Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ruth Mathys <ruth_mathys AT sil.org>]

> The patterns which are clear in Proverbs 31:10­31 can be applied to the rest
> of Tanakh and still make sense, whereas your model doesn¹t fit that passage.
> In that passage, all the verbs are used exactly the same, as far as your 
> model
> is concerned, a model according to European languages. They are with one
> exception indefinite, present tense, imperfective aspect, indicative mood; 
> the
> one exception is subjunctive mood.

I find this last sentence confusing.  Following the thread of Karl's
argument, I take him to mean that the situation being described in Prov
31:10-31 is one that has present-time reference ('present tense'), is being
viewed in an open-ended way ('imperfective aspect') and is
proverbial/generic rather than referring to a specific individual
('indefinite').

Part of the problem is using terms like 'indicative mood' to talk about the
real-world (or hypothetical-world) situation being described, when in fact
these terms can only properly be used to describe language forms.  There is
no such thing as an 'indicative' situation, only an indicative verb form or
construction.  In other words, the 'indicativeness' exists entirely within
the sentence used to describe the situation.  It isn't a property of the
situation itself.  Actually, this passage even begins with a rhetorical
question, so even the first verb form probably isn't indicative (if that is
even a relevant category for the Hebrew verb system).  The same is true for
perfective vs imperfective aspect.  Even when a situation lends itself to
being described by a particular form (e.g. perfective aspect is the default
option for describing past time), the speaker usually has the option of
choosing a different form to communicate a specific shade of meaning.  In
English, the answer to "What did you do?" can be "I didn't do anything" or
"I haven't done anything" or even "I wasn't doing anything" depending on the
slant that the speaker wants to put on the situation.

It's true that terms like 'present tense' often are used rather
indiscriminately.  It is sometimes used to refer to a morphological form,
and sometimes to the temporal reference of the verb.  I wish there were
standardised terms to keep the two concepts distinct, but we're not there
yet.

Anyway, so I don't think it's legitimate to say that all the verbs are
"indefinite, present tense, imperfective aspect, indicative mood".  It is
only legitimate to list the different verb *forms* used (some are yiqtol,
some are qatal, some are wayyiqtol, etc.), give an *opinion* about the
overall situation being referred to (a generic description of a generic
ideal woman) and then systematically relate the various verb forms to that
situation.

The argument seems to be that since the situation is generic and
present-time (or timeless?), the variation of verb forms must be due to
something other than tense or aspect.  The trick is to then formulate a
positive explanation of the variation -- what are the different meanings
that the writer can evoke (using alternative verb forms) to describe the
same general situation?

In any case, why assume that Prov 31:10-31 is generic?  John A. Cook in
"Genericity, Tense, and Verbal Patterns in the Sentence Literature of
Proverbs" (sorry, no idea of the complete reference) argues that "... qatal
along with the few examples of wayyiqtol in Proverbs may portray past tense
anecdotes from which the reader is left to extract a general maxim".
Instead of making an a priori decision about the situation being described
by a particular passage and then trying to read the verb forms based on that
decision, it is just as valid to try assigning particular values to each
verb form and then see if the passage can be read meaningfully (is there a
genre we haven't considered yet?).

Ruth Mathys