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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Tense and aspect; was: "The use of "
  • Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:00:40 +0200

Dear Stoney,

When we discuss linguistic issues, we may define our concepts differently. And that need not be a problem as long as the other part clearly understand our definition. So, you are free to define tense as you have done below. Another question is whether the definition is precise enough to give good results in the study of languages. To borrow a viewpoint from the natural sciences: If a hypothesis is so general that it can explain everything, it explains nothing. A scientific hypothesis should be falsifiable, that is, it should be possible to think of situations which, if they occurred, would prove the hypothesis to be wrong. And similarly in linguistics; if definitions are so subjective or general that there are no controls to use in order to distinguish between what falls inside and outside the definition, such definitions are not helpful in linguistic research. I am afraid your definition belongs to this group.

My definition, on the other hand, can be used to falsify, and as far as dead languages are concerned, it can be used to find whether there are particular verb forms that uniformly express a particular time reference. Based on my definition, the test is very simple. Applied to WAYYIQTOL it goes like this: If WAYYIQTOL represents past tense, we will expect that it always has past reference, except in situations which linguistically can be explained as special cases (such as hypothetical conditional clauses etc). If we find a reasonable number of WAYYIQTOLs with non-past reference, the hypothesis that WAYYIQTOL represents past tense is falsified. Can you apply your definition of tense in a similar way to Hebrew and get linguistic results? In that case, please explain how.

I suggest that you read the book "Tense" (1986) B. Comrie. There you will find a definition similar to mine.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



Rolf :

'It is important to distinguish between tense and time/temporal reference.
All languages have different means to signal whether an action is past,
present, or future. But first when the temporal reference is an intrinsic
part of a verb form, can we say that a language has tense. Therefore, tense
is defined as "grammaticalized location in time".'

This seems to be unnecessarily restrictive. Isn't simpler and more
productive to treat 'tense' as a component of the utterance, a component
which may be realized either grammatically or lexically — or, redundantly,
both — or even (as often in English, and I am beginning to suspect in
Hebrew) left unmarked?


Stoney Breyer
Writer*
Touchwood Creative | www.touchwoodcreative.com
3200 Locust Street, St. Louis, MO. 63103
tel: 314-421-9878 x103 | fax: 314-421-6276
stoneyb AT touchwoodcreative.com
*ein Mann ... dem das Schreiben schwerer fällt als allen anderen Leuten.
-Thomas Mann





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