In English, the perfective
and imperfective aspects (represented by the participle and perfect,
respectively) are mutually exclusive. ...
...According to your analysis, are the visions of 2:31-35, 4:10-18,19-23, 7:2-14 (English verse numbers) analysed as past, present or future? In other words, are you analysing them according to Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel having seen things in the past and then narrating them, or according to their interpretation as prophetic visions of future events? This is the crucial point for deciding whether your analysis of Aramaic is accurate. And, although the proportion of such apocalyptic material in the entire corpus is much smaller in Hebrew and in Greek, the same principle applies to interpretation of Hebrew and Greek apocalyptic literature.
The Ethiopic Enoch may have been translated from Aramaic, and I would like
to give some statistics of my analysis of the Aramaic text of Daniel.
YIQTOL: Past: 34 - present 27 - future 88 - present completed 1, modal:
28 - pre-past: 0
QATAL: Past: 216 - present 11 - future 3 - present completed 44, modal:
0 - pre-past: 7
Part. act: Past: 103 - present 48 - future 4 - present completed 2, modal:
3 - pre-past: 1
QATAL+
part.act: Past: 29 - present 0 - future 1 - present completed 0, modal:
- pre-past: 1
The numbers indicate the linguistic conventions (which forms are generallyI find it hard to answer you concerning Aramaic as I don't know it well. But let's consider also the verb forms for "drive away". Verse numbers now from the Aramaic text:
used for which reference), but they also show that the forms can be used in
different ways. The default form for past reference is QATAL, but there are 34 YIQTOLs (19.1%) with past reference and 3 QATALs (1.1%) with future reference. We find the same situation in Aramaic as in Ugaritic: the same prefix forms are used both with past and future reference. Please note the use of YIQTOL in the same situation of Nebuchadnezzar eating and being drenched as future and past actions:
4:22(25) " he will eat" (YIQTOL) ; "he will be drenched" (part)
4:29(32) "he will eat" (YIQTOL);
4:30(33) "he ate" (YIQTOL /)KL/); "he was drenched" (YIQTOL)
5:21 " he ate" (YIQTOL); "he was drenched" (YIQTOL)
The meaning of any verb form is the same in any genre, ...
... but for particular purposes, connected with genre, topic and focus, emphasis etc. particular forms that usually have other functions can be chosen.
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.