Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Matthew Anstey" <manstey AT portal.ca>]

Gday Peter,

>This is an interesting test and one which has the possibility of
>helping to understand wayyiqtol better. But I wonder how we can be
>sure of the "uncontroversial" nature of any examples. For example,
>suppose someone found a (hypothetical) parallel to Gen 38:28 in which
>a wayyiqtol of YLD is used for "give birth", and cited that as
>evidence for imperfective wayyiqtol. Could someone else disprove that
>by saying that (in this context at least) the wayyiqtol of YLD means
>"began to give birth", just as in Numbers 25:1 the wayyiqtol means
>"began to dwell" rather than "dwelled". Is there a clear distinction
>between the verbs "give birth" and "dwell" in this respect? How can
>you explain it clearly? I don't think I am understanding the point you
>are making with "+telic".

Possibly one could find such an example, but I think it would be a
borderline case, rather than a clear-cut one. It is generally well-accepted
that perfective verb forms with unbounded activities or states (like "to
paint" or "to be red") tend to receive ingressive interpretations in
languages. (eg wayye'anash "and he fell ill" 2 Sam 12.15). The key
difference to my mind between yalad and yashab is that yalad is +telic (i.e.
bounded, an accomplishment) and yashab is -telic (ie an activity or state).
So an interrupted yalad wayyiqtol would be interesting. In this context note
however that the YLD is not wayyiqtol. Otherwise it would be I think a clear
interrupted wayyiqtol.

>
>Even so, there may be a problem e.g. with your sentences 1a, 1b.
>Reading a paper is presumably +telic in that it has a defined finish
>point. So would a hypothetical Hebrew version of your 1a or 1b using
>wayyiqtol for "read" be an uncontroversial example of imperfective
>wayyiqtol or not? Or could this be taken as "began to read"?

Again, this is possible, but may not be a normal interpretation of the
sentence. That is why I would like an uncontroversial example, that is
wayyiqtol X ... wayyiqtol Y, where Y (in Hatav's terms) does not update the
R-time, or where Y is included in the R-time of X, or ... (depends how you
define things). Not that one uncontroversial example like Randy's means
wayyiqtol is not perfective, I am just looking for examples at the moment.

I am
>reminded that the Russian imperfective "chitat'" ("to read") has I
>think three perfectives,
>
>1) "prochitat'" = "read through to the end"
>2) "pochitat'" = "read for a bit"
>3) "zachitat'" = "begin to read".
>
>Now you wouldn't use any perfective for your 1a or 1b in Russian, but
>a sentence without a conjunction "I began to read (zachital) the
>paper, John entered" would have the same meaning although the verb is
>perfective and the Aktionsart is at least potentially +telic. Or am I
>confused here?

I don't think there is any confusion, but I don't know Russian, so I can't
comment on your examples. I do know that Dahl suggests that Slavic languages
should not be used (as traditionally so) as an example of aspect-based
languages, not because they are not aspect-based, but because they have
quite an unusual system of aspectuality compared to other aspect-based
languages.

Hope this clarifies a few things. All I am really looking for at the moment
are the sorts of examples Randy offered.

With regards,
Matthew
>
>Peter Kirk
>
>