Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

After another set of six comments, it is probably useful to re-orient
back to the original issue. None of the comments proposed
a YIQTOL example in an actual, positive, real, present reference,
(yes, given a strict set of parameters to insure that we are
comparing a few apples to a few apples)
though one comment assured that such was 'accurate', and another
seemed to imply that the vayyiqtol was effictively a present tense. If the
latter, then one wonders what distinguishes vayyiqtol +Subject from
ve-Subject+qotel, or even ve-qotel Subject? But that would need to
be a different thread.

Let's keep looking for some bonafide examples
of present yiqtol without outside contingencies. The kind that
Hebrew profs keep giving me like:

* er'e et ha-`ets sham  *"I see the tree there"

Again, look at this the other way around:
What if I had a class and was saying to a standing student

* ta`amod sham vaani e`mod po
as if to say  * "you're standing there and I'm standing here"

I would have hoped that people would have jumped all over me and
said
 'show us some good examples for the kind of Hebrew you're teaching!'
(they sure do that fast when they hear participles !
"I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the Bible")

Instead, it may be that people are looking from a 'leaning tower of pisa'
so that if I would lean with them they would say
'you're standing straight'.

But I'm sensitive to gravity and want to stand straight.

blessings
Randall Buth



On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:59 PM, Randall Buth<randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I do not speak of tense, only of temporal reference, because
>> I find that BH has no tenses at all.  I found the following verbs
>> with present reference:
>>
>> YIQTOL 2,462     18.1%
>> WAYYIQTOL:  420   2.9%
>> QATAL: 2,505    18%
>
> The reason that I defined the situation tightly is so that we can get
> an actual present situation, your 'temporal reference', and not a
> 'present' gloss in another language. We're on the same page,
> on this.
>
> We should also note that
> so far, no one has brought forward an example about how
> our time-travelling Jeremiah is going to address the Hebrew
> class. Would any of your 2462 YIQTOLs fit?
>
> And yes, I need to
> use the restrictions of
> a. no questions,
> b. no poetry, and
> c. no habitual/omnitemporal/timeless. (these aren't 'present' by this
> definition. negations are covered here, too, since they can be a
> kind of negated contingency rather than an actual present). why
> poetry? With Ugaritic and Canaanite/Hebrew QATAL//YIQTOL
> troping, one cannot be too careful.
>
> Let me give a couple of positive examples of what I'm looking for:
>
> Gen 37:15-16
> (Yosef wandering in the countryside)
>
>  man: ma tevaqqesh?       "what are you looking for? what would you
>                                                be looking for?"
>       (questions can be a special register in a language, it is fairly
> common to have yiqtol in questions about something present)
>
> Yosef:  et aHai anoxi mevaqqesh  ... (my brothers I am looking for)
>         (participle dealing with the positive, immediate, concurrent 
> situation.
>
> this is one example.
>
> Yosef's continuation is not an example, even though it might appear to
> fit:
>  ... efo hem ro`im    ("where are they shepherding?" Since this
> is both a question and dealing with something not physically
> immediate, one could imagine other options here, too.)
>
> A second example:
> We'll go to Jeremiah to prepare for our time traveller:
>
> Jer 1.11
> The word of the Lord:
> ma atta ro`e, Yermiyahu?   (participle as a question , so not an example)
> Yermiyahu:
> maqel shaqed ani ro`e   (an almold stick I see)
>
> This is an example. It is positive, immediately present to a conversation.
> It is not contingent ("might be seeing"), nor a negation, but an actual 
> present.
>
> These two examples are the kind of thing that happens alot in a
> beginning langugage class.
>
> So while the students are communicating,
> they are internalizing the morphology, thinking in and with a little piece 
> of
> the language, and doing this with the most appropriate forms that we
> can supply for biblical Hebrew. And for things like this, without English
> or French or Arabic or Greek.
>
> So my question becomes,
> could Yermiyahu have said
> maqel shaqed ere`e  (yiqtol form)
> for a plain vanilla reference to that present situation?
>
> This is by far the most common response that I get from Hebrew
> teachers. I am open to allowing such if it is biblical Hebrew.
> But it was five unambiguous examples of such that I haven't found.
>
> I have found a couple of 'arguables', but one of those was an
> unvocalized inscription with a better way to be read than an alleged yiqtol
> for an immediate, simple, concurrent, present situation.
>
> This can be tricky, I hope people appreciate.
> For example, Yermiyahu
> could have said maqel shaqed ra'iti in this situation in good biblical
> Hebrew, but I would see that as changing his reference to the item.
>
> What is certainly clear to me, though, is that one must admit
> that a participle makes for a good reference to an actual, immediate
> present situation.
>
> In biblical Hebrew.
>
> blessings
> Randall
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth AT gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
>



-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life