Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear Rolf:

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 3:58 AM, Rolf Furuli <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no> wrote:

… . By analyzing all the verbs of the Tanakh by these three parameters, I found that tense is not grammaticalized in Hebrew; and I found  that  Hebrew has aspects and  how these aspects differ from the aspects in English and other aspectual languages.

Oh oh, it looks like you are using an idiosyncratic definition for “aspect” that no one else uses. Would you care to explain yourself?

I use the definition from SIL “Aspect is a grammatical category associated with verbs that expresses a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb.” which leads me to the conclusion that Biblical Hebrew doesn’t conjugate for aspect.

Isn’t it better to invent a new term for an observed phenomena than to repurpose an established term in an idiosyncratic way? By doing that, wouldn’t you avoid misunderstanding?

Karl W. Randolph.