Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rodney K. Duke" <dukerk AT appstate.edu>]

Dear Colleagues,

It seems to me that Rolf Furuli has taken a little "heat" for posing his
questions about the Hab. passage and not restating his position;
however, the same posters say that they know what his position is,
because he has repeatedly stated it--and he has.  Although it would be
interesting to see how he would handle translating the passage into
English, a language in which he would have to make decisions about
tense, that exercise would be outside of the point of the thesis that he
has presented.

I would not yet say that I accept his thesis, but I have been trying to
view the Hebrew text from his perspective to see what the results would
be, and I tend to think that his thesis actually complements what the
discourse grammarians are saying.

His thesis, as I understand it, identifies a semantic MINIMUM for verb
forms based on yiqtol and qatal.  Given an event with the event time on
a line segment from point A to point B, a speaker with a narrow focus on
some "part" of the event between A and B uses the yiqtol, and a speaker
focusing on the whole of the event from A to B uses the qatal.

[Even if one has concluded on the basis of evidence from another Semitic
language that there are two (or more) prefixed (yiqtol) forms, a short
("preterit") and a long ("imperfect") form, it begs the question not to
ask Rolf's questions of that language as well: What are the exact
semantic differences and/or similarities between its prefixed forms and
between its prefixed (yiqtol) and suffixed (qatal) forms--as well as
looking for discourse patterns in that language.  It may or may not be
that yaqtul and yaqtulu have the same minimal semantic aspect and are
still used in different time settings.]

[My slant on his theory is to look at yiqtols as expressing the
speaker's perspective of a specific, narrow, ACTION orientation, and to
look at qatals as expressing a perspective that is more an EVENT,
naming, orientation, (similar to what Rocine has advocated) and to see
if this thesis works.]

Such a thesis, if correct, would rule out an absolute (semantic)
understanding of a 4 verb-form "tense" system.  HOWEVER, it does not
seem to rule out the possibility of a 4 verb-form system of temporal
deixis (temporal inclination), because it does not rule out other
grammatical influences.  After all, those "forms" include other elements
(wa + doubling and we), are found in pragmatic contexts and are often
accompanied by other temporal indicators.  We are still left with the
general "rule" that wayyiqtol and qatal (better: x-qatal) are used in
past-time contexts, and yiqtol (x-yiqtol) and weqatal are used in
future-time contexts.

When Furuli's thesis is combined with the observations of discourse
grammarians, it just might help explain some of those verb patterns.  I
would appreciate help thinking through these patterns.  For instance:

1) HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: mainly a report of a series of actions
composing larger events/episodes.

a) Introduction: sometimes by x-qatal which can do such things as name
the event/episode that is about to be narrated or provide the background
setting for the following narration.

b) Mainline/continuation form: wayyiqtol generally part of a forward
moving sequence (in terms of speaker's reference time) of actions

c) Offline comment: x-qatal, tends to stop the forward progress of the
story and provide information of a broader focus.
[A wayyiqtol - x-qatal sequence sometimes presents a complete event with
the wayyiqtol beginning the action ("And God called the light day") and
the x-qatal completing the event ("and the darkness he called night").]

d) Offline relative past background: asher-qatal, again event, static,
nominally oriented

e) Offline relative non-past background: asher-yiqtol, tends to be
another action within the same event time

Evaluation: Furuli's minimal semantic meanings seem to work well with
this type of discourse.


2) HORTATORY DISCOURSE
a) Mainline/continuation forms: imperative, jussive, cohortative (yiqtol
forms) which express the intention to moving the audience to a series of
actions: "Do A, B, C, etc."

b) weqatal: (I know there has been much discussion among Niccacci,
Martin and Rocine about this) It seems to function either as a milder
continuation form as INSTRUCTION, which is rather GOAL oriented, or as
consequential STATE, noticed particularly when the subject shifts.

c) Offline x-yiqtol, can provide specific instructional actions which go
along with or define a preceding command (See Dt 6:12,13).  Again the
yiqtol seems to have a narrower focus.

Evaluation: Furuli's thesis provides a workable model here, but it is
hard to get out of the circle here of concluding what is being assumed.


3) PREDICTIVE NARRATIVE which is much the same as INSTRUCTIONAL
DISCOURSE
a) Mainline/continuation form: weqatal  Viewed from Furuli's thesis
these forms would be seen as expressing future events or goals, and the

b) Offline x-yiqtols would create a pause to define them from a narrower
focus.

Evaluation: Workable, but I don't have a sound enough grasp of this form
of discourse to know that I'm not just caught in a methodological
circle.


4) EXPOSITORY/DESCRIPTIVE DISCOURSE
a) Mainline/continuation: verbless clauses

b) Offline/lower ranking: x-qatal, x-yiqtol, x-participle

Evaluation: Furuli's recent examples from Neh 3 (see below) of the
descriptions of the wall-building efforts in which one finds a variety
of the verb forms seemed to work particularly well.  On the one hand,
trying to impose an absolute 4 verb-form "tense" system on these texts
results in confusion.  On the other hand his model made sense.  [There
can be some fluidity on the part of a speaker as to whether the speaker
perceives an activity as a narrow action or as a broader event.  The
same activity can be viewed/presented either way depending on what the
speaker is communicating.]  In these texts the qatals generally present
the broader event-oriented perspective and the yiqtols present the more
specific actions within those events.

--------
Neh. 3:13-15 (from Furuli's post of April 24, 1999):
(13) The Valley Gate was repaired (qatal) by Hanun and the residents of
Zanoah. They rebuilt it (qatal) and put (wayyiqtol) its doors and bolts
and bars in place. They also repaired five hundred yards of the wall as
far as the Dung Gate.
(14) The Dung Gate was repaired (qatal) by Malkijah son of Recab, ruler
of the district of Beth Hakkerem. He rebuilt it (yiqtol) and put
(weyiqtol) its doors and bolts and bars in place.
(15) The Fountain Gate was repaired (qatal) by Shallun son of Col-Hozeh,
ruler of the district of Mizpah. He rebuilt it (yiqtol), roofing it over
(weyiqtol) and putting (weyiqtol) its doors and bolts and bars in
place.  He also repaired the wall of the Pool of Siloam, by the King's
Garden, as far as the steps going down from the City of David.
------------
What do you think?

Sincerely,
Rodney

--
Rodney K. Duke
Dept. of Phil. & Rel., Appalachian State Univ., Boone, NC 28608
(O) 828-262-3091, (FAX) 828-262-6619, dukerk AT appstate.edu