Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Nir:

On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:

karl,

>>> Don’t you know that wikipedia is not an authoritative source? That it’s
someone’s personal opinion who just happened to edit that particular piece,
which may or may not be accurate?

carlota smith has expressed similar opinions in several papers (~1991-2007).
i can cite many other writers which examined BH from a tensual point of view.

Because the Hebrew languages from the Mishnaic period and afterwards were tensual, the assumption was made that Biblical Hebrew is too. But that is a mistake.

For me, it took a few times reading Tanakh through cover to cover before I came to the realization that neither tense nor aspect made sense of the totality. But no one else on this list have done that sort of scholarship, so they don’t see it. Seriously, try maintaining that idea after reading Tanakh through cover to cover at least five times, better seven or eight times.

I haven’t done the sort of listing of each example as Rolf has done for his dissertation, so when one asks for examples, I can’t go to a repository and give them. But I know they exist, because I’ve read them. 

…

the "absolute past, present, future" tripartite division is too crude for most
languages.

Who said anything about “absolute past, present and future tripartite division”?

nir cohen

Karl W. Randolph.