Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com>]

Shalom Nir

> -----------------------------------------------
> 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.
I agree! I think you misunderstood me here: in this case both would be
perfect (completed in the past),
since katal and wayiktol basically has the same meaning as I
understand it. The waw that
indicates a continuation of an account (in this case the account of
creation), changes "yikra"
from imperfectum to perfectum (wayikra). So I think we are basically
in agreement. I just wanted to make
the point that while "completed" normally corresponds to "past tense"
(and incomplete to future), it is not
exactly the same because it can also be used for cases that we would
consider as present tense.
(and both katal and wayiktol is perfectum while both yiktol and
wakatal is imperfectum)

Regards
Chavoux Luyt