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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] b-hebrew Uncancellable meaning and Hebrew verbs

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: "Stoney Breyer" <stoneyb AT touchwoodcreative.com>
  • To: "'Rolf Furuli'" <furuli AT online.no>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] b-hebrew Uncancellable meaning and Hebrew verbs
  • Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:38:54 -0500

RF: There is one problem with your examples, because the -ing forms are used
adjectivally. . . The -ing forms used as adjectives are not a part of the
English verbal system.

SB: This seems to me pretty arbitrary. The same word, same form is an
adjective if it comes before its subject, a verb if it comes after its
subject, even though the positions are interchangeable according to very
straightforward transformation rules? . . .

With (insincere) apologies to Mets fans:
Wainwright's curve paralyzed Beltran.
v
The Cardinals won the LCS on Wainwright's paralyzing curve.
v
The winning Cardinals advanced to the World Series.

If you prefer, however:
Paralyzing Beltran, Wainwright's curve won the LCS for the
Cardinals.
Winning the LCS, the Cardinals advanced to the World Series.

Deep structure's the same for all of them, though.

RF: In such situations we do not speak of aspect.

SB: Why not? It's there. And having rejected my earlier suggestion that
*tense* should be located in the utterance rather than word, are you now
going to locate *aspect* in the utterance?

Stoney Breyer
Writer







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