Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear Rolf:

While both you and I agree that the conjugation of Hebrew verbs into qatal
and yiqtol forms does not indicate tense, as your statistics at the bottom
of your last message also indicate, I don’t see how you can maintain that
the conjugations grammaticalize for aspect.

When I look at the definition for ‘aspect’ within linguistics, such as at
the sil.org glossary of linguistics, it refers to time. Whereas ‘tense’
refers to the relationship of where the action occurs on the time line from
past to future in relation to the subject, ‘aspect’ refers to the length
along the time line that an action takes up, and to a lesser extent, whether
or not the action is ongoing, or has been completed. Thus ‘aspect’. like
‘tense’, is a time measurement. By definition. Or does sil.org use the wrong
definitions?

You have mentioned ‘conative aspect’ in an earlier message. I don’t see any
relationship between conation and time, neither tense nor aspect. Is
‘conative aspect’ an oxymoron? While ‘conative’ is not listed among
linguistic terms at sil.org, if it truly does indicate a linguistic
understanding, would it not properly be a modality?

In this verse, does not the use of a wayiqtol indicate a modality, in this
case subjunctive? “…that he should die because of it (being thrown into the
pit)”.

On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no> wrote:

>
> Dear Carl,
>
> In my view, the hyperbolic claim regarding Jeremiah 38:9 is an ad hoc
> explanation.


I agree there. The reason, as I see it, is that the student does not
understand why it is correct that there is a wayiqtol in that position in
that verse. Therefore he is making what is essentially a wild guess as to
why the sentence is constructed the way it is.


> The reason for it is the view that the WAYYIQTOL  form is perfective, and a
> perfective verb should not have an egressive force or refer to the future.
> Therefore, when the map does not fit the terrain, the terrain is wrong.  A
> WEQATAL would be no problem, as Randall shows.
>

A weqatal is wrong, as it is forcing Biblical Hebrew grammar into an
Indo-European straitjacket.

>
> …
> I have a list of 997 WAYYIQTOLs with non-past reference, 965 QATALs with
> future reference, 2,505 QATALs with present reference, 50 WEYIQTOLs with
> past reference, and 1,027 YIQTOLs with past reference.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
>
> Karl W. Randolph.