Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Nir:

On Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 2:46 AM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:

karl,

>>> You’re going to have to define “tripartite”, because the definitions I was taught since grade school say that not only are there three concepts of time—past, present and future—but that they have subsets.

this is a grade school simplification: some english grammatical forms cannot be assumed any of these three TEMPORAL values: past, present or future. the common classification by three TENSUAL values: past, present or future does not satisfy, by and large, rolf's definition of a
tense. for this reason, he classifies english (i assume) as aspectual.
below i give the example of the future perfect.

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discussion
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 the BHVS enigma is not whether the verb forms express "tense" (in the sense of absolute past, present and future): i believe we all agree on this point. the BHVS enigma is what sense we can give the verb forms so that the structure of the clause will be predictable, given context.

The first step is not to make predictions, rather observe what patterns actually occur. 

at issue here is the word "grammaticalization" if verb forms  can be attributed verb semantics, in a consistent way, so that the same context type and TAM type would ALWAYS produce the same verb form.

This is backwards—first observe what are the actual patterns of verbal use, then see if they fit the TAM model. You make the assumption that TAM always applies, then twist BH verbal use to fit TAM’s procrustean bed,

>>> If you try to maintain that each of the tripartites are monolithic, I don’t know of any who would support that idea as other than fiction.

no, i accept subdivisions, but i rather refer to past/future overlaps, e.g. in the future perfect "tense".

>>> First of all, the English “will have done” is still future. While it may indicate the order of events to come, it’s still in relation to the present concerning events not yet happened, i.e. future. 

plain wrong! see examples below.

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analysis:
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in english, "will have done" is grammaticalized, in the sense that it always indicates the same temporal type: an action B completed before an action A in the future. note that it is inaccurate to say that action B itself is in the future, nor
that it is in the past. all you can say is that action B is prior to action A.

example: "when tut's grave will be opened, it will have been ransacked."

This is not correct English. First, we are dealing with expectations, not plans, whereas the future perfect deals with anticipated (planned for) actions. Secondly, the whole sentence is skewed, the type of sentence maybe produced by someone who doesn’t speak English as his native tongue.

“When he opens Tut’s grave tomorrow, he expects to find that it has already been ransacked.”

another example: "By the time Achyles reaches the finish line tomorrow, the turtle will have already arrived".

This is a better example, though still in the future because it indicates that arrival of the turtle precedes that of Achyles, which is in the future, even though the turtle’s actual arrival may be prior to the speaking of the event. Yes, this is not an absolute future, rather a relative future in that is in reference to a future event. 

…

so, what to do? an easy way out is to say that "will have /will have been" is not a tense: it can be both past or future.

Because it is in reference to a future event, it is considered a future, even though the actual accomplishment of that event may have already occurred. 

but there is some grammaticalization process involved:lexical values have been diverted to grammatical
values: "will" does not mean lexically synonymous to "want" and "have" not synonymous to  "possess".

This is English lexicography, not to be confused with grammar.

 
maybe a way out is to say "it is a grammaticalized form encoding aspect". but this still avoids the issue of
temporality: is there a temporal relation involved between the two actions?

yes, the future perfect "is a grammaticalized form encoding temporality". used after action A in future time,
action B is PRIOR to action A.

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conclusions
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conclusion 1: english "tenses" are nothing but grammaticalized forms; only one or two of these "tenses" (e.g.
simple future) are real tenses, satisfying or approximating rolf's definition of "tense". still, we call them tenses, because we really think of "grammaticalized forms" (a much looser concept) in practice.

conclusion 2: verb forms have to be analyzed in pairs. actions A and B are, so to speak, bonded, in the sense
that the future perfect requires a previous (implicit or explicit) verb form which grammaticalizes future.

challenge: find the BH analogue.

Here you have it backwards—start with the observation of how exactly Biblical Hebrew verbs act, then compare their actions with other languages. If you try to force a certain understanding onto BH verbal use, you may end up with an awkward sentence like your first example of English above, but you won’t know it because today we have no native speakers to correct us.

nir cohen

Karl W. Randolph.