Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Randall:

Update: I found the definition on SIL concerning “mood” to be unclear, but I
should have checked a different dictionary first, namely the one built in to
the Macintosh OS, where the second definition of “mood” states: “1 Grammar a
 category of verb use, typically expressing fact (indicative mood), command
 (imperative mood), question (interrogative mood),wish (optative mood), or
conditionality (subjunctive mood).
• a form or set of forms of a verb in an inflected language such as French,
Latin, or Greek, serving to indicate whether it expresses fact,command, wish
, or conditionality.”

I had previously floated a trial balloon that since Qatal and Yiqtal do not
grammaticalize for time based concepts, could they instead grammaticalize
for mood? While the details for which moods they grammaticalize differ from
the definition quoted above, the over all picture from that definition fits
my question.

So in conclusion:

T—tense, not in Biblical Hebrew
A—aspect, not in Biblical Hebrew
M—mood, is this the case?

Karl W. Randolph.