Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Gday Karl,

You're right; but like I said, a tense-prominent view is able to predict 
the distributional restrictions which do actually occur. For the aspect 
view, it is happenchance that in the texts as we have it, even with a 
"psychological tense" as you suggest, that an exception does not occur. 
Like I said, this on its own may not be convincing, but tied with the 
following features of the language (repeated from another post to you), 
pushes me toward a tense-prominent position: 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. yiqtol sometimes used of future 
perfective actions. 9. qatal sometimes used of past imperfective actions.

Regarding the participle, I take it that it progressive aspect and as 
such is grammaticalising as a present tense in direct speech. However, 
it still is used for progressive aspect and functions as such with the 
temporal adverb "tomorrow".

Regarding future useds of qatal, like I have said in the past, these are 
explainable under a tense-prominent view: either they are cosubordinate, 
hypothetical/conditional, exaggerated futures, or relative past tense. 
Diachronically, the wide distribution of qatal is explainable; see eg 
vol 2 of Rainey's work on Amarna Canaanite and his article on the suffix 
verb in ANES.

Regards,
David Kummerow.

> 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.