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b-hebrew - Re[2]: More on wayyiqtol

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  • From: peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[2]: More on wayyiqtol
  • Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 23:10:39 -0400


Rolf Furuli wrote: "...My work is in progress, but I can reveal that I
have found a completely different pattern for the aspects in Hebrew
than for English. Some glimpses: (1) Only yiqtol and wayyiqtol
intersect the event *before* ET (conative situations). (2) yiqtol,
wayyiqtol, qatal and weqatal intersects ET at the nucleus or at the
beginning of ET. (3) Yiqtol, wayyiqtol, qatal, and weqatal intersect
the event/state *after* ET (This is particularly seen in Piel because
it is resultative and factitive). Conclusion: Aspect is subjective and
not objective! The evidence I gather on the basis of the cancelability
principle indicating that there is just a pragmatic difference between
yiqtol and wayyiqtol and qatal and weqatal and not a semantic one, is
increasing."

Thank you for your clear presentation of your argument. But have I
understood this part correctly? Are you identifying "objective" with
"semantic" and "subjective" with "pragmatic"? It looks like you are
saying that:
1. The method that you have chosen for distinguishing between the
semantic meanings of yiqtol, wayyiqtol, qatal and weqatal fails to
find an objective distinction between them.
2. Therefore, there is no objective distinction, everything is
subjective and pragmatic.

I fear that there is a flaw in your logic here. You assume that the
method you have chosen is the only possible objective way of
distinguishing the verb forms, or at least that every possible method
will give the same result. Your method is no doubt a good one and
helpful for analysis of many languages. But it is clearly failing to
analyse Hebrew. You would get a similar result if you tried to analyse
in terms of tenses a purely aspectual language, or vice versa. I would
suggest that you try to analyse Hebrew from other directions, using
distinctions other than those based on reference time and event time.
If they all seem to fail, then maybe you are right that everything is
pragmatic. But as some of the more traditional analyses have come
closer to finding objective distinctions (though granted no-one has
found the near 100% that you are seeking), that suggests that they are
closer to finding whatever objective semantic distinctions may exist
between verb forms.

Rolf immediately continued: "I have started with a study of
Phoenician, Ugaritic and Accadian to scrutinize the claim that there
existed a short prefix-form coding for past tense, and that wayyiqtol
is a continuance of this form. The application of the cancelability
principle to the material so far, seems to rule out such a preterite,
because the short form in the material codes for past, present and
future."

Well, thank you for answering Randall's and other criticisms of my
version of the historic present hypothesis. But then I am not sure
that they or I will be convinced by this argument or at least this
presentation of it.

Peter Kirk





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