Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf" <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>]

Dear Bryant,

Kimmo raised  methodological questions, whose answer is extremely important 
for the study of Hebrew verbs: Is there a a difference between "tense" and 
temporal reference? Can a verb in one context be a tense, and in another 
context be an aspect, thus loosing its tense? If I understood Kimmo 
correctly, his opinion is that in no language do we find a verb form that 
always have past reference. The best example of the opposite that I am aware 
of is Greek imperfect, which consistently has past reference. If this is 
true, one cannot argue that the non-past references of WAYYIQTOLs do not 
prove that WAYYIQTOL in not past tense, and that the future references of 
QATAL do not prove that QATAL is not a past tense, because in all languages 
there are such exceptions. Linguistic theory and methodology with examples 
from different languages can be discussed if they are relevant for the study 
of Hebrew.

In the work with my doctoral dissertation, I found 997 WAYYIQTOLs with past 
reference, and 956 QATALs with future reference. These were found in normal 
contexts. I also found that YIQTOLs, WEYIQTOLs, and WEQATALs have past, 
present, and future reference.  All this show  that tense (grammaticlized 
location in time) is non-existent in Hebrew.


Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway


Søndag 1. September 2013 16:15 CEST skrev "Rev. Bryant J. Williams III" 
<bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>:

> Dear Rolf,
>
> The challenge to Huommo should be to do so in HEBREW not Greek since this 
> is a Biblical Hebrew list; and second, Greek is an Indo-European language 
> that really does not fit with the Semitic languages that Hebrew is a part.
>
> I ask that this be kept in focus because too often it appears that the 
> linguists and grammars are defining things from an Indo-European 
> perspective, aspect(?) rather than from the Hebrew language itself.
>
> Rev. Bryant J. Williams III