Karl Randolph wrote:That is a pattern that is not Biblical, but it is modern. I’m quite honest with the group that I don’t know modern Hebrew, other than that it’s a tense based language — the participle is used for the present tense, the Qatal for the past tense, and the Yiqtol for the future tense. So when I see a whole slew of sentences with all having participles for verbs, my first thought is “Modern Hebrew!”
No need to cry, "Modern Hebrew!" if biblical Hebrew uses participles for immediate, present, concurrent situations as well, which it does.
A note on frequency versus usage. You have mentioned frequency of participles a few times as if that simply by itself were a determining factor of what is and is not biblical Hebrew. Have you ever considered that perhaps the reason you don't see "a whole slew of sentences" in the tana"x with participles for present tense is that there are not too many sections of the text where "a whole slew" of true present tense verbs would be needed? In other words, usage is what is important here, not frequency. In much of the text there are past time narratives ("He went here, and did this, and said this," etc.) and future situations ("I will do this") being discussed. We should not expect to see as many strings of true presents ("She is [currently] saying this, and doing this, and going there") in literary works such as these. But that
is something we should naturally expect in everyday interactions. Examples (in English) follow.
- Where are you headed?
- [walking out the door]
I'm going to the vineyard.
(immediate, present, concurrent situation)
- What is he doing?
-
He's eating bread and
speaking with the woman.
(immediate, present, concurrent situation)
- Where is Dad?
-
He's walking on the beach,
looking for silver.
(immediate, present, concurrent situation)
- What are you up to?
- [stirring a pot]
I'm cooking some fish for supper.
(immediate, present, concurrent situation)
Karl Randolph wrote:Biblical Hebrew, on the other hand, doesn’t conjugate for time; neither tense nor aspect. Qatal is used for future and present as well as past, participles are used for past and future as well as present events, and Yiqtols are used for past and present as well as future.
This confuses the data. Also, the question is not "What all can a participle do?" or "What is every possible function that a qatal can have, or a yiqtol?" but "What is used to mark an immediate, present, concurrent situation?" The answer to this question is "a participle."
The examples you have given do not get at this question, as I will demonstrate below.
Karl Randolph wrote:Ben Putnam wrote:It is interesting to note here that your suggestion, יש כלב ומרכבה, and the implication for my text, יש פרה ובית,
Actually you wrote
יש פרה ויש בית and my suggestion here was for a smoother reading.
This is a misunderstanding. I said, "the implication for my text," not "my text" itself. In other words, if I applied your suggestion to my text it would have been written
יש פרה ובית. It is a smoother reading, yes, though the original was not wrong. And my point was that your suggestion is also good modern Hebrew. Sometimes good biblical Hebrew also happens to be good modern Hebrew. And this similarity does not make the biblical Hebrew utterance "modern." In other words, no one is saying the dialects are identical, but one can notice a similarity without crying "Modern Hebrew!"
Karl Randolph wrote:I should know. It’s taken me decades to get to where I’m at in Biblical Hebrew.
Let the reader recognize that these kinds of personal comments are merely anecdotal and cannot serve as real evidence. It is possible for a person to cement wrong conceptions of a language into their mind through repeated misuse over the course of twenty or forty years. And it is always helpful to take one's theories out for a test drive with the data.
Karl Randolph wrote:Just dealing with present event sentences, we can see the use of the Qatal for present actions:
We will see. I'm going to number these for clarity. In biblical Hebrew, the participle is used for immediate, present, concurrent situations. It will become apparent that the examples you listed do not demonstrate that qatal is used for these types of situations.
1.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 4:6 למה חרה לך ולמה נפלו פניך Why is there anger to you and why is your face fallen?
I see this as present perfect. "Why have you become angry, and why has your face fallen?"
Unambiguous examples are what are needed for you to demonstrate your theory that qatal marks immediate, present, concurrent situations. This first example is not unambiguous, so it doesn't work as evidence.
Another reason it doesn't work for evidence is it's a question. According to Buth (see reference below), questions can be a special register and are often seen with yiqtol in present situations. For example:
Genesis 37:15
מַה־תְּבַקֵּֽשׁ
What are you looking for?
(What would you be looking for?)
You will need to find some examples that are unambiguous. In order to be unambiguous, they need to meet the following criteria (criteria borrowed from Buth, the linguist, at
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-he ... 38853.html).
a. No questions
b. No poetry
c. No habitual/omnitemporal/timeless (including negations)
See the link above for the reasons these restrictions are necessary.
