This kind of aspect actually is a kind of realtive tense – relative to the time frame the story. If the time frame is present, that often is the default tme frame, such an aspect system actually works as a tense system.

But you can also define aspect as a whole action versus a partial action versus a beginning action versus a finishing action versus repeated action. This type of aspect have no tense implications.

Firstly, I do not think the GH in the first name “Ghil’ad” has anything to do with spirantization. I guess it has more to do with Prof. Zuckermann’s Italian descent (see Ghirardelli vs Jirardelli?)

Secondly, as opposed to what you say, Professor Zuckermann has published a lot on non-lexical components of what he calls “Israeli”. For example, I have found the following articles in his website http://www.zuckermann.org/:

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2006. ‘Complement Clause Types in Israeli’, pp. 72-92 of Complementation: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, edited by R. M. W. Dixon and A. Y. Aikhenvald, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2006. ‘Direct and Indirect Speech in Straight-Talking
Israeli’. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 53.4: 1-15.

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2006. ‘A New Vision for “Israeli Hebrew”: Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel’s Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language’. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5.1: 57-71.

Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad 2005. ‘“Abba, Why Was Professor Higgins Trying to Teach Eliza to Speak Like Our Cleaning Lady?”: Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, Prescriptivism and the Real Sounds of the Israeli Language’. Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 19.

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad. 2005. ‘The Israeli Language’. The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language 09.013.

Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad 2004. ‘The Genesis of the Israeli Language: A Response to “Philologos”’s “Hebrew vs. Israeli”’. The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language 08.013.

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2006 [submitted]. ‘Israeli as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Language: Multiple causation, Forms and Patterns’

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2006 [submitted]. ‘hasafá haisraelít kemusá mekhkár
atsmaí: khashivút gisható shel rozén ladèmistifikátsya shel “tkhiát
haivrít”‘ (The Israeli Language as an Object of Independent Study: The
Importance of Rosén’s Approach to the Demystification of the ‘Hebrew
Revival’).

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2007 [forthcoming]. ‘The Semantics of Clause Linking in Israeli’.

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2006 [submitted]. ‘Comparative Constructions in Israeli’.

Zuckermann, Ghil’ad 2006. ‘Direct and Indirect Speech in Straight-Talking
Israeli’. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 53.4: 1-15.

David.

I agree, although I admit that I actually know nothing of his politics.

> In addition to being Jewish himself (does that make a difference?

Surely not!

In general, the reason why many Jews might seem a bit paranoid about this theory is for the reason outlined by Joe in Australia. From a purely scholarly perspective it might be an exciting question, but the question is more than just academic.

Incidentally, some scholars of old (see Ernst Renan, the ‘father of Semitics’) thought of Biblical Hebrew as a hodge-podge language as well. As far as they were concerned, the true geniuses were the Sumerians (not Semitic!) and the Semites were an ignorant Arabian people who stole all that was good about their Northern neighbours. And Jesus? Why, Jesus was Galilean! That makes him one of the people (descended from Sumer, of course) who ended up in Palestine after the Assyrian population shift. It all makes so much sense…

It’s because Jews are not real. Let me explain.

Christian theology is ultimately replacement theology. Jesus, they assert, is the figure foretold by the Jewish scriptures. Those scriptures focus very heavily on the Jews and so they are necessarily reinterpreted: prophecies of salvation and so forth are understood to refer to the Church, the new Israel. This understanding is fundamental to Christianity, which is in turn fundamental to the Western intellectual tradition. There is therefore a pervasive meme that Jews are imposters, that their identity is no more than an assertion of a status to which they are not entitled. In other words, Jews are intrinsically unreal.

In the hands of Arthur Koestler and many modern antisemites the myth of the Jewish Khazar empire becomes an assertion that Jews are “really” Khazars. I can’t recall what the British Israelites assert, although I know that some have accepted the Khazar conspiracy theory. The point is that they too assert that Jews are not the “real” Jews.

In the hands of nationalists Jews are the rootless cosmopolitans: they are not “really” English or German, they are Jews. Worse, they are not Israeli either – the territory of Israel is “really” Arab, and the Jewish presence there is an historical mistake. You can quite readily find Arab nationalist tracts that deny there was ever a Jewish presence in Israel.

Why should it be surprising that linguistics is subject to the same meme? Hebrew alone, of all the world’s languages, has a “real” form which is to be contrasted with the unreal jargon spoken by Israelis. I speak English, as did Chaucer, although he wouldn’t understand me nor I understand him. Hebrew is different, because Jews assert an association with it. Since Jews are unreal, their language must also be unreal. Hebrew is a real language, therefore Israeli Hebrew must be an unreal language. QED.