An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

might seem to be. 7 This survey is somewhat arbitrary, just as the above list of nine
connotations of הוכיו was arbitrary to some extent.
b A number of relevant categories require little attention. The features of person,
number, and gender are associated with the subject of the verb, be it an incorporated
pronominal element (ר ֶמאֹ יּ֫ ו ַ ‘and he said’) or an expressed subject (ןוֹעדְ גּ ִ רמאיו
‘and Gideon said’). If there is an object, the same features are relevant for it. These
three features have certain distinctive aspects in Hebrew (cf. Chaps. 6, 7), but they
present no major obstacles or keys to understanding the verb.
c Categories demanding attention are tense, modality, voice, and the two types of
aspect. The English word “aspect” refers to two entirely separate sets of grammatical
categories, aspect as the contour of action (perfective, progressive, etc.; German
Aspekt) and aspect as the type of action (causative, stative, etc.; German Aktionsart,
literally ‘type of action’). For example, in the predication ‘He sang’ the Aspekt is
preterite (complete, past, definite) and the Aktionsart of the verb ‘sin’ is strongly
iterative. Many languages of the world have complex systems for representing one or
the other of these categories; 8 the Semitic languages have well developed expressions
of both systems, in that they formally distinguish Aspekt through the conjugations and
Aktionsart by the stems. Thus the English reader must always be wary of the naked
term “aspect” in connection with Semitic studies; further, many authors are
idiosyncratic in their use of the terms (and, unavoidably, so are we). In this chapter we
resort to the expedient of using the German terms wherever confusion might arise.
d Tense refers to the category of morphological phenomena that locate a situation 9 in
the course of time. Tenses always refer to both the time of the action and the time of
7 Relevant surveys include John Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1968); Bernard Comrie, Aspect: An Introduction
to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1976); Comrie, Tense (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1985). See also
Richter, GAHG 1. 139–48; R. Bartelmus, HYH: Bedeutung und Funktion eines
hebräischen “Allerweltswortes” (St. Ottilien: EOS, 1982), and D. Pardee’s review,
Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47 (1985) 107–10; S. Segert, “Verbal Categories of Some
Northwest Semitic Languages,” Afroasiatic Linguistics 2 (1975) 83–94; H. Rosén,
“On the Uses of the Tenses in the Aramaic of Daniel,” in his East and West: Selected
Writings in Linguistics. 2. Hebrew and Semitic Linguistics (Munich: Fink, 1984) 286–
305.
8 Comrie’s book Aspect deals exclusively with Aspekt. Both Aspekt and Aktionsart are
treated in Ernest N. McCarus, “A Semantic Analysis of Arabic Verbs,” Michigan
Oriental Studies in Honor of George G. Cameron, ed. L. L. Orlin et al. (Ann Arbor:
Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan, 1976) 3–28.
9 A situation may be (1) a state, (2) an event (which is both dynamic and seen as a
whole), or (3) a process (which is both dynamic and seen as ongoing). If states are
divided into two types, one refers to long-term or permanent qualities and the other to
short-term or transitory qualities; the differentiation of these types of statives (see
22.3–4) is extremely vestigial in Hebrew.