Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Moon-Ryul Jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

Dear Rolf,
I always enjoy reading your post, especially because you use "language of
modern linguistics" which I am familiar with.  You once wrote about your 
distinction between objective aspect and subjective aspect, which I did not 
quite
understand. Now you brought the subject again. This time the presentation 
is
clearer. Let me try to understand it. Let me quote some  important 
paragraphs
you wrote.  (the expressions within bracket [..] are added by me)


[Rolf]
The most important point is whether aspect is an expression of
*the internal time* of an event or not. In Broman Olsen's model tense is 
an
expression of deictic time and aspect is an expression of internal,
non-deictic time (Comrie agrees). This gives aspect
(in English) an objective meaning; i.e. the interpretation of the 
different
combinations of tense and aspect gives a uniform interpretation of the
event (deictic time and internal time).

To define [Hebrew] aspect I must take into account that it is a
subjective viewpoint of the reporter and is not concerned with internal
time, that most (but not all) imperfective verbs intersect ET either at 
the
beginning or at the nucleus, and that most (but not all) perfective verbs
either intersect ET at the coda or include the whole event with details 
not
visible. 

[Moon] 
According to the above statement, Hebrew aspect would have been concerned 
with
internal time and thereby would have been "objective aspect", 
if  the RT of  ALL  imperfective verbs intersect ET either at the 
beginning
or at the necleus, and the RT of ALL perfective verbs either intersect ET 
at the code or
include  the whole event with details not visible. 

But, this is not the case, as shown by the following observation.

[Rolf]
 (1) yiqtol and wayyiqtol [can] intersect the event [have the RT]
     *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). 

[Moon]
 (2)  indicates that both imperfective verb forms and perfective verb forms 
have the RT
       at the nucleus or at the beginning, that is, they are 
[+imperfective]
       to use Oslen's terminology..
 (3)  indicates that both imperfective and perfective verb forms have the 
RT
       after the ET (I understand it as "at the coda of the ET"),  that is, 
they
       are [+perfective].


(2) means that  the relationship between the RT and the ET indicated
 by [+imperfective] aspect can  occur both in imperfective verbs and 
perfective verbs.
Similarly  with respect to (3). All this means that Hebrew aspect has 
nothing to
do with the (objective) relationship between the RT and the ET, 
or the internal time, indicated by Olsen's  [+imperfective] and
[+perfective] distinction.  Is this interpretation right?

If so,  I like this explanation. It reveals that
Hebrew aspect is really different from aspect found in English and similar 
languages.
But it depends on how much correct the observation you referred to. It 
depends on how
you interpret the text, which is in turn influenced by your theory. (Is 
there any way to
break this circular reasoning?)

About observation  (1), is it so "strange" when imperfective forms are 
used
to denote conative situations?  We seem to have such cases in English and 
in Greek.
The fact that wayyiqtol forms are used that way raises a question. Do you 
have examples?
 



[Rolf]
The most narrow generalization I can make on the basis of these
points is:

"The imperfective aspect is a closeup view of a small part of an event or
state with visible details, and the perfective aspect is a broader view
from some distance with no visible details (The end of the event is not
included in the definition but has indirectyly some importance).

If we can show that the Hebrew conjugations do not represent tense, the
alternative seems to be that they represent aspect. However, because of 
the
seemingly haphazard use of the conjugations in non-narrative texts, we are
allowed to post the following question: Is it possible to think of aspects
that do not represent internal time? In other words, can we retain the 
view
that aspects represent different viewpoints, and that the end is 
important,
while we discard the notion that the aspects represent internal time in an
objective way? 

To put the question in a practical fashion: Must we conclude
that past events which are portrayed with the imperfective aspect were not
terminated at the point when the reporter focussed upon them (the RT)?

[Moon] Is there a typo here? Shouldn't "not" be omitted here?

These questions are crucial, and I think they all can be answered in the
affirmative. The disticntion subjective/objective, therefore, has to do
with whether or not aspect represents internal time, not whether aspect is
semantic or pragmatic!

[Moon]
Do you mean that in English aspect is  semantic and objective, and 
in Hebrew aspect is semantic and subjective? 
 All linguistic features are divided into "semantic" and
"pragmatic". (Semantic features cannot be canceled by context, while 
pragmatic
 features can.) So aspect should be either semantic or pragmatic.

Incidentally, in English feature [+perfective] may be represented by 
perfect verb forms
or simple past verb forms depending on context. So feature [+perfective] 
should be
pragmatic. But I have the impression you think in English feature 
[+perfective]
is semantic. Is it so?

Respectfully, 
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea