Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Dear Vince,

Does your statistical study of qatal deal with the problem of weqatal 
which I mentioned to Dave?

For clarification, perhaps someone can give us the statistics for the 
following types of clause (where X and Y are any constituents other 
than verbs and conjunctions, Y may be null but X may not)

A = # qatal + Y
B = # X + qatal + Y
C = # we- + qatal + Y
D = # we- + X + qatal + Y
E = # other conjunction + qatal + Y
F = # other conjunction + X + qatal + Y
G = # wayyiqtol + Y

The problem comes with count C, because we- + qatal is equivalent to 
weqatal and has a semantic shift. Presumably your statistical 
argument, if it excludes weqatal forms as I suspect, is that (B + D + 
F) > (A + E), i.e. the forms with an X predominate. But a better set 
of statistics (at least for those who separate semantics from syntax) 
would include set C; or if people are concerned for correct weighting 
between discourse types they might want to substitute G for C as 
wayyiqtol is (simplistically) the semantic equivalent of we- plus 
qatal. How do the statistics look now? Would I be guessing right to 
say that (A + C + E) > (B + D + F) ? I am sure (A + G + E) would be 
even greater. The other fair comparison would be (A + E) with (B + F), 
or if you prefer to study subordinate clauses perhaps simply E with F. 
But the numbers may then become too small for statistical 
significance.

Your examples may be helpful. But again we have the missing we-. Which 
is more basic, unmarked, statistically common etc:
        (1)     lakkohanim yihyu
or
        (3)     welakkohanim yihyu
? If the latter, as I suspect, the true comparison is not with:
        (2)     yihyu lakkohanim
but with
        (4)     weyihyu lakkohanim
or even
        (5)     wayyihyu lakkohanim
This could give a rather different complexion to the argument.

I am sure you and others who have studied this subject in detail have 
answered this argument somehow. As I don't have access to your 
unpublished dissertation, I would be interested in a summary of your 
answer.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: in favour of SVO, surface and underlying ;-)
Author:  decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca at internet
Date:    12/05/1999 12:42


dear dave, peter, doug, et al,

just to add somewhat to what dave was trying to say...

<snip>
based on statistical studies, using the above definition, i obtain SVO 
as a basic "surface" word order for the purposes of typological 
studies.
underlying order would be theory-internal, but I argued in my 
unpublished dissertation that SVO is also basic. see ch5 especially. 
__________________________________________________________

<snip>

the observation was the basis of my doctoral work, the basic point 
that tends to be obscured in the obsession to deal with aspect. the 
observation can be stated with an example.

(1)     lakkohanim yihyu
(2)     yihyu lakkohanim

according to VSO theory (2) should be unmarked in every way; (1) has 
"emphasis" on priests.
in fact, as has been observed, (1) is basic: they belong to the 
priests; (2) is highly marked and modal: let them belong to the 
priests.

with such minimal pairs, we must argue that (2) represents a 
transformation over (1) to encode mood.

from this it is easy to argue that wayyiqtol, etc, is also derived by 
verb movement. what is encoded by movement is an open question: but 
i'm talking about the syntax here.

QED
________________________________

cheers!
V
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Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor 
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/ 
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Where once the student was taught that the unexamined life was not 
worth living, he is now taught that the profitably lived life is not 
worth examining. --Benjamin Barber

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