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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] b-hebrew Uncancellable meaning and Hebrew verbs
  • Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 10:49:59 +0200

Dear list-members,

David Kummerow has several times made the challenge found in the first quote below.


David Kummerow wrote:

And like I've said on this list: part of the problem with Rolf's
position is when we get down to actual details of the text. I've
repeatedly asked over the last few years to be shown how wayymer (just
as one example!) can be construed imperfectively. That is, assuming that
the imperfective aspect of WAYYIQTOL is uncancellable, how is this to be
seen from wayyomer examples in the text?


When I read the words above, I wonder if DK has read my whole dissertation. If he has read everything, he either has not understood it or he speaks contrary to his better judgement. It is shown in my work that in most verbs the relationship between event time and reference time is not seen, but only in a few hundred verbs can we clearly see the relationship between event time and reference time, thus clearly pointing out the aspect. In chapters 2 and 8 I argue that the perfective and imperfective aspect in Hebrew are not mutually exclusive as in English, and on p. 412 I list two similarities and four differences between the aspects. For example, in my analysis, only imperfective verbs can express conative situations (situations attempted but not carried through), and situations where the action expressed by one verb is intersected by another (When Moses read the law, Joshua entered his tent.)

Ignoring the points above, DK takes one root, )MR, and asks for one example where we can see that this verb is imperfective and has cancellable properties. A fair question to ask would have been: Please give me ten examples of WAYYIQTOLs that are imperfective. But let us continue with )MR.


James Read asked DK for examples, and DK used Gen 12:1.

>
> I would like to invite you one more time to analyse a section of the
corpus using Rolf's method to see if your results have any major
> disagreements with Rolf's.


DK:

Well, OK, I'll start at Gen 12:1. First verb is problematic. Default
construal can really only be taken as past perfective. Rolf would say
that it is past imperfective. Already we see it not working so I see no
point in continuing on.

Regards,
David Kummerow.
_______________________________________________


I quote the verse from the NIV:
"The LORD had said (WAYYIQTOL) to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."

What is visible in connection with the WAYYIQTOL of )MR? In most cases the Aktionsart of this verb is dynamic and durative, but it can also be semelfactive ("Peter said "ah"."), so the words has no uncancellable Aktionsart properties. The relationship between the deictic center and reference time is seen; R comes before C, so the reference is past. But we cannot see which part of the action that the writer wanted to make visible, whether the force is "YHWH began to speak/ continued to speak/spoke/hd spoken."

And here is something that DK seems to have overlooked, namely, that narrative sequences have different properties that cannot be ascribed to the verb forms: B. Comrie (1985) "Tense" p. 63 says:

"In looking for examples of relative time reference, it is essential to ensure that the relative time reference interpretation is part of the meaning of the form in question, rather than an implicature derived from, in part, the context. One area which is particularly confusing in this respect is narrative, where one gains the impression that a sequence of events which are located temporally one almost immediately after the other, the chronological sequence mirrored in a linear order of clauses. Thus one might be tempted to think that this sequencing is part of the meaning of the verb forms used, thus introducing a meaning of 'immediate past' or 'immediate future' relative time reference (depending on whether one defined the time reference of the preceding verb in terms of the following verb, vice versa). However, as was shown in section 1.8 this sequencing of events is a property of the narrative itself, quite independent of the verb form used to encode the narrative, so that the mere fact that verb forms receive this interpretation in narrative is not sufficient evidence for assigning this meaning to the verb forms."

Linguistis may have different opinions, but I would think that all, or most linguists would agree with Comrie in this case.

Comrie does not discuss WAYYIQTOL but the relative time reference in narrative. But an important point is that he shows that a verb form may be given a particular meaning in a narrative. But this meaning need not be an intrinsic part of the verb form but rather an implicature from the narrative itself (the context), Comrie's words in an excellent way illustrate my distinction between semantics and pragmatics. And they also imply that the verb forms used in narrative contexts can have different meanings. For example, any verb form used in narratives *must* per definition have past reference. In Hebrew, WAYYIQTOL is used, in Phoenician infinitive absolute is used, and in Ugaritic the prefix form (possibly the short one) is used. But we cannot know the real meaning of each form just because it has past reference and is used in narratives. So, the conclusion: "WAYYIQTOL is so often used in narratives with past reference, that it must represent past tense (or the perfective aspect), overlooks elementary linguistic principles.

Therefore, the words of DK regarding the verb in Genesis 12:1 "Default construal can really only be taken as past perfective." are really primitive words, because,

-they are not argued, just claimed.
-basic linguistic principles, such as those expressed by Comrie are
overlooked.
-The perfective aspect are defined in more than ten different ways. So what is THE perfective aspect?
-All-propositions (expressed by "only") do not belong to linguistics.



I will continue with )MR in my next E-mail.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo











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