2.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 4:9 לא ידעתי I do not know
In my understanding, the definite tense-aspect
ידעתי here indicates decisiveness and functions as a 'perfect', while masking/suppressing its capability for carrying a past time feature. In other words, Cain's main point is not that his lack of knowledge occurs in the present time; rather his main point is the lack of knowledge itself. Thus, qatal fits nicely here.
See Buth's "A Short Syntax of the Hebrew Verb" in
Living Biblical Hebrew: Selected Readings with 500 Friends (2008), where he gives more information on qatal as present perfect. He explains, "It is common to use the past tense, i.e., the definite tense-aspect, for states that are already completed. This usage is especially common with mental states, such as remembering and knowing." See as examples Numbers 11:5
זָכַ֙רְנוּ֙ אֶת־הַדָּגָ֔ה "we remember the fish" ("we have remembered the fish"), Genesis 12:11
יָדַ֔עְתִּי כִּ֛י אִשָּׁ֥ה יְפַת־מַרְאֶ֖ה אָֽתְּ "I know you are a woman beatiful to behold" ("I have known . . .").
This is also a negation, so it doesn't work for evidence.
3.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 26:27 ואתם שנאתם אתי and you hate me
This is not a present situation but a past one. The gloss should read, "and you hated me." This is evident from the story. Isaac had previously been sent away from Abimelech (see verse 16), and now Isaac is recalling this incident from the past: "you hated me," (past tense).
4.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 26:28 ראו ראינו כי היה יהוה עמך we surely see that YHWH is with you
This example occurs within the same narrative as number 3. It is also past (they came to Isaac because they "saw"), or it may be a present perfect ("we have seen"). But read the context; this is not a present.
5.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 27:2 לא ידעתי יום מותי I don’t know the day of my death
Here again we see qatal being used for mental states like knowing and remembering. This definite tense-aspect here is suppressing its past time feature while marking for aspect, a 'perfect'. See note above on number 2. It is also a negation.
6.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 27:46 קצתי בחיי (there’s no exact translation of this into English)
"Exact translations" aren't necessary. Glosses are fine. But how about "I have had enough of my life"?
This is not an unambiguous example. Rebekah needs to be presently crying or running or doing some other concurrent and immediate action, an actual present, for this to work. It looks like a 'perfect' to me and may fall into the "mental states" category described in number 2., but regardless, it does not fit the necessary criteria.
7.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 29:5 ידענו we know
Again we see qatal for the mental state of knowing. This is looking like a pattern...
8.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 29:6 והנה רחל בתו באה עם הצאן and behold his daughter Rachel is coming with the sheep.
This is a participle, not qatal. Though you may feel free to read it differently, I am not sure that it would be correct.
The only difference between
בָּאָה as a participle and as a definite tense-aspect is where the stress is placed. In this case, I read it as in the expected place for a participle (ba'A), which fits nicely here. For an example with the definite tense-aspect, compare Genesis 29:9 (only a few verses later), where it is said that Rachel
בָּאָה BA'a "came, arrived" with the sheep (past). Since the form of the word
בָּאָה is the same for the participle and qatal, this example is not helpful. It is ambiguous at best and against your theory at worst.
9.
Karl Randolph wrote:Genesis 41:38 (one with a question) הנמצא Is there found …? showing the interrogative prefix on a Niphal Qatal verb. But don’t be too strong with this example, because it can also be read, “Can we find …?” as a first person plural Yiqtol verb. Either way it’s present action.
This is a question and thus cannot function as evidence. You also do not even see it as unambiguous, so I am at a loss for why you would even point to it as evidence for your theory. I should not have to say that ambiguous examples prove nothing. On top of that, it is not a present. A present would be something like "Are we finding?" which is not what is being asked here.
So, zero out of the nine examples you gave work to demonstrate your theory for qatal or yiqtol as the default for present tense situations. Again, the reader is referred to the examples in my previous post above for the participle filling the role of the present tense in biblical Hebrew. Again, just because the participle is used as a present tense does not mean that it cannot be or is not used in any other way. When one is communicating in biblical Hebrew and wants to describe what a woman is doing as she is walking across the room, one would correctly say,
hi holexet היא הולכת without regard to all other possible contexts in which
holexet might have been used.
Karl Randolph wrote:And there are more examples in Genesis. Shall we go on to Exodus and other books, or is this enough?
I also have many more examples using participles, but they are far fewer than with Qatals.
Well, if you can find some examples that meet the criteria for an immediate, concurrent, present situation, then maybe you could cite those. Otherwise, please let's not waste time and space in this thread. As I stated previously, I wanted this thread to be devoted primarily to using the language, not critiquing others' biblical Hebrew or arguing for certain theories. We have all those other threads for those things.
braxot