Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>]

what sources do you need for the phenomenon of "historical present"? I
take it as given for speakers of english. or do you mean as a proposal
for hebrew? why would anyone suggest it, given current assumptions? as
far as I know, it would be a novel proposal for biblical hebrew, but
who knows.

funny you should mention hopper, that stuff proposes grammatical
aspect tracking, like real aspect in a real aspect-language like
russian, doesn't it? not at all what hebrew scholars are talking
about, is it?

grammatical aspect in Hebrew: (1) tenses default for a perfective
reading, (2) compositionality.  for instance, $anah va$anah is
inherently imperfective, and so overrides a default reading: nothing
to do with the verb form. aspect by composition: aspect of the verbal
root, the grammatical form, nature of objects, adverbials: just like a
normal language.

on my view, and I haven't worked this out (wish I had grad students to
work on this. sigh), there are signals. I don't have a full analysis,
but here are some clear ones to look at.

verses 1-3 inherently imperfective, background. not clear where to end
the background, but extends at least to end of v.3 presumably wayhi
hayyom as a pragmatic break, if nothing else.

verse 7 begins summary, generic/habitual.  signal?? $anah v$anah,
nothing else: except it's in combination with ken, and then the
repetition of ken. inherently imperfective.

v.8 almost ambiguous, except context might suggest a break. what
*formal* break **could** you get?  (I've always wondered about the
wayyiqtol idea as backbone, so many instances where wayyiqtol sequence
continues while the story has made a clear break.) similarly, other
wayyiqtols, how do *you know* you made a clear break?

independent of aspect, I would think the change of subject beginning
v.8 is significant.

v10 verbless, suggests a little background, inherently imperfective as
it leads into a wayyiqtol.

notice also the use of infinitive+verb end v10 as if it continued a
wayyiqtol chain. very interesting. continues with wattiddor without a
hiccup. 

where are the breaks? still have to work on it. my dissertation has
the potential for working out a discourse grammar that makes Hebrew
behave like a normal language. but I haven't worked it out. what I do
have so far is,

(1) a pretty good guide to backgrounding introductions to passages
(2) a grammar of pronominalization that identifies in interesting ways
paragraphs and larger units. (for instance, the focus for the opening
chapters is Hannah all the way through, from 1:5 systematically.
haven't looked at it rigorously yet: make a good masters thesis)

happy holidays to those who celebrate the fall festival just a little
late. V 
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Vincent DeCaen, Ph.D.  <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~decaen/hsei/intro.html
c/o Deparment of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor, University of Toronto, Toronto ON, M5S 1A1
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The world needs open hearts and open minds, and it is not through
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--Bertrand Russell