Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Bryan Rocine wrote:


>Hi Rolf,
>I'll try to get a look at your careful comparison in forms when I can.  In
>the meantime, how do you keep track of the shifts from punctual to habitual
>in 1 Sam 1:1-10?
>
>Shalom,
>Bryan

Dear Bryan,

I think the terms "punctual" and and its opposite "durative" easily lend
themselves to misunderstanding. I see for instance no problem in saying
that a situation is both "punctual" and "habitual". But I see two other
important problems: 1) The use of discourse analysis in a
deductive-nomologic way, i.e. the same way as the laws of nature are used
in explanations in the natural sciences, and 2) the definition of aspect in
Aktionsart terms.

Let us compare the first part of vv 2 and 7:
 "And that man went up (we(falf) from his city year after year"
"And so he did (ya(a:&e) year after year"

Starting with the Aktionsart, both the verb (flf and (f&f are
durative,i.e., they are fientive and their action continues. Because
durativity is a property of Aktionsart it is confusing in my mind to use
the opposition durative/punctual as a description of the aspects. Both the
verb of v 2 and the one of v 7 are by nature durative, and the fact that
the form of one is qatal and the other is yiqtol does not add or substract
anything to their durativity.

Continuing with a discreet discourse analysis, we observe that the setting
is narrative, and this tells us that both verbs indicate past time (but not
past tense).

If we proceed and ask for the semantics of the two clauses, we draw the
conclusion that both describe a habit or something occurring with a certain
frequency. Which part of the two clauses constitute the principal signals
for this habituality? Of course the adverbials. So neither the Aktionsart
of the verbs nor their aspect are crucial for the habitual interpretation,
but rather two nouns and a preposition. To say that the adverbial in each
verse shows that the aspects of both the qatal and the yiqtol are
imperfective, fails to take into account that meaning is conveyed by the
interplay of the different "semantic planes": Aktionsart, Aspect, the
relations between subject/object and verb, a knowledge of the world, and
last but not least, the linguistic conventions of the day. The nature of
one of these semantic planes is not changed into something else by any of
the other planes; each plane is a semantic unit. But the working together
of the different planes convey meaning. A deductive-nomologic use of
discourse analysis creates confusion because it forces upon some of the
semantic planes foreign meanings.

Let us look at the last part of v 7 where we have one yiqtol, immediately
followed by a wayyiqtol and after a negation, we have a yiqtol. All these
verbs are a part of the narrative and consequently have past meaning. Is
there any semantic difference between the wayyiqtol and the two yiqtols. I
say no!  We have in this sequence an example of a construction which I have
seen hundreds of times in the BHS, namely, that a particle is inserted into
a sequence of verbs making a verb into a yiqtol which, without the
particle, would have been written as a wayyiqtol.   The sequence is : "and
she provoked her (yiqtol), and she wept (wayyiqtol), and she did not eat
(yiqtol).  The particle I have in mind is lo preceded by waw (in other
contexts are other particles used with the same effect). Suppose now that
we dropped lo, how would the last verb have been written? Of course as a
wayyiqtol, and the meaning would not have been different from the present
yiqtol. I therefore claim that all yiqtols and wayyiqtols are imperfective,
the creation of the wayyiqtols is simply a matter of linguistic convention
and discourse rules without any semantic significance.

As an example of the subjective nature (not objective Aktionsart nature) of
the aspects, please look at vv 6 ,7 and 8 in chapter 2. Here we have 7
participles, 2 yiqtols and 1 wayyiqtol, all indicating the same time and
describing a similar event. Note also that the "anomalous" use of yiqtols
with past meaning continues in chapter 2.

Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo