Digital Verbum Edition
A glossary of morphological and syntactic terms used in various morpho-syntactic databases.
“This construction commonly conveys past tense / time.” (source)
“The piʿʿēl stem expresses the bringing about of a state. The object of the piʿʿēl verb’s action ‘suffers the effect’ of the action; i.e., it is put into a state by the action.” (source)
“The hifʿîl stem indicates the causative sense of verbs. That is, the subject of the verb in the hifʿîl stem causes the object of the verb to participate in the action of the verb as a sort of ‘undersubject’ or ‘secondary subject’. In the sentence ‘Bob caused the car to crash,’ the direct object [car] participates in the action that the subject [Bob] caused. See IBHS §27; BHRG §16.7; J.-M. §54; GKC §53a, c-g.” (source)
“That is, it views the action of the verb from the inside or from the perspective of the action’s unfolding. This imperfective aspect can speak of (depending on context) habitual actions, actions in progress, or even completed actions that have unfolding, ongoing results. The term ‘imperfective’ does not refer to tense, though. Biblical Hebrew does not have tense like English or Greek (time of action is conveyed by context). ‘Imperfective’ refers to the kind of action being described, not the time of the action. An action can be viewed in process in the past (‘was walking’), the present (‘is walking’), or even the future (‘will be walking’).” (source)
“‘Bob flies the plane,’ the direct object [plane] is put into the state of flight by the subject of the verb [Bob]. See GKC §52; J.-M. §52; BHRG §16.4; IBHS §24.” (source)
Michael S. Heiser is the academic editor for Logos Bible Software, Bible Study Magazine, and the Faithlife Study Bible. He is the coeditor of Old Testament Greek Pseudepigrapha with Morphology and Semitic Inscriptions: Analyzed Texts and English Translations and can do translation work in roughly a dozen ancient languages.
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Nathan Weston
2/13/2019
Obed Assan
10/29/2014