense-prominence when it is found with only one aspect (qatal and
wayyiqtol being considered one aspect), i.e. that you need more
examples, many more.

Machar is used four times as many times, and there are several times
it is used with other than a "future" verb: the times with an
imperative don't violate that it refers to the future, but the times
with a participle understood as a present need explanation. Or do you
say that there were only two tenses in Biblical Hebrew with the
participle being tenseless?

But the strongest argument against a tense-prominant verbal system
remains the many times qatal is used in non-past tense, including
future, as well as the times yiqtol is used in a non-future tense,
including past,

Here is one place we may have to agree to disagree and remain on
friendly standing. After all, when dealing with a language where there
have been no native speakers to interview for over two millennia, it
could be that both of us are wrong.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.

On 3/15/07, David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Karl,
>
> Sure some of the adverbs are infrequent, but their verbal restrictions
> do still count against an aspect-prominent analysis. This combined with
> the other features of the language I listed in another post to you
> convinces me as to the validity of the tense-prominent position. But if
> you go for aspect-prominent, every feature I raised has to be dealt
> with. With the cooccuring features of the language I raised, I'm
> personally more inclined to view the adverbial verbal distribution as
> something more than happenstance, i.e. the distribution is expected if
> the language is tense-prominent, but not predictable if aspect-prominent.
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.