Tense, aspect, Aktionsart and context in the biblical Hebrew verb

Abstract

The concepts of tense, aspect and Aktionsart are subject to revision in this article from the point of view of general linguistics and, more specifically, as they are applied and interpreted in the biblical Hebrew verbal system. The novelty of this analysis stands in the fact that these grammatical concepts are not studied in isolated verbal forms, but in the particular context in which they appear. As a matter of fact, the use of verbal forms in general, and of biblical Hebrew verbal forms in particular, is highly related to the context and to the linguistic conventions of a language, from which textual coherence derives. The expression of tense, aspect and Aktionsart is therefore performed either by their grammaticalization in particular forms, or by using specific syntactic and/or lexical structures. Context will prove to be the essential factor for the correct understanding of the above mentioned concepts.