Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Colleagues,

Picking up on the recent contributions of Rocine (see below), Furuli, and 
Kirk, please permit me one more
time to pose the issue as a question or challenge to be explored by the list 
members.

[Comment: I do not have a theory that I claim I can ‘prove’ while your job is 
to shoot holes in it or
while you respond with defenses of your favorite theory.  That is one method 
of scholarship, but not the
only one.  As has been mentioned by Kirk and others: we have a verbal system 
that we are all trying to
comprehend.  I am searching for the explanation that works the best.  The 
thesis below might be
‘dead-end,’ but I have not yet seen/heard of many list members who have tried 
to work with it.  I am
seeking to find out what the results are when you, the scholarly community, 
try out a new thesis to see
if it works better or worse than older theses (i.e. another model of 
scholarship).]

I am simply proposing to the list members: (1) What if we put aside whatever 
theory we were taught or
have come to accept about the Hebrew verbal system; and (2) what if we first 
just ask, “Is there an
*irreducible semantic minimum* to the prefixed conjugation that differs from 
that of the suffixed
conjugation? (Furuli’s question); and (3) that we try out the following model 
from our various
perspectives and see if it seems to work or not.

Given a time line: A___B___C___D:

a) A speaker uses yiqtols to express the verbal idea of ACTION.  (The speaker 
might have in mind that
which took/takes/will take place between points B and C on the time line, but 
has a ‘narrow’ or focus on
segment B-C, generally viewing B-C as belonging to a larger EVENT which could 
be A-C, B-D, A-D).  Because
of this narrow focus on action, the yiqtol also has a kind of modal nuance of 
“not-yet-ness”.

b) A speaker uses qatals to express the verbal idea of EVENT.  (The speaker 
might still have in mind what
took/takes/will take place between points B and C, but be viewing the unit as 
a whole with more of an
attributive or stative quality to it.)  Because of this more attributive or 
nominalizing perspective, the
qatal has a non-modal nuance of actuality.

The above model, I admit, is my attempt to synthesis an inadequate 
understanding of what appears to be
possibly overlapping contributions, particularly of Rocine, Furuli, and 
Hatav, but also of some ideas of
DeCaen and Niccacci—although all of the above might rightly deny having 
anything to do with the above
model.

My question to Professor Buth and those who hold to the cognate-preterit 
model is this: Might there still
be such an *irreducible semantic minimum*, even in the cognate languages?  
Even though the long prefixed
form is used in past time--putting that usage aside from this question--might 
the prefixed conjugations
still have a common semantic value that is different from that of the 
suffixed conjugations?  Has anyone
gone back to these cognates with this question and/or with this model in mind?

My question to the discourse grammarians is this:  Does such a basic, minimum 
semantic difference help to
explain the kind of verb sequence patterns you find in different kinds of 
discourse?   (For instance, in
narrative, one can see how an x-qatal sometime completes an event introduced 
by a wayyiqtol, or how an
x-qatal introduces an event that took place before an action reported by a 
wayyiqtol.)

[Comment: A few weeks ago I posted an attempt to try to integrate this model 
with discourse analysis.
For instance, I speculated on why one might use the semantic value of the 
prefixed verb form, as
suggested in ‘a’ above, and use the form wayyiqtol in past-time narration: 1) 
the narrator uses a
prefixed form to make more vivid the ACTION of the story being told, and 2) 
because the narrator sees a
sequence of actions as comprising a larger event.  And, because the 
wa+doubling seems generally to move
the reference time forward, the particular form of wayyiqtol becomes the form 
of choice for mainline past
narration.  (The question of whether or not wayyiqtol intrinsically indicates 
tense or has temporal dexis
is a separate question.)]

The main problem I face is with the subjectivity involved.  I can creatively 
imagine ways in which I
might make the above model work.  To get some control over this subjectivity, 
I have asked you much more
qualified linguists and grammarians to see if you think it can ‘work’ and if 
so, whether or not it works
better than other theses.  Perhaps there has been something about my requests 
that appear too naive for
people to be interested in exploring the model.  If so, please explain to me 
why.
Thanks!

Rodney



> Subject: Re: Re[2]: die Flucht ins Prasens, Peter
> From: "Bryan Rocine" <brocine AT earthlink.net>
> Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 15:21:17 -0400
> X-Message-Number: 6
>
> <snip - much deleted>
>
> Many experts on verbal semantics assert that the morphology
> of a language's verbs will exhibit a consistent meaning.
> That seems intuitively obvious.  In the terms of BH, it
> seems intuitively obvious that prefixed forms will share a
> meaning with prefixed forms and suffixed with
> suffixed...this rather than one prefixed form sharing a
> meaning with one suffixed, while the other prefixed shares a
> meaning with the other suffixed.
>
> I wonder, if we found the MT  for the first time this week,
> so that we would have no extant traditions or translations
> for the meanings of the forms, what assumptions we would
> begin with in our studies of the BH verb system and what
> assumptions would survive the rigors of our scrutiny.  I
> think the assumption, "same form, same meaning" would be a
> sensible start, and I also think it would survive.
>

<snip -  deleted material>

>
>    I can only guess at why the weqatal
> could become the mainline of +projection genres Predictive
> Narrative (story set in the future), Instructional Discourse
> (how to do it), and the modal genre Procedural Discourse
> (how it was done).  I would guess that these genres are
> naturally less vivid (more abstract, generic) in the mind
> than history.  Unfortunately, such guesses are quite hard to
> confirm and run the risk of being mere folklore.  In any
> case, in Predictive Narrative, for instance, a series of
> weqatals expresses a series of "states" that the subject
> will be in at a series of forward-moving points in time.
>
> (As you may gather, I associate, for both wayyiqtol and
> weqatal, the forward movement of time more to the cliticized
> vav than the verb form proper.)
>
> As for the fulfillment:  We might use the term *vivid* to
> refer to the fientive wayyiqtol.  The historical text, as
> much as history is vivid in the memory of the writer, and to
> make history vivid to the audience, prefers the prefixed
> form.  Again, possibly only a nice, psycho-linguistic
> etiological tale, but you might find it thought-provoking.
>
> I realize the picture of the BHVS is not now complete, but
> we're not in a hurry, right?  We can build more of the model
> as we go, a piece at a time.  I fear being long-winded.
>
> Hoping to help,
> Bryan
>
> B. M. Rocine

--
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