2006-The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in Poetry (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 34/1.75-103, 2008
After a synchronic overview of the verb system in Biblical Hebrew prose, this description of the verb system is applied to various poetic and prophetic passages, especially Hab 3, Deut 32, Jonah 2 and Jer 51. Not only are aspect, (non-)sequentiality and mood categories inherent to the verb, but cognitive (non-)proximity-a new feature-is indicated by the verb as well. (Tense is only indicated by wayyiqtols predominant in narrative text and by yiqtols predominant in discursive text.) On the basis of these four categories functional oppositions are described between yiqtol, qatal, wayyiqtol, weqatal and predicative qotel. Occasionally this position has implications for translation, not least in target languages that are tense-based.
KUSATU 15 (2013) 77-94 During the years I changed my mind concerning the verbal forms in BH poetry, changing from the common idea that verbal forms in BH poetry do not play precise functions and are not the same as in prose. I think now, first, that different verbal forms play different functions in BH poetry as in prose and, second, that the functions of the verbal forms in poetry are basically the same as in prose.
Verbal Tense System in Late Biblical Hebrew Prose. By Ohad Cohen
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2021
Can the Biblical Hebrew verbal system(s) ever truly be solved? Centuries of philological laborings have yielded many insights into the structures and significations of individual verbal components-and yet the actual, precise workings of the system as a whole remain elusive. The functional categories of tense, aspect, and mood compose the trifecta around which most studies variously place their linguistic bets. Traditionally, a winner-take-all approach has been invoked: for example, Biblical Hebrew verbal morphologies must primarily signify aspect, or else they must chiefly convey tense. Yet greater appreciation has developed for less rigid and more nuanced models that aim to account for the complexities of Biblical Hebrew as we actually have it, rather than as we ideally wish it to be. Ohad Cohen's monograph exhibits this kind of awareness throughout, as he endeavors methodically to describe and, where possible, to explain the forms and functions of Biblical Hebrew in its historically later permutations. The inclusion of "Tense" in the title of the book is somewhat confusing, potentially leading the reader to expect that the author intends to proffer a mainly temporal (as opposed to aspectual and/or modal) analysis of Biblical Hebrew verbs. Yet in his opening paragraph, Cohen avers that "use of the term 'tense,' which appears in the title of this work, is a mere formality and carries no significance regarding the actual meaning of the verbal system" (p. 1). Such a formality would thus have been better avoided, given the highly loaded nature of this term for the discussions at hand. Cohen states that he will apply a structuralist methodology to his project-predicated upon classic (neo)-Saussurean oppositions between diachrony versus synchrony, langue versus parole, and paradigm versus syntagm-and in this approach he is commendably consistent (p. 1). Critics who contend that structuralism is an overly rigid, unduly static, ultimately outmoded model for linguistics fail to grant due appreciation to its capacity for crafting productive descriptive analyses of language in terms of oppositions that can be predicated simultaneously upon multiple binarisms across numerous domains (cf. pp. 28-29). Indeed, structural opposition potentially even entails powerful explanatory capacities for language origins and usage, given the adaptive bilateral symmetric morphology of Homo sapiens that evolved in response to selective pressures within Hominin [sic] environments.