Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Randall,

RF: I see no reason why I should predict anything at all. As I said 
in my last post, I deal with what I see (or think I see) and not with 
what I expect to see.  At the same time I am aware of the Problem of 
Induction. If you over several years have travelled around looking at 
swans, and you have  observed hundreds of thousands of white swans, 
you have not proven that all swans are white. But one or two black 
swans would falsify the theory that all swans are white.

Fifty-two examples of verbs+adverbs tell us very little about 
temporal reference and tense. In a language we also find what we may 
call "linguistic conventions": Particular forms are normally used in 
particular ways-but they may also be used in different ways. Examples 
of linguistic conventions are the use of the conjunction WAW+YYQTOL 
(WAYYIQTOL) in Classical Hebrew narrative, the use of the infinitive 
absolute in Phoenician narrative, and the use of YAQTUL in Ugaritic 
both in narrative and in future contexts. Because I have found a 
reasonable number of WAYYIQTOLs with non-past reference, and a 
reasonable of BH QATALs with non-past reference, I claim that I have 
falsified the claim that both forms are grammaticalized past.




>  >The characteristics of a language that lacks tense, is that all its
> finite verb forms in normal clauses (not hypothetical clauses) can be
> used for past, present, and future. This is true in Classical Hebrew,
> but not in Classical Greek, English, and Norwegian.>
>
> yet it remains enigmatic that BH theories that say that
> "adverbs mark time, verbs are used irrespective of the time divisions"
> the following is not predicted:
>
> vayyiqtol is never used in clauses with maHar 'tomorrow'
> nor does one ever find ... maHar QATAL
>
> but one does find veQATAL maHar
>               ve Sub Qotel maHar
>    and     ... yiqtol maHar.
>
> Rolf may predict that if we had more than 52 occurrences of this in BH
> we would find examples.
> We might, but I doubt it.
> I note that 52 out of 52 seem to show that the verb has a component
> in it that correlates with time when it is not called on to do something else,
> and when the clause specifies  'tomorrow' it is not being called on for
> something else.
> (But I don't think of the BH verb as purely 'time' or 'aspect' or
> 'mood', they may
> point to any of the three. This is the kind of thing that one sees 
> in minimally
> differentiated languages with two-way verbal morphology as Derek Bickerton
> has noted in studying creoles.)

RF: As long as you have not given a clear and specific definition of 
what you mean by tense and aspect, it is impossible to understand 
what you are speaking about. For example, do you differentiate 
between temporal reference and tense? How do you define aspect, and 
what is the differences between the imperfective and the perfective 
aspect

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


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo