An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

The first verb presents the background to some event, while that event itself is introduced by
the second verb. The second verb presents the totality of the situation referred to (here, my
entry) without reference to its internal temporal constituency: the whole of the situation is
presented as a single unanalysable whole, with beginuing, middle, and end rolled into one; no
attempt is made to divide this situation up into the various individual phases that make up the
action of entry. Verbal forms with this meaning will be said to have perfective meaning, and
where the language in question[Page 476] has special verbal forms to indicate this, we shall
say that it has perfective aspect. The other forms, i.e. those referring to the situation of John’s
reading, do not present the situation in this way, but rather make explicit reference to the
internal temporal constituency of the situation. In these examples, in particular, reference is
made to an internal portion of John’s reading, while there is no explicit reference to the
beginning or to the end of his reading. This is why the sentences are interpreted as meaning
that my entry is an event that occurred during the period that John was reading, i.e. John’s
reading both preceded and followed my entry. Another way of explaining the difference
between perfective and imperfective meaning is to say that the perfective looks at the
situation from outside, without necessarily distinguishing any of the internal structure of the
situation, whereas the imperfective looks at the situation from inside, and as such is crucially
concerned with the internal structure of the situation, since it can both look backwards
towards the start of the situation, and look forwards to the end of the situation, and indeed is
equally appropriate if the situation is one that lasts through all time, without any beginning
and without any end. 94
Several points in this passage need to be noted in the light of the study of the
Hebrew conjugations. Crucially, Comrie does not define perfective as completed
(perfect) action.
There is an important semantic distinction which turns out to be crucial in discussing aspect.
The perfective does indeed denote a complete situation, with beginning, middle, and end. The
use of “completed”, however, puts too much emphasis on the termination of the situation,
whereas the use of the perfective puts no more emphasis, necessarily, on the end of the
situation than on any other part of the situation. 95
c Significantly, Comrie speaks not of an action but of a situation, which may be either
stative or dynamic. If perfective aspect is defined in terms of a complete situation, the
term is applicable to both stative and fientive verbs.
convention being that established by Ewald’s work]. In addition to aspectual values,
the imperfect has the time reference meaning component of relative non-past, while
the perfect has the time reference meaning component of relative past”; Comrie,
Tense, 63, cf. 21–22 (on Maltese), 76–77. Biblical Hebrew differs from Arabic in
having only marginal time reference meaning components to its aspects. Cf. also J.
Kurylowicz, “Verbal Aspect in Semitic.” Orientalia 42 (1973) 114–20.
94 Comrie, Aspect, 3–4.
95 Comrie, Aspect, 18. A perfective verb “encodes an event globally”; time reference is
“not part of the meaning of the perfective”; Tense, 28.