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A Tense Question: Does Hebrew Have a Future?

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Book chapter

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Authors

Hornkohl, Aaron Douglas 

Abstract

Arguing that the Biblical Hebrew (BH) verbal system expresses semantics that correspond to all three Tense-Aspect-Mood (TAM) categories, the article examines the longstanding and deeply-rooted rejection in BH scholarship of tense, in general, and of future tense, more specifically. It next spotlights representative aspect- and mood-prominent treatments of the yiqṭol form, indicating where these more and less successfully explain the data, concluding in favour of a tense- or mood-prominent approach. Certain complications with mood-prominence are then considered, not least the categorisation of various sorts of modality commonly associated with yiqṭol. Finally, it is argued that a viable mood-prominent approach must comprehend the possibility of the expression of indicative future, which claim is substantiated on the basis of semantic minimal pairs of verbs indicating future certainty, on the one hand, and obligation, on the other.

Description

Title

A Tense Question: Does Hebrew Have a Future?

Keywords

47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4704 Linguistics

Is Part Of

New Perspectives in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew

Book type

Edited volume

Publisher

Open Book Publishers and Cambridge Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

ISBN

9781800641662