[b-hebrew] How does biblical Hebrew describe a present event? (Joseph Justiss)
Rolf Furuli
furuli at online.no
Thu Jun 18 02:09:52 EDT 2009
Dear Joseph,
The question of method relates to what we are
looking for. Are we looking for the use of verbs
in particular situations (e.g direct speech etc);
are we looking for the function of verb forms in
different contexts (e.g. foreground, background
etc.); or are we looking for the meaning of the
verb forms (e.g. tense/aspect etc.)
In the natural sciences, one is looking for the
smallest possible units to study, because the
more units you have to account for at the same
time, the less certain are your conclusions. The
ideal situation in linguistics is the minimal
pair situation, because here there is only one
difference to account for. The more differences
to account for at the same time, the less certain
are your conclusions.
I am well acquainted with the writings of
Niccacci; many years ago we even had several
discussions on b-hebrew. In my dissertation, four
times I refer to Niccacci, and I show why his
methods are not usable for my purpose. Harald
Weinrich, who introduced the method, admitted
that the very method was unassailable; it simply
could not be tested! As a matter of fact, we
cannot reach a point that is longer away from the
ideal minimal pair situations than the discourse
analysis of Weinrich and Niccacci. When discourse
analysis is applied to Hebrew verbs, whole chunks
of texts with dozens of different factors are
studied at the same time. And the certainty of
our conclusions, at least as far as meaning is
concerned, decreases with the numbers of factors
we have to account for. So, much circular
reasoning is inherent in this method. A fine
discussion of the problems with Weinrich's method
is found in C. Backe (1985) "Verbal Aspect and
its Application to Present Day English
(particularly pp. 18-25).
Please note that I am not rejecting Niccacci's
method. Many good results can be obtained by
applying this method, because it is a fine tool
to describe different *uses* of BH verbs. But it
is completely inadequate for finding the meaning
of the Hebrew verb forms. For example, the method
cannot be used to answer the question: "Is the
meaning of the WAYYIQTOL form different from the
meaning of the YIQTOL form, or is the WAYYIQTOL
simply a YIQTOL with a prefixed conjunction?"
And, "Does BH have aspects, and in that case, how
should we define a BH aspect?" So, Niccacci's
method is good to use in some situations but not
in others.
The objective of my method, which previously
never have been applied to BH verbs, is to
distinguish between semantics and pragmatics, and
try to find the *meaning* of the BH verb forms.
Three parameters are used, namely deictic center
(C), reference time (RT) and event time (ET).
These parameters were first defined in H.
Reichenbach (1947) "Elements of symbolic Logic".
They are further discussed in B. Comri (1976)
"Aspect," and the clearest discussion of the
parameters is found in M. Broman Olsen (1997) "A
Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and
Grammatical Aspect".
The method builds on very few assumptions, except
the one that dead languages are basically similar
to living languages and can be studied by the
same methods. The application of the method is
very simple. First the dead language is tested
for tense, which is defined as " grammaticalized
location in time" (Comrie). This means that a
verb may have past reference without expressing
tense-this is pragmatics versus semantics. In
order to test BH for tense, the relationship
between C and RT in all the verbs were considered
and mapped. (Syntactic questions were of course
considered, but foregound/background or
mainline/secondary line are simply irrelevant for
the relationship between C and RT. And a
scrupulous distinction between verb semantics and
pragmatics can only be achieved on the sentence
level!) If a language has tense (Burmese, for
example, does not have tenses), we expect that
one or more verb forms have uniform time
patterns. We would expect that one form would
only have past reference except in special cases.
This is the case with simple past in English, but
my mapping shows that no such form exists in BH,
not even the WAYYIQTOL. BH expresses time, but
not with one particular form.
When BH does not have tenses, do we find aspects?
The same parameters can be used to answer that
question, because aspect can be seen as the
relationship between event time (ET) and
reference time (RT). It is argued in my
dissertation that this relationship has three
different expressions, and because there are two
aspects, the aspects in different languages can
be compared and defined in six different ways. I
found that the aspects in English and Hebrew were
similar in three respects and different in three.
Because the most important aspect was different,
aspects in Hebrew and English are very different
as far as their definition is concerned. My
conclusion is that YIQTOL,WAYYIQTOL, and
WEYIQTOL semantically represent the imperfective
aspect, but they sometimes/often are
functionally (pragmatically) different. And
further, QATAL and WEQATAL semantically represent
the perfective aspect, but sometimes/often they
functionally (pragmatically) are different.
Different methods can serve different purposes. I
do not dispute Randall's finds (and Niccacci's)
that the participle often is used for present
reference in direct speech. I just argue that
this cannot be extrapolated to encompass all BH
with the claim that the participle is THE present
form; because all the other forms can be used
with present reference as well. As mentioned, I
do not dispute that Niccacci's method is a fine
method to map the *use* of the verb forms in BH
and to outline the linguistic conventions of the
language. But I argue that much circularity is
seen in the attempts to try to paint uniform
patterns. And, the method cannot be used to find
the semantic meaning of BH verbs. The best
approach for this purpose, in my view, is to
analyze all verbs from the point of view of tense
( deictic time=the relationship between the
deictic center and reference time) and aspect
(non-deictic time= the relationship between
reference time and event time). Different methods
must be used for different purposes, and each
method must be evaluated in relation to its
stated goals, whether or not they can be reached.
Best regards,
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
>Randall
>
>
>
>I think you are absolutely right, and your
>contention seems to be exactly the same as that
>of Alviero Niccacci when he maintains that the
>simple nominal clause and the participial clause
>are used to represent the temporal axis of the
>present in direct speech. He has recently argued
>that this is also the case in poetry in a recent
>chapter. In this same chapter (to be found in
>Biblical Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic
>Setting) he challenges the notion that qatal or
>yiqtol ever refer to the present. He argues that
>qatal and yiqtol can both refer to the past, but
>when they do "they signal a shift from
>main-line, punctual information (qatal) to
>secondary-line,
>repeated/habitual/explanatory/descriptive
>information (yiqtol)". I think every serious
>Hebraist (including those on this list) needs to
>come to terms with his arguments and his unique
>starting point for the analysis of biblical
>Hebrew based on the linguistic model of Harald
>Weinrich even if he winds up disagreeing. If
>one analyses all 80,000 occurrences of the verb
>in Hebrew, but does it with reference to the
>sentence level only, or without making
>distinctions in linguistic attitude (namely
>narrative vs. comment) then one's beginning
>methodological foundation may be, I stress "may
>be" flawed and inadequate.
>
>
>
>Rolf
>
>
>
>I don't know if your analysis proceeded this
>way, but if it did, perhaps it would be
>appropriate to consider if this is the best way
>to procede with an analysis of BH syntax in
>light of the arguments of the Niccaccis and
>others who point out the inadequacies of such an
>approach.
>
>
>
>Joseph Justiss
>
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