Hi Chavout! I'd disagree with your assessment, though it is in keeping with old standard grammar. The assumption in your assessment is that the participle indicates ongoing action, while the qatal does not. Actually, the participle is simply a verbal adjective and there isn't really any specific imperfective aspect to it. You'll find the participle being used to describe perfective aspect as well, so the concept of aspect with a participle is not really very useful. The Qatal indicates a definite action, which usually means an action that has occurred or 'materialised'. But once again I don't think the perfective/imperfective polarity is helpful for understanding the qatal verb, since the weqatal (which is just a qatal with a conjunction attached) is often taken as imperfective.
I think Karl's short sketch of the significance of the participle and qatal in this particular instance is correct. GEORGE ATHAS Director of Postgraduate Studies, Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au) Sydney, Australia From: Chavoux Luyt <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:41:06 +0200 To: B-Hebrew <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Participle or Qatal? For me there is a slight difference in nuance as well with the participle including the idea of an ongoing giving whereas qatal would emphasize the fact that it was given once for allways. Regards Chavoux Luyt _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
