Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <pzellmer AT sc.rr.com>]

Poor Fred!

Of course, he has gotten a "no" answer to tense several times and has chosen
to ignore it.

And he apparently does not understand what aspect is.

Had he gone back to the archives, he might have found the following item
from Rolf Furuli sent on Jan 9, 1999 (it was the first item that came up on
my google search on "definition aspect hebrew).  An excerpt:

"Let me also say a word about aspect. Again Mari [Olsen] gives the best
description
I have ever seen of the difference between tense ( a grammaticalization of
location in time/ deictic time) and aspect (non-deictic time). Aspect
highlights a part of the event time, either its nucleus or coda
(end-point), but tells nothing about where the event is in relation to a
deictic center (such as for instance speech time). Tense, on the other
hand, shows where the event is in releation [sic] to a deictic center
(before,
coinciding or after)."

In the post, he makes it clear that the Hebrew verb does not encode tense,
which is the same answer as we have been giving every time Fred asks.  He
also goes on to say that Mari Olsen's definition of aspect does not
universally fit the Hebrew usage, but he states, "To understand the
different nature of Hebrew aspect, however, we cannot do anything better
than start with Mari's definition and try to apply it to Hebrew."  In short,
he claims that the definition is very good, but not infallible, when applied
to Hebrew.

Yiqtols and qatals are used in different genres for different reasons.
Their usage is not accidental or casual.  The question should not be, "Are
the two forms redundant?"  Instead, the question is, "Why are there only
two?"  Hebrew manages to communicate a lot of different concepts with a very
limited toolbox.  For a fuller answer, it would take a book.  Oh, that's
right.  The suggestion has been made that the questioner look in a book on
discourse analysis of Hebrew.

Paul Zellmer


-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of fred burlingame
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 6:24 PM
To: Nir cohen - Prof. Mat.
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] fred on 2 tenses at the same sentence

Hello Nir:

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

You all appear skilled and adept at this language, just like physicians or
attorneys enjoy a high level of ability in their professions.

I am reminded however, of the following scenario that occurs so frequently.

a. the patient asks her doctor: "will i get well?" ..... she hopes for a
"yes or "no" answer ... and the response in fact: "maybe."

b. likewise, the client asks his lawyer: "will I win this case?" ... he
hopes for a "yes" or "no" answer ... and the response in fact: "maybe."

c. and then fred asks here: "do the two hebrew verb forms "yiqtol" and
"qatal" instruct tense and / or aspect? fred hopes for a "yes" or "no"
answer ..... and the response in fact: "maybe."

and the patient, the client and fred are left with their thoughts: "does it
have to be this way?" .....

I can sympathize with the physician and the attorney, since the future
cannot be known with certainty. But here, we are dealing with past events,
the 1000 year old masoretic text. And yet no one appears willing to say:
"the masoretic text employs two verb forms "yiqtol" and "qatal," rather than
one verb form, for the following reason:  ...... "

It seems to me the reason for it (two, versus one, verb forms), is
susceptible to both identification and articulation in a sentence or two.

regards,

fred burlingame

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat.
<nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>wrote:

> Fred,
>
> i do not have access to the paper suggested by bryant but i agree
> completely
> with his comment. i would like to complete it from a slightly
> different point of view.
>
> 1. the poetic style of BH is such that USUALLY two actions in future
> or imperative tense will NOT be repeated at the same form. rather, they
> appear
> either as a IQTOL-WEQATAL or WEQATAL-IQTOL pair, or else as
> infinitive-future, infinitive-imperative etc.
>
> 2. this has absolutely nothing to do with the two actions stemming from
> similar roots or not.
>
> 3. there are several exceptions, for example, when a SEQUENCE OF MORE THAN
> TWO
> ACTIONS is described, in which case all of them (sometimes except the last
> one) uses the same form.
>
> you can check in the same chapter you suggested (deut 2) that most
> if not all sentenses there (dealing with future or imperative) follow this
> scheme. clearly, as paul indicated,
> in doing so one should adopt the "natural" division into sentences, which
> does
> not necessarily coincide with the one used today.
>
> nir cohen
>
>
>
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