Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Peter,


>Rolf Furuli wrote:
>
>If discourse analysis is going to help us at all in our study of the
>Hebrew Bible, we *have to* answer the following questions  in our own
>mind BEFORE we start with it:
>
>(1) Are YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, QATAL, and WEQATAL four different
>conjugations with different semantic meanings, or is there just one
>prefix-conjugation (YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL) and one suffix conjugation
>(QATAL AND WEQATAL)?
>
>Dear Rolf,
>
>I think you have made it abundantly clear why you can never agree with
>most others on this list. Most of us are making it the aim of our
>study of the Hebrew Bible (using discourse analysis as one tool among
>others) to answer your question (1) amongst others. But you seem to be
>requiring us instead to prejudge the answer before we even start our
>study. Is this really the proper scientific approach?

You misunderstand.  My claim is that we cannot do discourse analysis if we
do not already have a viewpoint regarding the number and meaning of the
Hebrew conjugations (This is an observation not a requirement) . Imagine a
linguist who knows nothing about Alviero's or Bryan's approach, and who is
given a text where all we's of WEQATAL and all way's of WAYYIQTOL  are
deleted, and she is asked to do discourse analysis. This would be an
impossible situation in relation to the mentioned systems.

I do not require that we prejudge the answer before we start, to the
contrary, I argue that we, before we start, should make a scientific study
of the smallest parts of the verbal system, to find their meaning. My point
is that if we do not do that, we will consciously or unconsciously *assume*
a meaning for each form, and this is a much weaker position.  I suppose you
will not claim that anybody on the list who is doing discourse analysis has
not already made up his mind whether the way-element of WAYYIQTOL is just a
conjunction or something else. You do not learn the meaning of the
way-element by discourse analysis, you have to assume this meaning.
>
>As for the poetry issue, perhaps we should take seriously the words of
>Comrie.

As a question in the study of Hebrew verbs, yes, as an assumption that it
holds for hebrew, no.

 And please can you name the book you are quoting from, if only
>out of courtesy to its author.

Galia Hatav, 1997, "The Semantics of Aspect and Modality", p 24.
>
>Peter Kirk
>
.
Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
Unioversity of Oslo