Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: Hebrew Syntax., 2 Sam 15:37

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Hebrew Syntax., 2 Sam 15:37
  • Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 10:37:06 +0200


Dear Dave,

I found your thoughs coherrent and logical, and I am sure that the models of Bryan and Alviero are based on systematic thinking as well. I hope I am always able to bring across that I criticize methodologies and not persons,their knowledge or intelligence.

I agree with you that statistics is just a help and should be used with care. The problem that causes the differences in understanding Hebrew verbs is in my view that many scholars have not done the fundamental groundwork that leads to the understanding of the fundamental parameters and concepts.

For example, how many of those on this list have pondered on the *definition* of aspect? (Just look into your own mind) How many have worked with the concepts "equipollent" and "privative" in connection with aspect, and have decided that Hebrew aspects are either equipollent or privative? These are not just theoretical questions but are highly significant for the theunderstanding of verbs.

My research has led me to the conclusion that Hebrew aspects are not equipollent, i.e. there is not one negative and and one positive part with equal semantical weight, but they are privative, i.e. the two aspects constitute one positive part each with no negative part of equal semantic weight.

In a privative system (the concept is from the phonological studies of the Prague school in the 1930es) one member is marked (its meaning or area of function is more restricted than the unmarked member). And most important, the unmarked member may have a meaning different from the marked member, but it may also have the same meaning as the marked member. We can illustrate this by the unmarked word "lion" and the marked "lionness". The word "lionness" stands in opposition to "male lion", and here we have an equipollent opposition. However, the word "lion" can both denote the genus lion, a "lionness", or a "male lion". The relationship between "lion" and "lioness" therefore is privative.

It is obvious that if one does not have a well founded opinion as to whether Hebrew aspects are equipollent or privative, any research above the sentence level (discourse analysis) can give wrong results. As a matter of fact, if Hebrew aspects are privative, as I believe, discourse analysis has an extreme drawback from the start.

Another problem is the very nature of aspect. The English aspects (present participle - imperfective and perfect - perfecive) can be viewed as privative, but at the same time they are in one respect mutually exclusive. Actions expressed by the imperfective aspect are never terminated at reference time and actions expressed by the perfective aspect are always terminated at reference time. If this model, with this opposition, is transferred to Hebrew, as is very often the case, one uses wrong parameters and the results MUST be wrong!

The following important observation is the result of the conclusion that Hebrew aspects are privative and that they both have similarities and differences compared with English aspects:

Both Hebrew aspects can in many cases be used for exactly the same situation without any difference in meaning!

Aspect plays just a minor part in signalling meaning because it is a subjective viewpoint that does not contribute anything new, just helps make some things visible and other invisible. Lexical meaning, Aktionsart, and the syntax of the clause is of much more important for conveying meaning than aspect.

I will point to one example, namely 2:1,2.

"Why are the nations in tumult (QATAL) and the national groups themselves keep muttering (YIQTOL) an empty thing? The kings of earth take their stand (YIQTOL) And high officials themselves mass together (QATAL) as one."

The verse contains two QATALs and two YIQTOLs, but who can point to any difference in meaning? The thoughts of the verse is of the kind that both aspects can be used indiscriminately; the YIQTOL plays the role of the lionness and the QATAL plays the role of the lion.

I agree with the approach of Alviero, Bryan and others in their discourse analysis, that we must isolate those forms that indicate a certain meaning and interpret other similar forms where the meaning is not visible in the light of those forms having meaning. However, the practical execution of this principle is diametrically opposite in my case compared with theirs.

For example, in most cases of WAYYIQTOL and YIQTOL with past reference, we cannot see, on the basis of the context, whether the aspect is imperfective or peerfective. Therefore I have analysed all the finite and infinite forms of MT on the basis of the relationship between event time, reference time and the deictic point. On this basis I can draw the definite conclusion that it neither is discourse function, nor verb form that give the temporal reference of a clause but only the context. Further, I have found all the examples of WAYYIQTOL and YIQTOL (and the other forms as well) where the relationship between reference time and event time can give only one interpretation as to aspect (e.g. conative situations, intersection of RT in the middle of ET etc). There are so many WAYYIQTOLs which definitely are imperfective that I draw the conclusion that those WAYYIQTOLs where we cannot see the aspect, are imperfective as well. Because all forms have been analysed, the conclusion has a sound basis; in this case is statistics important.

On the basis of the fundamental parameters durativity, dynamicity, telicity, event time, reference time,the deictic point, privative versus equipollent, and these applied to *all* the verbs of the MT I draw the conclusion that Hebrew has only two conjugations (YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, and WEYIQTOL are imperfective, and QATAL and WEQATAL are perfective).



Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli

University of Oslo









Rolf wrote: Regarding 1 Kings 3:24-26 you have a problem with your concept
"continually". I think we agree regarding what did happen, the soldiers
used some time to destroy this city and that city, they used some time to
fill this water spring and that water spring, until everything was ruined.
They could not do this destruction several times because there were a
limited number of cities, trees and water springs. These actions are
described with YIQTOLs ( and one WEQATAL)

Are the actions described by WAYYIQTOLs in verses 21-24 different? Hardly!
The Moabites were gathered together, one after the other (v 21), and they
stood there (not "had been standing" - focus on the continuing state). They
marched one after the other to the camp of Israel (v 24), and the
israelites rose, one after the other,and Israel struck the Moabites, one
after the other. Then the Moabites fled and Israel again killed Moabites,
one after the other. There were probably more Moabites that were killed
than the number of cities and springs that were destroyed according to
verse 25. If the actions described by the YIQTOLs are imperfective, the
WAYYIQTOLs must be imperfective as well.


DKS: You are correct, I was wrong to describe the action with the word
"continually." But I can still conceive of a fundamental difference in the
kind of action described in the WAYYIQTOL's versus the
X-YIQTOL's/WEQATAL's. It seems that the author was portraying the action
of the mustering in v. 21 and the battle in v. 24 as a whole, while the
despoiling of the land is somehow iterative. The Moabites mustered, and
Israel defeated them; the defeat continued during the rout. Then the
Israelites systematically despoiled Moab.

You are right that technically all action takes place one moment at a time,
one event after the other. For example, in order for the Moabites to
gather, they gathered one after the other. But the author has a choice how
he portrays that gathering, and he can bring out some nuance -- in this
case it would have been suspense if he had used X-YIQTOL: "One by one, from
city to city, the Moabites were called up, until they stood as a vast
army." But the author chose to state it as a simple fact, not marked as
suspenseful: "The Moabites were called up and they stood."

At the end of v. 24 "the land" as a whole and (all) the Moabites in it are
the objects of the defeat. The despoiling, on the other hand, is portrayed
as a city-to-city iterative action (YIQTOL). The final city, Kir Haroset,
is then portrayed as the final single action (QATAL).


Rolf wrote: I work from the bottom and up, while discours analysis work
from the top an down.


DKS: I think you'll find that Talstra and his students are very much
bottom-up in their analysis, yet they refer to what they do as DA (except
for those among them who differentiate Text Linguistics from DA).


Rolf wrote: In order to substantiate that the prefix-forms and the
suffix-forms with prefixed WAW have a different meaning from those without
the WAW, *all* the forms must be analysed and semantic differences must be
domonstrated on the basis of their time references and the intersection of
event time by reference time. Verb meaning can never be established by a
study of the foreground/background functions of a few thousand forms
occurring in narrative contexts.


DKS: Two observations. First, I am looking for how verb forms *function*
in sentences and paragraphs. One component of analysis of various
sentences is semantic. I think we are fundamentally different in our
approaches here.

Second, for my research into the nature of language, statistical
observations do have some merit. Certainly statistics don't dictate what a
particular sentence *must* mean. (Illustration: If a coin came up heads 5
times in a row, what are the odds it would come up heads the sixth time?
50/50. Past patterns do not dictate current situations.) Hypothetically,
even if we observe a certain function in all the other examples in our
corpus of a certain form, that does not mean that the one form we are
looking at will demonstrate that function -- this could be the one
exception. Yet, there is merit in statistics. Chances are good that this
form will have that function -- that is certainly the first line of
reasoning that should be pursued. (Also, one should consider that perhaps
the coin is weighted such that it favors heads.)

You yourself have used statistics, and you argue that some forms of YIQTOL
in some grammatical constructions can have past reference. The challenge,
in my mind, is to define what the writer/speaker of Biblical Hebrew
discerned as the indications of past reference. What in grammar, syntax,
semantics, or text-grammar told the hearer that this YIQTOL has past
reference? And which elements of the sentence or paragraph are meaningless
with regard to tense? You argue that the conjunction is meaningless with
regard to tense, while conventional Biblical Hebrew grammar sees it as
crucial. Conventional grammar puts little importance on the sentence that
comes before or after the sentence in question. DA sees those as crucial.

Consider these random thoughts -- I don't have time to make my ramblings
more coherent.

Dave Stabnow
Bible Translation Editor
Broadman & Holman Publishers
Nashville, Tennessee
615-251-5851
david.stabnow AT lifeway.com

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do,
do everything for God's glory. (1 Cor 10:31, HCSB)







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page