Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

vayyixtov David
>Some shift has indeed occurred, whether this be
>seen as aspect-prominent with some move to tense (as per Cook), or
>tense-prominent with not a complete move to tense (as I see).

Or, as I see, making a statement
likely to be misinterpreted etymologically
by students and even scholars.

In a language with fully grammaticalized, multi-person subject
concord, but with only two TAM categories for a three-dimensional
reality, (predicting at least six opposition items), Saussure thru
Bickerton would predict that the two category system would be used
for all three TAM parameters, no matter what the etymology.

The problem with labels like 'aspect-prominent' and 'tense-prominent',
useful when they not able to be misapplied by actual speakers,
is that people reading dead languages tend to think etymologically
and say non-functional things like 'but it is "really" only marking
--X--, (X being the item they call "prominent"). That is an example
of the etymological fallacy, that is, that a verb means
whatever it meant in an earlier system. And if that earlier system
was likewise under-differentiated, then it too would likely
be misrepresented, something I see with Bauer's non-system
system from 1910 (if memory serves).

Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
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