Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Peter.

I still see no answer to my principal questions, so I have to repeat them,

In Jer 47:3 (and the other mentioned places) we have a telic event where
the predicate is a YIQTOL. A common denominator for almost all definitions
of aspect is that the imperfective aspect is a viewpoint that does not
include the end of an event.  Is the end of NCH included in the YIQTOL in
this verse? In that case, how can it be imperfective? And similarly with
the tense-view. The end is always included in a  telic event expressed by a
finite verb in past tense. If YIQTOL is a non-past tense where the end is
not included, how can it be used in this situation when the end objectively
was terminated?

An explanation like: "This is because it is preceded by B+RM." is a
non-explanation, because you have not answered the questions "how" and
"why". The usual explanation for YIQTOLs with past meaning is that they are
durative. However, durativity is a semantic characteristic connected with
the Aktionsart of the verb, and a QATAL or an infinitive of a verb that is
semantically durative is just as durative as a YIQTOL (an explanation that
the durativity lasts for some time does not help much) And such
explanations  completely impossible with telic events. The only way I am
able to explain NCH in Jer 47:1 is that *a part* of the action is focussed
upon, and that *the end is ignored*, just as if an infinitive was used.
This means that whether the end of an action in the past was reached or not
is not signalled by QATAL  or YIQTOL (Although there are certain
preferences), but it is signalled by the context.

Please show *why* this conclusion is wrong, if that is your opinion, and
show *why* we can uphold an aspectual or a tense-view of the verbs and at
the same time use YIQTOLs to describe telic events in the past.




Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo





>Dear Rolf,
>
>See my comments below.
>
>
>
>Peter Kirk  wrote
>
>
>
>>Dear Rolf,
>>
>>I feel bad about answering this without reading it all. But you seem
>>to have ignored the fact that +EREM and B:+EREM are regularly followed
>>by YIQTOL. See GKC 107c, 152r. I guess this is because the idea of
>>"before" carries futurity and/or modality. That is to say, the event
>>time of the subordinate clause is after the event time of the main
>>clause. I have a feeling that in Hebrew the time of a subordinate
>>clause is regularly judged in relation to that of the main clause
>>rather than directly related to the overall deictic point. Thus in the
>>same way QATAL is regularly used in subordinate clauses introduced
>>with KIY even where the main clause is future and/or modal. Have I got
>>that right? If so, I really think we don't need to go into any of your
>>other theories to explain Jer 47:1.
>
>
>Dear Peter,
>
>
>Your points above are not an explanation of the problem I posed, namely,
>how telic YIQTOLs could be used for events that ware completed  ( provided
>that we either view YIQTOL as an imperfective aspect or  a non-past tense).
>Given one of these definitions, it should not be possible to use a YIQTOL
>in the mentioned situations.
>
>PK: My point is that a non-past tense is appropriate in the
>subordinate clause because the events were not completed at the time
>of the main clause events.
>
>I am aware of what GCK and other grammars say about +EREM and B+ERM, and my
>first post included an implicit criticism of these comments. We should
>check out the information ourselves and not rely on information that has
>been repeated from one grammar to the next, from the last century or even
>from the Middle Ages, and which never has been thorougly checked.
>
>PK: Indeed. But we should not reject them without adequate evidence. I
>was relying on GKC only for its statistics (your FREQUENTLY) and not
>for its explanation.
>
>GKC 107 c says: "The imperfect is FREQUENTLY (my bold script) used in this
>way /to express actions that continued throughout a longer or shorter
>period/ after the particles )Z then, +RM  not yet, B+RM  before." At most,
>this is an observation that explains absolutely nothing as to WHY a YIQTOL
>is used in these cases.  And further,  the observation itself is
>questionable.  A search revealed only 18 examples of )Z followed by a
>YIQTOL  with past meaning,14 examples of B+RM  and 7 examples of +RM
>followed by YIQTOLs with past meaning. I have a list of more than 500
>examples of YIQTOL with past meaning, and I expect this number to be more
>than doubled when I finish my corpus. This means that less than 4 percent
>of the YIQTOLs with past meaning occur after these particles.
>
>PK: Well, you can prove anything with statistics, it seems. Here, not
>only is your interpretation doubtful, also your raw data are not
>correct. Did you simply search for +RM followed by Y? There are many
>1st and 2nd person YIQTOLs here. The results I have are:
>
>+RM     YIQTOL 13 times       QATAL 2 times (Gen 24:15, 1 Sam 3:7)
>B+RM    YIQTOL 35 times       QATAL 2 times (Psa 90:2, Pro 8:25)
>                              infinitive construct once (Zep 2:2)
>M+RM                          infinitive construct once (Hag 2:15)
>
>Thus I would replace GKC's "frequently" by "regularly" with just a few
>exceptions. Of course this is only a small proportion of all YIQTOLs,
>but more to the point it is all the occurrences of +RM. I have not
>looked at )Z which is not directly relevant, there is no particular
>reason why it should pattern like +RM.
>
>Let me add that I found 4 examples of YIQTOL after +RM  and B+RM with
>present meaning and 17 examples with future meaning....
>
>PK: I don't understand. By the very meaning of +RM all of these
>examples have future meaning compared with the time of the events in
>the immediate context. I think the statistics clearly demonstrate that
>the relationship to the overall deictic point is irrelevant.
>
>..I also found 4 QATALs with past meaning after the two particles .
>Regarding )Z  I found 45 YIQTOLs with future meaning after it, 34 QATALs
>with past meaning and 3 QATALs with future meaning. So the particles are
>used both with YIQTOLs and QATALs with past and future meaning.  We can
>therefore draw no conclusion as to why a      YIQTOL  is used in Jer 47:1
>by the mere presence of B+RM.
>
>PK: It is clear to me that the YIQTOL here is simply the normal rule
>after +RM. Now you might want to investigate why there is a QATAL in a
>few exceptional cases.
>