In fact, many intermediate grammars list a number of possible meanings per a morphological form: e.g., qatal may express present or past state, simple past, past perfect, present perfect, performative, or future perfect. Even though such a simple description is beneficial for beginners, advanced students encounter the fact that one form may express various meanings. Most BH grammars list the semantic functions of the Hebrew verb according to its morphological forms: e.g., qatal as perfect, yiqtol as imperfect, wayyiqtol as past. In this paper I first introduce the problem of Hebrew tense and aspect, then very briefly outline the basics of relevant theoretical linguistics, significant methodological issues, and previous attempts to explain the Hebrew verbs, synthesize statistical trends from the database into hypotheses, and describe the results of applying these hypotheses to specific verbs in 1 Samuel 1-2.Ī Reconsideration of Semantic Labeling for Hebrew Verbs: Interaction between Grammatical Aspect and Lexical Aspect This paper will reconsider the traditional semantic labeling for Biblical Hebrew (BH) verbs. Finally, I used the patterns found in these correlations to (1) evaluate conflicting proposed interpretations, and (2) construct a model that accounts for the ancient Hebrew author’s choice of verb forms in this corpus. I then determined the strength of an association between each form and each function. I first produced a computer database of all the verbs in this corpus, tagged for formal features such as morphology, situation aspect, and word order on one hand, and semantic functions such as time reference, viewpoint aspect, and modality on the other. This study contributes to the resolution of the question of Biblical Hebrew verb form semantics by using the same method I applied to Qumran Hebrew: analyzing all the verbs in this narrative, using an empirical method of statistical correlation between form and meaning. We especially disagree about the difference in meaning between the main verb forms: yiqtol and qatal, wayyiqtol, weyiqtol, weqatal: is it tense, taxis, aspect, modality, or something else that prompts the use of one form rather than the other? In this paper I clarify the semantic value of the finite verb forms in biblical Hebrew by identifying a model that accounts for the selection of verb forms in a limited corpus: the narrative beginning in 1 Samuel. Tremendous thanks and appreciation to all of you.Hebrew philologists disagree on how to describe the biblical Hebrew verbal system. Since this dictionary went up, it has benefited from the suggestions of dozens of people I have never met, from around the world. The basic sources of this work are Weekley's "An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English," Klein's "A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language," "Oxford English Dictionary" (second edition), "Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology," Holthausen's "Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache," and Kipfer and Chapman's "Dictionary of American Slang." A full list of print sources used in this compilation can be found here. This should be taken as approximate, especially before about 1700, since a word may have been used in conversation for hundreds of years before it turns up in a manuscript that has had the good fortune to survive the centuries. The dates beside a word indicate the earliest year for which there is a surviving written record of that word (in English, unless otherwise indicated). Etymologies are not definitions they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago. This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English.
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