21The Finite Verbal Forms inBiblical Hebrew Do Express Aspect1John A. CookEisenbraunsIntroductionPerhaps there is no more long-standing problem in Biblical Hebrew (BH) grammarthan the interpretation of its verbal system. At its core the controversy consists ofalternative answers to one basic question: do the BH verbal forms primarily expresstense or aspect? There are currently three basic answers offered by scholars to thisquestion. The first is that the BH verbal forms primarily express tense; that is, theydenote the temporal location of events with respect to the time of the statement orutterance, either using a binary distinction of past versus non-past, or using a ternarydistinction of past, present, and future. This approach is a continuation of the tensemodel employed by the medieval grammarians and dominant in the field until the latterhalf of the nineteenth century.2The second answer offered is that the BH verb forms primarily express aspect,namely, a central binary opposition between perfective and imperfective aspect.Although these labels derive from Slavic grammar, linguists have adopted them todescribe aspectual distinctions found in a wide range of languages.3 These two aspectsare defined by linguists as “different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituencyof a situation”; perfective aspect views (or conceptualizes) an event as an undiffer-entiated whole, in contrast to imperfective aspect, in which the temporal progression1. I would like to thank Jan Joosten for the stimulation to my own thinking about the BH verbal systemthat his article and e-mail exchanges have provided. Portions of my argument in this essay were earlierpresented in papers at the 2005 American Oriental Society annual meetings (joint session with the NorthAmerican Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics), and the 2005 Upper Midwest Society of Biblical Lit-erature meetings. I am grateful for the feedback received at both venues. I also would like to thank CynthiaL. Miller and Robert D. Holmstedt, who each read earlier versions of this essay and provided helpful cri-tiques that have improved my arguments.2. The tense theory espoused by medieval Jewish grammarians identified qatal, the participle, andyiqtol as past (ºaÅar), present (ºomeq), and future (ºatiq) tense, respectively. The waw-prefixed forms(wayyiqtol and weqatal) were explained by the theory that there are two distinct waw conjunctions: onethat simply conjoined two clauses (waw ha˙ibbûr), but another that “converted” the tense of the verb towhich it was attached (waw hahippûk); see J. A. Cook, The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System (Ph.D. diss.,University of Wisconsin, 2002), 79–82, and references there.3. See Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. “aspect.” According to Binnick, the term aspect enteredWestern European linguistics in the early part of the nineteenth century, but only became part of the “lin-guistic tradition” at the end of that century; R. I. Binnick, Time and the Verb (Oxford, 1991), 135–36; theOxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., s.v. “aspect”) dates the entrance of the term into English to 1853.JANES 3022of an event is in view.4 This aspectual contrast may be illustrated by the oppositionof meaning between the French Passé Simple écrivit and Imparfait écrivais.5The third, and most recently offered answer, is that the BH verbal forms primarilyexpress relative tense; that is, they indicate events as relative to some point in timeindicated in the discourse.6 The temporal “reference point” to which the relativetense event is related may be indicated by another verbal form or some temporal ex-pression in the discourse, or it may be coextensive with the time of the utterance, inwhich case the relative tense is indistinguishable from (absolute) tense.7 Examplesof grammaticalized relative tense forms in English include the Past Perfect (he hadwritten) and Future Perfect (he will have written), which designate events as precedingsome point earlier than the time of the utterance and some time future to the utterance,respectively.In a recent article, Jan Joosten has cast doubt on the aspectual explanation ofthe BH verbal system in light of cross-linguistic data.8 Joosten observes that twoprototypical uses of imperfective aspect verbs are the expression of what he termsthe “real present” (i.e., “processes that are going on at the moment of speaking”) and“attendant circumstances in the past” (analogous to the English past progressive inJohn was reading when I entered the room).9 Joosten states that, “since neither ofthese functions is regularly expressed by yiqtol in BH there is no point in classifyingyiqtol as an imperfective.”10 In other words, Joosten argues that unless these proto-typically imperfective functions or meanings can be shown to be “regularly expressed”by BH yiqtol, it is incorrect to identify the form as morphologically marked for im-perfective aspect.11 Further, Joosten sees yiqtol as “the weak point” in aspectualtheories of the BH verbal system: “if yiqtol does not express imperfective aspectthis makes the aspectual interpretation of the finite forms in BH unfeasible.”12Although Joosten’s article is primarily devoted to this negative argument, heprovides an excursus in which he briefly summarizes his alternative theory of theBH verb, which he has presented in more detail in earlier articles.13 Joosten’s model4. Quote from B. Comrie, Aspect (Cambridge, 1976), 3. For more recent discussions, see C. Bache,The Study of Tense, Aspect and Action (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), 5–6; Binnick, Time and the Verb,135–58.5. The English Simple and Progressive verb forms create a similar contrast (e.g., He wrote vs. Hewas writing).6. The earliest and most influential relative tense theory is that of H. Reichenbach, Elements of SymbolicLogic (London, 1947), 286–99; for discussion, see Binnick, Time and the Verb, 109–16.7. Thus Comrie proposes a model that employs a reference point only when it is temporally distinctfrom the time of the utterance; B. Comrie, Tense (Cambridge, 1985), 122–30.8. J. Joosten, “Do the Finite Verbal Forms in Biblical Hebrew Express Aspect?” JANES 29 (2002),49–70. The label finite is used by many scholars to separate out for discussion the fully conjugated qatal,yiqtol, wayyiqtol, and weqatal forms.9. Joosten, “Finite Verbal Forms,” 53.10. Ibid., 57.11. Morphologically marked, meaning