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# The participle as a component of the verbal system in Biblical Hebrew

**Authors:** [Jan Joosten](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/jan-joosten/) · **Year:** 2020 · **Venue:** Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 13(1), 65–74 **Link:** [doi.org/10.1163/18776930-20201001](https://doi.org/10.1163/18776930-20201001) · **Licence:** CC BY (per OpenAlex/publisher)

[**2** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W3033086042) openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14[Brill s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics](https://openalex.org/S4210179706)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.1163/18776930-20201001)
- [PDF](https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/aall/13/1/article-p65_4.pdf)
- [DOI 10.1163/18776930-20201001](https://doi.org/10.1163/18776930-20201001)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W3033086042)

**Authors (1)**

1. [Jan Joosten](https://openalex.org/A5033928943) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2503-4741) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/120112787) · h 19 · 1174 citations · 527 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex-snapshot (2026-10-14); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

The full text is not in the library; this card rests on the abstract (via OpenAlex), so the ideas are provisional. The active participle in Biblical Hebrew has nominal and adjectival uses, but in some contexts it is a verb, part of the verbal paradigm. In that role it carries meanings no other form can, above all the "real present": what is happening now, at the moment of speech. The paper illustrates the participle's main verbal functions and traces a line of syntactic change from the classical Hebrew of the monarchy (10th–7th c. BCE) to early post-biblical Hebrew (1st c. BCE), where the participle moves toward a general present tense.

## Ideas

- I1. Classify each active participle in the trees as nominal (has the article or a construct dependent, heads a noun phrase), attributive, or predicative-verbal (predicate of a clause, often after הִנֵּה or a subject pronoun), and count the three over the Torah.
- I2. A rule for `prag` and the gloss: a predicative participle in direct speech, especially after הִנֵּה / הִנְנִי, is read as "real present" (English present progressive or immediate future), not as a past.
- I3. Chapter 12 can show the drift with one count: the share of predicative participles among finite-like predicates in the Torah versus in the Mishnah texts we hold.

## For Mova

I1 is a feature for `tools/macula` (VerbForm=Part with a MISC role) and a section of [The verb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/06-verb/) (participles). I2 is a candidate rule in `tools/macula/src/prag.rs`, measured against the JPS tenses. I3 belongs in `11-mishnaic.md` and `12-biblical-mishnaic-modern.md` (the participle-present).

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.1163/18776930-20201001](https://doi.org/10.1163/18776930-20201001)

```
@article{joosten2020participle,
  title = {{The participle as a component of the verbal system in Biblical Hebrew}},
  author = {Joosten, Jan},
  journal = {Brill s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.1163/18776930-20201001},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1163/18776930-20201001}
}
```

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