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  • From: "Moon-Ryul Jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>
  • To: b-hebrew
  • Subject: Re: Re[2]: Tidbits from Ruth
  • Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 18:30:5


Dear Peter,
I really enjoyed many threads on Hebrew verb forms,
of which you have been active participants. Many thanks for
that. Your conclusion seems to be:

>that "Sequentiality is not the semantic meaning of
> wayyiqtol," but rather that wayyiqtol is the default unmarked past
> tense, which is usually but not always sequential by pragmatic
> implicature

If we ignore stative verbs in English, English simple past
verbs behave similarly as wayyiqtol, don't they?

Respectfully
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea
> whereas other past tense forms such as X-qatal are
> semantically marked for background, temporal overlay or however one
> might put it.
>

> Peter Kirk
>
>
> ______________________________ Reply Separator
> _________________________________
> Subject: Re: Tidbits from Ruth
> Author: furuli AT online.no at internet
> Date: 25/04/1999 16:17
>
>
> Dear Peter and Randall,
>
>
> The only possible conclusion that can be drawn from your posts is that
> sequentality is not *the semantic meaning* of wayyiqtol but only a
> pragmatic implicature! The requirement for sequentiality as a semantic
> meaning would be that wayyiqtols *allways* would express a sequence (the
> following wayyiqtol would always express an action occurring after the one
> expressed by the previous wayyiqtol). However, you both state that this is
> not the case with particular verbs.
>
> I am not sure that you agree in my conclusion, because you both seem to say
> that "This use of wayyiqtol is hendiadys", and that solves everything! I
> have no problems with the term hendiadys and neither with your
> interpretation of it, but the reason for your interpretation is your
> knowledge of the world (which is pragmatics), and in any case will a use of
> one wayyiqtol after another with a non-sequential meaning *definitely* show
> that sequentiality is not a semantic meaning of wayyiqtol.
>
> Could both of you please confirm or deny the following proposition:
> "Sequentiality is not the semantic meaning of wayyiqtol."
>
>
> Regards
> Rolf
>
>
> Rolf Furuli
> Lecturer in Semitic languages
> University of Oslo
> <snip>




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