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  • From: Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[2]: wayyiqtol test
  • Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 23:45:01 -0500 (EST)



I wonder if Dave and Bryan are working on different definitions of
perfectivity here. My understanding is based on my knowledge of
Russian, but also agrees with Bryan's definition.

Dave proposed sentences and wrote:

c) John ate a piece of pie.
d) John ate some pie.

In c, we have a definite end-boundary as you said. In d, I'm not
sure we do. How much pie? We don't know, hence in a very real
sense we're not sure where the end-boundary is. It gets even less
clear if we add a temporal modifier:

e) John ate some pie while he waited for the party to begin.

The element in these clauses that we want to know about is the
simple past tense verb "ate." I would suggest that all 3 clauses
are "good" English, yet they use the same verb form in very
different aspectual contexts. c is clearly perfective, while d is
ambiguous and e is clearly imperfective. But we can make d sort
of perfective if we add the following:

f) John ate some pie and then went back to the dance floor.

Here we have an explicit end-boundary, but it isn't provided by the
form of "ate," it's provided by the temporal indicator "then"
introducing the next clause.

PK: In Russian, all four of these would use a perfective verb, but
perhaps not the same one. There is a well-known distinction between:

g) Ivan prochital gazetu - Ivan read right through the newspaper
h) Ivan pochital gazetu - Ivan read for a bit from the newspaper

Both are perfective, and distinct from

i) Ivan chital gazetu - Ivan was reading the newspaper (imperfective)

But a time clause, whether "this morning" or "while he waited for the
party to begin", does not affect the perfectivity issue, unless it
indicates repetitivity e.g. "every morning". In d) the verb form (and
the word "some" which suggests that some pie remained uneaten)
suggests to me that there was an end, though we have no information
about it; in English we would say "John is/was eating a piece of pie"
if there is no finish. In e) the while clause implies that John
finished eating before he finished waiting or at the same time; the
corresponding imperfective situation would be:

j) John was eating a piece of pie when the party began.

I would not say that "some pie" is impossible here, but the meaning of
"some" is subtly different from in d), e) and f) as there is no
suggestion here that other pie was left uneaten.

Peter Kirk





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