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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] BH verbal system
  • Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:06:27 +0100

Dear Stoney,

The Latin verb NARRO means "to tell something,2 and factual and fictious events can be told in many ways. The evangelist Mark, for example, often uses what is called historic present when he tells something. However, in a technical linguistic sense "narrative" has a more restricted meaning. In "Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics" a part of Davis Crystal's definition of the word is as follows: "A narrative is seen as a recapitulation of past experience in which language is used to structure a sequence of (real or fictious) events."

David Comrie in his book "Tense" (1985:61) has the following comments regarding narrative:

"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 of a sequence of events which are located temporally one almost immediately after the other, the chronological sequence mirrored in the linear order of clauses. Thus one might be tempted to think that this sequence is part of the meaning of the verb forms used, thus introducing the meaning of 'immediate past'' or 'immediate future' relative time reference (depending of 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 the sequencing of events is a property of the narrative itself, quite independent of the verb forms used to encode narrative, so that the mere fact that the verb forms receive this interpretation in narrative is not sufficient evidence for assigning the meaning of these verb forms."

The point I tried to convey, was that when the WAYYIQTOL form so often is used in Hebrew narrative, this does not mean that the form itself is grammaticalized past. Past reference is the very nature of narrative (in the technical linguistic sense), and therefore any form used in narrative sequences irrespective of the semantic meaning of the form, must have past reference. Please note that I speak of narrative sequences, and not of situations where a sequence is broken by direct speech or anything else.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



Rolf:

My faith in the admirable clarity and rigor of your analysis is
profoundly shaken by this:

It is a fundamental linguistic truth that verbs used in narratives
have past reference.

On what basis do you make this assertion? It seems to me neither
self-evident nor borne out by linguistic fact, teste folktale and joke
on the one hand, and the practice of many eminent writers of fiction on
the other.

Stoney Breyer
Writer / Touchwood Creative

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