Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <brocine AT earthlink.net>]

Hi Rodney,

you wrote:
>
> I have a couple of questions:
> 1) Are these views on aspect in the revised version of
your textbook,
> and if so where?

As you know, my course has as its intended audience the
non-linguist, and it only has the modest goals that are
appropriate for a
first year of study. Just the same, I believe one must have
some
footing in both the verbal semantics and discourse functions
of the verbs to appreciate the power and precision of Bible
writers, so I do constantly refer to the significance of the
writer's choices in particular passages *without* ever using
the terms aspect, perfective, imperfective, internal
temporal constituency, fientive, etc.  I reserve such
terminology for this erudite list where the terminology
itself has cause no small discussion over the years!  ;-)
Nevertheless, many of the key concepts of verbal semantics
and discourse/pragmatics are taught, hoping to prepare
students to enter the world of the basic reference grammars
(and discussion on the b-hebrew list serve   ;-)  ).

I am always trying to improve the book's style and
expression while I have the chance, but the footnotes are
entirely new.  They serve as a link between the course and
other studies.  They put the course in perspective with some
extant literature, occasionally for the bright, hungry
student, and for the
course graduate who needs some direction for his further
independent studies.  You may be especially interested in
the notes accompanying lessons 1-12 and 14, especially
lessons 5 and 14, because they relate to the issue of verbal
semantics.

>
> 2) Regarding wayyiqtol: It is one matter to say that
wayyiqtol is
> 'inherently perfective' and another matter to evaluate
Furuli's thesis
> regarding the yiqtol in wayyiqtol.  Might it not be that
the yiqtol
> focuses in on an action/time-segment of a larger event (as
perceived in
> the mind of the speaker) and that the wa+doubling adds a
forward-moving
> Reference Time that creates a sense of sequentiality and
hence
> perfectivity to most wayyiqtols?

yes and no.  You have described my basic understanding of
the derivation of the wayyiqtol form, and I agree with Rolf
that the vav + gemination does not convert anything .
Nevertheless, it seems that wayyiqtol becomes, perhaps by
mere convention, a form in its own right.  At least I think
the
native speaker used it so fluently, so unthinkingly that it
was a
form in its own right to him.  Are we then talking about
pragmatics or basic, inherent verbal semantics?  Do I need
to insist wayyiqtol is a form in its own right rather than
a cliticized yiqtol?  When does convention stop being
convention and start being semantics?  IMO, there's no
practical difference no matter what I answers we give.  And
so my best shot at elegance in describing the Hebrew verbal
system is in section 14.4 of my book.  Here's an abbreviated
version if the list would
care to comment:

---------------
We can pair the wayyiqtol, yiqtol, qatal, and weqatal verb
forms in three ways to create an overview of the Hebrew
verbal system of finite verb forms:

Shared meanings:
yiqtol and wayyiqtol (prefixed forms) = fientive
qatal and weqatal (suffixed forms)= attributive

Shared functions:
wayyiqtol and weqatal (clause-initial, "vavved" forms)=
mainline
yiqtol and qatal (second position in clause) = off-the-line

Shared genres:
wayyiqtol and (X) qatal = Historical Narrative
weqatal and (X) yiqtol = Predictive Narrative and
Instructional Discourse
---------------------------------------------

You may note that the clause-initial yiqtol, weyiqtol
(volitional forms) are not part of the description.  They
have not been convered by lesson 14 of the course.  The
clause-initial qatal which shows up in oral Historical
Narrastive has also not been covered by lesson 14.

And now let me copy verbatim a perhaps provocative,
clarifying
comment that accompanies the three-fold description above,
in case anyone on list would care to comment:

"The third pairing is the one that comes closest to pairing
the forms by the time or tense that they express.  It is the
pairing that previous introductory grammars stress the most
while ignoring the first two pairings almost completely.
However, it is the third pairing that is actually the least
consistent of the three because all four verb forms are
known to cross time as well as genre boundaries.  We tend,
with our Indo-European language backgrounds, to think of
times, for example past, present or future,  as each being
represented by their own dedicated verb forms.  Not so in
Biblical Hebrew in which time is a function of genre."


>
> 3) Regarding qatal: I think I am beginning to see a
difference between
> what you and Furuli are suggesting--sorry I'm so slow.  At
first it
> seemed that your model of qatal as presenting a
state-of-being of the
> subject was not much different than saying that qatal
presented an event
> time-segment as a whole.  Now, if I understand correctly,
Furuli is
> claiming that the qatal presents an inclusive
beginning-to-end event
> time, and hence a perfective/complete state; whereas you
see qatal as
> making a statement about the state-of-being of a subject
at a given
> point in time which does not preclude that verbal
action/event has yet
> ended.  Am I getting it?

That's an affirmative.

Hoping to help,

Bryan



B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

(office) 315.437.6744
(home) 315.479.8267