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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[3]: Jos 14-21 (was die Flucht ins Prasens (was Ruth))
  • Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 00:56:00 -0400


Dear Rolf,

Yes, I admit to little familiarity with the literature on aspect. But
what I am trying to pick up about this is leaving me very confused. It
seems that even those who are familiar with the literature are far
from clear on how they understand the concept of aspect and how it
relates to Hebrew. And I am still not sure if this is a debate about
the meaning of technical terms or about any real substance concerning
the Hebrew language.

Let me rephrase my point. What we see in Hebrew texts is verb forms,
not aspects. We cannot point to a word and say "this is such-and-such
aspect" without going first through some theory (and I am not sure we
can do it even then). Broman Olsen has a definition of aspect; others
have other definitions; others simply follow the definitions in
another language (not necessarily their mother tongue - I tend to
relate questions of aspect with Russian). But there seems to be no
agreement on how Hebrew verb forms correspond with anyone's definition
of aspect, indeed this is the very point of contention. So when you
asked e.g.

"What is the relationship between Hebrew aspects and time? Does
the perfective aspect uniformely signal that the end was reached
at RT and the imperfective aspect uniformely signal that it was
not reached? And if not, what relation has the end of an event to
each aspect?"

you were presupposing some particular mapping of Hebrew verb forms on
to aspects (either imperfective or perfective). I am not sure if you
were expecting answers relating to your own mappings or to Bryan's
(tentative) quite different ones. I would be happier to try to answer
the following question:

"What is the relationship between Hebrew verb paradigms and time?
Do certain paradigms uniformly signal that the end was reached at
RT and other paradigms uniformly signal that it was not reached?
And if not, what relation has the end of an event to each
paradigm?"

That way we are not presupposing an answer in advance. We cannot be
sure that there is any consistent aspectual nature to Hebrew verb
forms until we can describe this nature, and we have not yet been able
to do that. So I am just agreeing with Paul's excellent posting,
especially when he wrote: "Aspect per se does not appear to be solely
determined on the word-level in this language." I hope that helps you
to understand my point.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re[2]: Jos 14-21 (was die Flucht ins Prasens (was Ruth))
Author: furuli AT online.no at internet
Date: 24/05/1999 17:35


Peter Kirk wrote:



>Dear Rolf,
>
>You wrote to Bryan,
>
>"...Do you claim that events in Hebrew expressed by the perfective
>aspect *allways* are terminated and events expressed by the
>imperfective aspect always are continuing at reference time? If the
>answer is yes, Hebrew aspect is similar to English aspect as far as
>time is concerned, if the answer is no, Hebrew aspect is different
>from English aspect in this respect. Yes, it may possibly mean that
>Hebrew aspect is not concerned with time at all, as I claim."
>
>May I ask what you mean here by "Hebrew aspect" and "English aspect"?
>It seems to me as if you are here using it to mean "different
>Hebrew/English verb paradigms". But earlier in the same posting you
>were discussing aspect as a general linguistic concept rather than as
>one tied to specific languages. I fear that you are further clouding
>already muddy waters by using the word "aspect" in such a range of
>different ways. The question you raise in this paragraph would be
>better described as the question of how far the distinctions between
>Hebrew verb paradigms correspond to the distinctions between English
>verb paradigms.
>
>Since the debate about the meaning of the term "aspect" is hardly
>relevant to this forum, can I suggest that both you and Bryan try to
>rephrase your arguments without using this term (or "perfective" and
>"imperfective"). After all, it hardly helps clarity of your argument
>to use terms which (as you claim) do not have a single generally
>agreed definition.
>
>Peter Kirk


Dear Peter,

I am sorry but I do not understand the meaning of your post. My questions
were related to one of the most fundamental sides (and perhaps the most
neglected one) of the aspect case, namely, whether or not Hebrew aspects
have a relationship with or in any way represent time. This is highly
appropriate for b-hebrew. I did not suggest a general linguistic
discussion of aspect but only a language-specific one, namely a comparison
of English and Hebrew aspect. That this is justified, is seen by the fact
that English-speaking students almost automatically starts to compare the
Hebrew verbal system with the system of their mother tongue.

Aspect is an important term in all modern Hebrew grammars, and this is of
course also the case with "perfective" and "imperfective". To suggest that
we should avoid these terms on b-hebrew does not make sense to me. To say
that a comparison of aspects simply is a comparison of verb paradigms
betrays little familiarity with the aspect literature. An important reason
for misunderstandings when things are discussed, is that terms are used
differently, so it is important for all of us to define our terms. I
therefore suggest that Bryan answer the questions I asked.


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo



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