Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen and Rebecca Shead <srshead AT gmail.com>]

Hi Rolf,

Thank you for outlining your linguistic approach to the analysis of
WAYYIQTOL. I have a question: Does your approach assume that if WAYYIQTOL is
*ever *a past tense, then it must *always* be a past tense?

The reason I ask is because of something you asserted about the English form
"went" (on 23/6 - yes, I'm a way behind):

<snip>
The form "went" has an intrinsic past reference that is not caused by the
context. There may be exceptions, but again, they can be explained as
exceptions.
...
3) Liz went home.
</snip>

This is not correct. In some contexts the form "went" is modal, for example:

1) If you went to Australia, you would find some of their English dialects
very difficult to understand.

In this type of construction, the temporal reference that the "went" form
definitely *cannot* have is past; if it has temporal reference, it is
probably future. However, nobody would deny, on the basis of this, that
"went" is past tense in your example, *Liz went home*.

Two conclusions: (1) the presence or absence of tense is not inextricably
tied to a verb form, and (2) the "semantic value" of a verb form must take
into account wider contextual considerations (or better, wider
constructional considerations).

Does this fit with your methodology? The reason it seems important is that
the "went" form in English would similarly have past reference the vast
majority of the time, but with present and/or future exceptions. (I
apologise that I cannot check myself whether this has any relevance to your
dissertation, but I do not have access to it presently.)

Regards,
Stephen Shead
Centro de Estudios Pastorales
Santiago, Chile