yehoshua3712 wrote:In Biblical Hebrew, the Imperfect aspect is used when the action has not been completed, despite the tense. But the participle has been used to present tense, though not restricted to that. Can someone please help me understand when the imperfect tense and participle would be used to represent present tense, whether simple or present progressive? What I have gathered so far is that Imperfect is used for the simple present for a repetitive of habitual action and the participle is used for continuous. Please correct me if I am wrong and tell me what else they are used for in present tense. Thank you.
Yehoshua Gil
Dear Yehoshua:
We’ve had people from SIL on this forum. What they have told us is as follows:
Tense is related to specific forms. In other words, there are forms for past action, present action, future action or even more. If a language doesn’t have forms that indicate where on the time line an action takes place, then it is said not to have tense.
Aspect also is a measurement of time, completed vs. incomplete action are two different aspects.
Biblical Hebrew conjugates for neither tense nor aspect. A good example where this can be seen is in Proverbs 31:11–31. There we have both Qatals and Yiqtols used for present, continuous action. Here’s where neither Qatal nor Yiqtol conjugate for either tense or aspect.
As for participles, they usually refer to the actors or the action, the action usually translated with a gerund in English.
After a few times reading Tanakh through cover to cover, I came to the realization that I was not being consistent in reading Qatals as perfectives (completed action) and Yiqtols as imperfectives (continuous or incomplete action). So I set out to be consistent, and found that it was impossible.
Hence my conclusion that Biblical Hebrew conjugates not for any time measurement, but for mood. The closest to aspect that I have noticed seems to be Piel and Pual, where the participles seem to indicate repeated or continuous actions.
What confuses things is that apparently already by the time of the DSS, the Hebrew used outside of copying Tanakh conjugated for tense (according to what I’ve read from others, I haven’t studied it). In this conjugation, which is also used in modern Israeli Hebrew, the Qatal is past tense, participle is present tense, Yiqtol future tense. That’s not the pattern found in Tanakh.
I realize that this is not the answer for which you were looking. It represents many years of reading Tanakh through, cover to cover, many times. I lost count of how many times. This action was also humbling, as it taught me how little we know about Biblical Hebrew language. We know enough to get the main gist of the story, hence we can make workable translations, but we miss many of the more subtle nuances that could give us a richer experience when reading the text.
I know others will disagree with what I wrote above, they will give other scenarios of how to understand Biblical Hebrew conjugations. I merely mention what I’ve found to be most consistent with what I see when I read Tanakh.
Just my 2¢.
Karl W. Randolph.