Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

colleagues,

the discussion on tenses in BH has become quite vivid. at this point i must
send several simultaneous replies to several different persons. please bear
with me if any confusion arises.

nir cohen

----------------------------------------------------
TO DAVE, ROLF ON QATAL/YIQTOL AND ASPECT THEORY 
----------------------------------------------------


>>>> [dave] Nir, While I agree with you that the Hebrew verb forms do not
encode aspect,.... 

>>> [rolf] In the book "The Development of English Aspectual Systems," L. J:
Brinton, 1988, p. 5, we find about 20 different descriptions and
definitions of aspect.  You reject aspect as a part of the verbal
system of Classical Hebrew. So my question is: What have you rejected? 
What is your definition of the perfective and imperfective aspect 
respectively?

----

dave, rolf,

1. i am not too familiar with aspect theory. i do not claim it is 
irrelevant in BH. however, in my mind:

1) it makes more difference in 
compound sentences which contain many verbal units and clauses. 
in the ancient texts, most sentences were not of this type.

2) it makes more difference when the tense system is more elaborate.
most semitic languages only have 3 tenses: past, present, future.

3) in addition, old epic/narrative text is usually restricted into very
narrow molds, allowing few variation of tense. with this, a principle of
variation has come to rule. this principle says that the second half of the
verse cannot repeat EXACTLY the word order of the first half. 

strangely enough, hebrew (but not, say, akkadian or arabic) presents not three
but 
five verb forms, including wayqtol and wekatal. the question is: how come?
there are two possible answers, leading to two new questions:

Ans A) QATAL and WAYQTOL are indeed two distinct tenses, distinguishable 
by some aspectual factors. 

Qu A) WHAT ARE THESE FACTORS?

Ans B) QATAL and WAYIQTOL is just one tense, manifested in two grammatical 
forms, 
and so undistinguishable by any aspectual factor, but distinguishable
gramatically. 

Qu B) WHAT GRAMMATICAL FACTORS DISTINGUISHE  BETWEEN THEM?
 
i believe that Ans B is closer to the truth than Ans A. and i answer Qu B as
follows:
what distinguishes QATAL from WAYQTOL is just the initial connective WA.
whenever the verb
is in the connective, it is WAYQTOL, otherwise it is QATAL. 

this is similar, say, to the use of auxiliary HAVE and HAS in english. 
clearly, 
these do not represent different tenses; rather, two distinct grammatical
manifestations of the 
same tense, with no aspectual distinction whatsoever; so in english we say

                                       i ha-VE done, you ha-VE done, he ha-S 
done.

and in hebrew:                                 

                                       jacob katal, WE-jacob qatal, WA-yiqtol
jacob. 

rolf, if you rather think that Ans A is the correct one, what is your recipe
to predict QATAL from
VAYIQTOL in the text?
 

n.c.

-----------------------------------------------
TO ROLF AND CHAVEUX ON PERFECT/IMPERFECT IN BH
-----------------------------------------------

[rolf ] >>>> We may use verbs in Genesis , chapters 1 and 2, as examples.

>>>>De: Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com>
As I understand it, any act is either completed (perfectum - katal (&
va-yiktol in narratives in biblical Hebrew) ) or not completed
(imperfectum - yiktol (& va-katal in biblical Hebrew, but not usually
in modern Hebrew)). ......

----------

rolf, chaveux,

your use of "perfect/imperfect" is completely foreign to semitic languages. 
it was invented by some grammarians in rome, and then exported everywhere 
else. 

you do not even relate the term to the concept behind it, which is 
"an action completed in the past". in gen 1:10 you have two actions 
which occur simultaneously,

           he called A land and he called B sea.

yet, you insist that one of these actions should be dubbed perfect and the 
other 
imperfect, only because .... one is qatal and the other is yiqtol. 

this is absurd. both actions are not distinguishable by any aspectual element:
duration, 
initial time, terminal time, action type, nothing! under any definition, 
both are perfect: completed in a VERY distant past.
 
so, why one qatal and one wayqtol in gen 1:10? the only possible answer is: 
the connective w.

n.c.

-----------------------------
TO DAVE ON WHAT IS A SENTENCE
-----------------------------

>>> [dave]...I'm wondering
exactly how you define the term "sentence" in the material below.  The usual
definition that
I've seen is a single predicated unit, i.e. Subject-Verb.  A sentence may have
lots of
auxiliary parts such as objects, dependent clauses and so forth, but the basic
core of a
sentence only involves a single main verbal expression (whether explicit, or
implied as in
the case of Hebrew verbless clauses).
I get the feeling you're using the term in a different way.  Could you 
clarify?
Dave Washburn

----

sorry, my terminology was not the correct one. my "sentence" is 
just a BH verse; its two "parts" were restricted to 
be single, simple sentence (namely, each contains a single verbal unit).
  
n.c.

-------------------------------
TO CHAVEUX ON DIFICULTY READING
-------------------------------

i fully agree with you. most tanakh is readable for modern hebrew speakers. 
if not
in first reading then in second reading. the problem is to make the guy do 
the 
first reading...

>>> [chanoux] The parts that
were very difficult for me, was the poetic language as used in the
Psalms and especially Proverbs. I am not sure if it was the grammar or
the vocabulary (or both) which made these parts so difficult to
understand.

i would add some parts of job.

n.c.
--------------