Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Randall:

This is the last (I hope) I will say on this.

Proper use in the English language of the term “tense” in all dictionaries
and linguistic glossaries involves the concept of time. So what you are
saying in this exchange is that “tense” ≠  “tense” because you want it to
mean “form”. In the English language, that’s nonsense. The same with the
term “aspect”. If you want to make the idiosyncratic equation that “tense” =
“morphology”, why not just use terminology based on the proper term “morph”
and its derivatives?

This is a question of the proper use of English, not of Biblical Hebrew.

“Morph” is a neutral term, in that it refers to the forms of a language,
irrespective of the meanings.

On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 3:22 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Karl katav
>
> Then T-A-M, because it is time based, does not apply to Biblical Hebrew.
>>
>
> Karl, your understanding of the term T-A-M is wrong and you are making an
> issue out of a non-issue.
>

As I wrote, I took the dictionary and glossary definitions and applied them.
Your usage is of definitions that I did not find anywhere.

>
> T-A-M is a neutral term and provides no definition or restriction on any
> language, including BH. It's sort of like (but not identical to) using three
> nodes, say R-B-Y, for color definitions. Neutral means neutral. If a
> language had zero verb morphology marking then one might even speculate that
> it's TAM system was 0-0-0, zero tense, zero aspect, zero mood. That is, that
> language would not have a TAM system in the verb. But if a language has
> verbal morphology beyond a single category, then it is expected that it has
> some kind of TAM system. The following statements would be correct use of
> Tense-Aspect-Mood:
>

Do you not notice that in your paragraph above, that you used T-A-M to mean
form? So why not use form based terminology instead of time based?

>
> "The TAM system in Karl's BH has a zero value for any tense component."
> "The TAM system in Joshua Blau's BH includes some tense within the system."
>
>

I disagree with him in other areas as well, so those all are for different
threads.  :-)

>
> Lots of languages have murky systems and a term like TAM allows one to talk
> about them without absolute commitment to one point or another. You yourself
> claim that Hebrew is murky. It's TAM system is not clear in your eyes.
>

The definitions of at least two of the three terms used in T-A-M are time
based, and you are using them to define form. It’s that misuse of the
English language that confuses.

>
> Of course, if you want to take issue with Joshua Blau's conceptions about
> how the Hebrew verb system works, or your own, please start a new thread.
> Blau was the president of the Hebrew Language Academy 1981-1993 though he
> cut his teeth on medieval Arabic.
>
> I think we're finished with TAM.
>

I should hope so.

The idea has value, the terminology confuses.

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

 Let’s get back to Hebrew.

Karl W. Randolph.