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b-hebrew - Re[2]: <wayyiqtol> again

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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: <wayyiqtol> again
  • Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 19:32:23 -0500


Dear Rolf,

I am glad to see you active on this list again. Thank you for sharing
with us the results of your surveys of QATAL and WEQATAL.

It is clear that the categories into which you classified QATAL and
WEQATAL are not the categories which distinguish these forms from
other verb forms (not absolutely in the sense you wish, probably not
even prototypically in the sense recently discussed). If they had been
those categories, I would have expected to find for each verb form one
or a small number of categories widely represented and others almost
empty. So I accept that we can conclude that neither QATAL nor WEQATAL
is a tense pure and simple. However, we cannot go on from there to
suggest alternative distinguishing categories without first defining
those categories carefully and making an analysis according to those
categories. The problem with your suggestion that YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL
are imperfective, QATAL and WEQATAL are perfective, is that, having
admitted that you do not follow well-known definitions of perfective
and imperfective like Comrie's, you have not clearly defined how you
define these aspects and can distinguish between them in a Hebrew
text.

I am grateful to Galia for her clear definition of Reichenbach etc's
three times. I think your deictic point (C) corresponds to Galia's
speech time (S). It seems that when you decide whether a particular
QATAL is past, present or future you are considering the relationship
between E (event time) and S (speech time) - for I think your RT is
not Reichenbach's R (reference time) but his E.

Now I wish that you had been able to make a slightly different
analysis of QATAL and WEQATAL, to determine the relationship between E
and R, as defined by Galia. For my thinking (which could be confirmed
or disproved by the type of analysis which you have done but with
different categories) is that the Hebrew verb system is built around
distinguishing relationships between E and R, and that S is of minor
importance. I would also suggest that the waw conjunction, when
prefixed directly to the verb only, rather than the verb form is what
signals the building of a new R time, i.e. it functions rather like
the conjunction "then" in English. Thus both WAYYIQTOL and WEQATAL
would build a new R time, and that is the essential difference between
these two and the forms QATAL, YIQTOL.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: <wayyiqtol> again
Author: <furuli AT online.no> at Internet
Date: 28/12/1999 01:52


Dear Galia,

I would like to give some comments on your post.


GH
<snip>

RF
I heartily agree with you that the semantic meaning of a verb form does not
change in any context; a form that "is born" (grammaticalized) a preterit
will allways remain a preterit. During the last months I have looked at all
the QATALs and WEQATALs of the Bible. The WEQATALs I have grouped
according to verb class (H"L, W/Y"P etc), position of accent, the relation
between the deictic point (C) and the reference time (RT)/whether they have
past,present, or future meaning/,and according to particular syntactic
properties. The QATALs I have grouped according to the relation between C
and RT, their modality (I differentiate between "subjunctive" and "future
meaning"), and their position in the sentence.


Of 6087 WEQATALs (ambiguous forms were skipped) I found the following
characteristics:

%

PAST 357 5,8
PRESENT 192 3,15
FUTURE 4100 67.35
PERFECT 55 0,9
MODAL 147 2,41
IMPERAT 643 10,56
FINAL 31 0,5
CONDIT,PROT 312 5,12
CONDIT,APOD 123 2,02
GNOMIC 48 0,78
OTHER 79 1,29

Of 13150 QATALs (ambiguous forms were skipped) I found about 800 instances
where RT comes after C (future meaning), and about 1000 where RT coincides
with C (present meaning). I also found about 600 sentence -initial QATALs
and about 200 with clear subjunctive traits. (I am refining the data
regarding the QATALs, so I just give approximate numbers)

The 13.6% of the QATALs with present and future meaning definitely speaks
against the view that QATAL is grammaticalized past tense or has the same
meaning as WAYYIQTOL, and the 5,8 % of WEQATALs with past meaning speaks
against the view that WEQATAL is grammaticalized future tense or has the
same meaning as YIQTOL. As a matter of fact, all the characteristics listed
above for WEQATAL are also found as QATAL characteristics, though in
different percentages. I see no problem in explaining the difference in use
(QATAL mostly with past meaning and WEQATAL with future meaning) by a
combination of syntax and Hebrew linguistic convention, most important
being the versatility of the conjunction waw of the WEQATAL form. Because
you don't take any Hebrew verbal form as a grammaticalized tense,one
obstacle is removed that may prevent others from seriously consider my
conclusion, namely, that there is no inherrent semantic difference
whatsoever between QATAL and WEQATAL- they are one and the same form,
coding for the perfective aspect.


GH
<snip>

RF
I have not yet completed my classification and grouping of WAYYIQTOLs and
YIQTOLs (that I also consider to be one and the same form - representing
the imperfective aspect)...

<snip>





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