Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Bryant,

I am not sure what you are asking for. In English we have the 
participle that can describe actions, as the verb does. The point I 
tried to convey was that in English the participle has no intrinsic 
tense, but still it can have past, present, and future reference. 
This shows there can be a difference between tense and temporal 
reference, We can do the same with English present. I take the 
example from Broman Olsen who was a native speaker and a linguist. On 
the basis of 1)-4) Broman Olsen concludes that English present is not 
a tense. And on the basis of 5) -7) she concludes that English simple 
past is past tense.

1) So Paul works all yesterday to finish.  (Past)

2) Paul works from now until 4. (present)

3) Paul works tomorrow.  (future)

4) Paul works (Omni-temporal)

5) Matt ran yesterday.

6) #Matt ran as I am speaking.

7) #Matt ran tomorrow.

Please help me understand what you are asking for.


Best regards.

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



> Dear Rolf,
>
> [Rolf Said]
> Here I will just say that the comments above are so silly that I am
> completely breathless.
> No linguist will deny that there is a difference between past
> reference and past tense. The English participle has present
> reference in 1), past reference in 2), and future reference in 3).
> But the past reference in 2) does not indicate that the participle
> expresses past tense; it is not a tense.
>
>
> 1) Right now Rita is walking.
>
> 2) Yesterday Rita was walking.
>
> 3) Tomorrow Rita will be walking.
>
> [Bryant]
> "Walking" is an English participle. All you have done is add a 
> participle with a
> verb of "to be" (walking + to be) with a time reference noun. The 
> example number
> 2 has "yesterday + was (to be verb)" qualifying as to when in the 
> past that the
> action of the subject occured. Without the qualifying time reference noun all
> one would know is that "Rita was walking."
>
> So please indicate from BH examples in the Tanach the following verbs:
>
> Bara'
> Yatsar
> Asah'
> Hayah
> Davar
>
> Also please indicate the source as narrative, poetry, prophetic, etc., genre.
>
> If what you say is correct, then would it apply in all of the different genres
> found in the Tanach? If not, why?
>
> Rev. Bryant J. Williams III