Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Hi Chavout!

I'd disagree with your assessment, though it is in keeping with old standard 
grammar. The assumption in your assessment is that the participle indicates 
ongoing action, while the qatal does not. Actually, the participle is simply 
a verbal adjective and there isn't really any specific imperfective aspect to 
it. You'll find the participle being used to describe perfective aspect as 
well, so the concept of aspect with a participle is not really very useful. 
The Qatal indicates a definite action, which usually means an action that has 
occurred or 'materialised'. But once again I don't think the 
perfective/imperfective polarity is helpful for understanding the qatal verb, 
since the weqatal (which is just a qatal with a conjunction attached) is 
often taken as imperfective.

I think Karl's short sketch of the significance of the participle and qatal 
in this particular instance is correct.


GEORGE ATHAS
Director of Postgraduate Studies,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia



From: Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com<mailto:chavoux AT gmail.com>>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:41:06 +0200
To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org<mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Participle or Qatal?

For me there is a slight difference in nuance as well with the
participle including the idea of an ongoing giving whereas qatal would
emphasize the fact that it was given once for allways.

Regards
Chavoux Luyt