Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 August 29

= August 29 =

Hebrew form of request
In Jewish liturgy, prayers are often expressed in the imperative form: רפאנו Heal us, ברכנו Bless, etc. In general, this form takes the present tense.However, at times it is expressed in the future tense, where the equivalent English would be תבנה "You will build" etc. Is there any formal name for this, and are there any rules for the switch between present and future? — Preceding unsigned comment added by אפונה (talk • contribs) 13:03, 29 August 2014 (UTC)


 * אפונה -- In modern Israeli Hebrew, and in many forms of Rabbinic Hebrew, the so-called "suffix" form (מלך malakh "he ruled") is a past tense, the form not conjugated for person (מולך molekh "rule, rules (masc. sg.)") is a present tense and the so-called "prefix form" (ימלוך yimlokh "he will rule") is a future. However, in Biblical Hebrew things were somewhat different, and more complex.  The suffixed form is usually called the perfect, and the prefixed form the imperfect, while molekh is an active participle and not a finite verb.  Among other things, the Biblical imperfect incorporates an old "jussive" conjugation which was similar in meaning to the imperative.  There have been whole books written on the meanings and uses of the verb tenses in Biblical Hebrew (not to mention multiple doctoral dissertations), and in fact I have one on the shelf behind my computer monitor now as I type -- "A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew and Some Other Syntactical Questions" by S.R. Driver... AnonMoos (talk) 13:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your response. I'm actually more interested in the more rare future tense used. In modern Hebrew it happens to be pretty common: תביא לי = bring [to] me... literally rendered, it's you will bring [to] me, but in Biblical/Rabbinic Hebrew I haven't noticed it much, and also can't see a pattern when the present is used and when the future. אפונה (talk) 18:15, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but in Biblical Hebrew (highly relevant to "Jewish liturgy"), the yimlokh form is simply not a future tense -- and derivatives of it, such as wayyimlokh, could actually be used with past meaning. Even in modern Israeli Hebrew, it's not a strict future -- it has various injunctive and conditional uses, and Haiim B. Rosen prefers to call it the "potential" tense.  And the basic negative imperative is אל תמלוך al timlokh "Don't rule!" AnonMoos (talk) 07:22, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * P.S. In Contemporary Hebrew (Trends in Linguistics: State-of-the-Art Reports 11) by Haiim B. Rosen (1977, ISBN 90-279-3106-2), p. 199, Rosen states that the difference between an imperative such as mlokh or melokh and the corresponding 2nd. person future (or "potential" as he prefers to call it) form such as timlokh in Israeli Hebrew is that the imperative can be more of a request or command, while the future can involve more of a wish or an emotional appeal to the person addressed (though this distinction is not always strictly observed, and the future/potential is more or less the default form in modern Israeli). AnonMoos (talk) 14:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * [The case וימלוך is always referred to by the early grammarians as the ואו ההיפוך,because the term ימלוך in its basic sense is the future tense, and the prefixed ואו vav is considered an exception] אפונה (talk) 17:08, 1 September 2014 (UTC)<