Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Dear Rolf,
> When I ask the question: "Is past tense an uncancelable part of the 
> WAYYIQTOL form?," I seek a scrupulous distinction between semantics and 
> pragmatics when I answer the question, and I use "scrupulous" as defined by 
> Websters.
>
>   
HH: What you are seeking for seems unrealistic. An essential idea of the 
Greek aorist is that it is a preterite; it expresses past meaning. But 
that is not always the case. Sometimes the aorist can be used in 
contexts which indicate a present meaning. And it can be used in 
contexts which imply a future meaning. I was just reading about it:

http://books.google.com/books?id=BExv_MTYrZkC&dq=uses+of+aorist+Greek&pg=PA22&ots=gXedHFoi0S&sig=Xpoo7X4iOYetqTTFLw0tPx4R2u0&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Duses%2Bof%2Baorist%2BGreek%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=2#PPA16-IA4,M1


Language is not as rigid as you seem to propose.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard