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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] fred on 2 tenses at the same sentence

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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] fred on 2 tenses at the same sentence
  • Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 09:50:09 +0100


Dear Paul,

I remember that you and I had several interesting discussions in the 90s, both on b-greek and on b-hebrew. I appreciate that you quoted my words, and I would like to elucidate the issue.

Mari Broman Olsen wrote a dissertation regarding the Greek and English verbs. The great advantage of her work is that she scrupulously distinguished between semantic meaning (uncencellable meaning which is an intrinsic part for the verb form) and conversational pragmatic implicature (cancellable meaning based on the context). In order to try to find the meaning of the Hebrew conjugations, one has to study their use. However, there are several pitfalls. For example, 13,539 (93.1%) WAYYIQTOLs in the Tanakh have past reference and 997 (6.9%) have non-past reference. Which conclusion can we draw from these numbers? Can we conclude that the WAYYIQTOL form has an intrinsic past tense? Absolutely not, because of the 6.9% with non-past reference that occur in normal contexts and clauses.

But how can we explain the great number with past reference? To approach this question in a scholarly way, on has to make a scrupulous distinction between semantics (intrinsic meaning) and pragmatics (meaning taken from the context). Except for may own doctoral dissertation, I am not aware of a single study of Hebrew verbs that systematically has distinguished between semantics and pragmatics!

The approach to WAYYIQTOL can be like this: Most of the 93.1% of WAYYIQTOLs with past reference occur in narrative contexts. Narratives in any language have strings of verbs with past reference connected with the conjunction "and." Thus, the narrative itself has per definition past reference. The verb forms used to express narrative may or may not have an intrinsic past tense. For example, in Phoenician the narrative verb form is the infinitive absolute, and no one has claimed that this form has an intrinsic past tense. Regarding WAYYIQTOL we must ask: Is the WAY(Y) element the typical narrative conjunction that is prefixed to a YIQTOL form, so the past reference is a function of the narrative and not an intrinsic property of the verb? Or, has the WAYYIQTOL an intrinsic past tense? The statistics above shows that WAYYIQTOL is not a past tense.

But if WAYYIQTOL is not a tense, what is it then? And what do YIQTOL, WEYIQTOL, QATAL, and WEQATAL represent? To answer these questions in a thorough way, one has to use the right parameters, and apply them to all the verbs of the Tanakh. There are only three parameters that are needed, 1) event time (ET), reference time (RT) and the deictic center (C). What are the nature of these properties? ET is the time from the beginning of an event to its end. When we communicate, we make visible a part of ET or the whole ET; the area that is made visible is RT. We can say that RT intersects ET, and in 1) RT intersects ET at the nucleus, after the beginning and before the end; in 2) RT intersects ET at the end.

1) Ann was walking in the garden.

2) Ann has arrived.

The deictic center (C) is the vantage point from which an event is viewed; mostly C is speech time, but it can also be future or past.

The concept tense (=grammaticalization of location tin time) is a function of RT and C. Past tense :RT comes before C,; future tense: RT comes after C: present "tense": RT coincides with C. Tense represents deictic time, that is, tense is always seen in relation to a deictic center, a vantage point.

Aspect is the function of ET and RT, and it represents non-deictic time, because the time is not seen in relation to a vantage point.

Broman Olsen used these parameters, and she showed that in English there are two aspects with uniform meaning: the imperfective aspect= the present participle; the perfective aspect= perfect. (simple past is not an aspect but only a tense.) Broman Olsen's work with English is excellent, but she erred when she assumed that aspects are similar in all aspectual languages.

The three parameters, ET, RT, and C can be used to analyze all languages to find whether they have tenses and aspects. But to find out whether the Hebrew conjugations are aspects and the similarities and differences between Hebrew and English aspects, we need to look at the inner constituency of ET and RT and their function. Aspects represent the author's viewpoint or focus, and it possible to see different qualities in this focus. The angle of focus (the area of ET that is intersected by RT) can also be analyzed. In English, there are only two angles (nucleus-end) but in Hebrew there are many. The breadth of the focus can also be analyzed. Because there are two aspects, and three different kinds of focus, Hebrew and English aspects can be compared in six different ways. The result is that three are similar, and three are different. Because the most important parameter, the angle of focus, is different, the aspects of English and Hebrew are completely different.

The task of the student, therefore, is to study different Hebrew texts, find the deictic center (C) of each verb, and see how and where reference time (RT) intersects event time (ET). I propose a challenge: Apply this to Proverbs 31:10-31, and explain why so many different verb forms are used in the same way with the same temporal reference.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli






Poor Fred!

Of course, he has gotten a "no" answer to tense several times and has chosen
to ignore it.

And he apparently does not understand what aspect is.

Had he gone back to the archives, he might have found the following item
from Rolf Furuli sent on Jan 9, 1999 (it was the first item that came up on
my google search on "definition aspect hebrew). An excerpt:

"Let me also say a word about aspect. Again Mari [Olsen] gives the best
description
I have ever seen of the difference between tense ( a grammaticalization of
location in time/ deictic time) and aspect (non-deictic time). Aspect
highlights a part of the event time, either its nucleus or coda
(end-point), but tells nothing about where the event is in relation to a
deictic center (such as for instance speech time). Tense, on the other
hand, shows where the event is in releation [sic] to a deictic center
(before,
coinciding or after)."

In the post, he makes it clear that the Hebrew verb does not encode tense,
which is the same answer as we have been giving every time Fred asks. He
also goes on to say that Mari Olsen's definition of aspect does not
universally fit the Hebrew usage, but he states, "To understand the
different nature of Hebrew aspect, however, we cannot do anything better
than start with Mari's definition and try to apply it to Hebrew." In short,
he claims that the definition is very good, but not infallible, when applied
to Hebrew.

Yiqtols and qatals are used in different genres for different reasons.
Their usage is not accidental or casual. The question should not be, "Are
the two forms redundant?" Instead, the question is, "Why are there only
two?" Hebrew manages to communicate a lot of different concepts with a very
limited toolbox. For a fuller answer, it would take a book. Oh, that's
right. The suggestion has been made that the questioner look in a book on
discourse analysis of Hebrew.

Paul Zellmer






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