James:
As a person who lives among many Chinese immigrants and who
speaks Chinese (Cantonese and Toi San), I can assure you
that the Chinese have no problem with the concept of tense.
The problem they have is the fact that in Chinese, tense is
determined by context, whereas in English it is determined
by grammatization, and they often have problems recognizing
and utilizing the grammatization of tenses.
Similarly, Rolf Furuli as I understand him is arguing the
same thing exists in ancient Hebrew, that the different
forms do not reflect a grammatization of tense. Rather
tense is to be recognized by context. Therefore, when we
translate into English, when we use tenses, we are adding
our understanding of the context.
Karl W. Randolph.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
Thanx for your example Rolf. While most of the tenses seem to read well
you have left me a little confused. You have argued that your research
is based on the word and that the word is the basic unit of translation
and then you have performed a translation which is entirely based on context
as I have been arguing it should be.
...
I know this sounds strange and alien to speakers of tense driven languages but
I am told, correct me if I wrong, that Chinese languages also exhibit this
behaviour and that it is very difficult for the Chinese to even
understand the concept
of tenses when learning the English language.
Hence, as you seem to have shown Rolf, it is the context which dictates the
translation and not the verb form and your research only seems of use to me
in helping a biblical hebrew student to better understand the hebrew mind
and concept of expression.
--
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