Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Galia Hatav <ghatav AT aall.ufl.edu>]

Dear Rolf,

You wrote:

>I agree that we cannot take for granted that there is no difference between
>the different books of the Bible, as regards their language. But neither
>can we take for granted that there *is* a difference affecting the temporal
>or aspectual meaning of the verbs.

        No, of course not. However, the morphology has changed, which may
suggest that the verbal system had collapsed by the time of Ezra and
Nehemiah (and this strong claim I heard from colleagues in Israel). The
most prominent change is the form of <wayyiqtol>. In the First Temple books
the form attached to the <waw> is similar to the jussive (some would say it
is the jussive - but this is not relevant for the present discussion),
while in the books of the Second Temple we find verbs where the form is
similar to the cohortative.
In any case, since there are many changes in other areas (not only
vocabulary; Hurvitz shows how syntactic structures in Psalms are different
from the ones in the early books and identical or similar to structures in
the later period, kncluding the Mishnah), one can suspect that this might
have happened in the case of the verb system as well. So a study on the
later books needs to be done, which will confirm or refute the hypothesis.
I suspect that such study will confirm the hypothesis, as we see comments
such as Ben-Hayim, and some evidence as in Saenz-Bandillos.

So how can we know?
>We know there came a change with Mishnaic Hebrew, but this change is
>clearly recognizable. One should not read more than two lines of a text to
>know whether this is Biblical or Mishnaic Hebrew.

        This is why it is so tricky to find the rules of the books in the
Bible. That is also why most people dealing with the BH verb system do not
realize that they should study the two periods separately.

Languages change over
>time, but a change is not necessary in all cases.

        I agree.

Hebrew has been a living
>language up to our time, but I have never heard anybody argue that we
>cannot trust the work of the Masoretes because language *must* change
>during several hundred years.

        But you are probably aware of different versions of the some of the
biblical texts.


>
>When a language evolve, there are several different areas where change
>takes place. First of all the vocabulary is affected, then we have a change
>in style, in linguistic convention, but the most difficult part to change,
>in my opinion, is the semantic meaning of verb forms related to tense and
>aspect.

        I am not a historcal linguist, but intuitively speaking I would say
that actually aspect would be very vonurable to change. We can testify that
from French, where the passe simple has been replaced by passe compose in
many cases, and it remained alive only in literary prose; we can testify
that also in English. Americans less and less use the present perfect,
e.g., and instead they use the simple past (where Britich purists would see
that as a crime).

Realizing that change may occur in different areas, we must be
>careful to make tests that can reveal whether the claimed change is
>pragmatic or semantic.

        I agree.

And here is the danger I mentioned earlier: When the
>verbs in particular books in the Bible seem to contradict our verbal theory
>we can claim the verb meaning has changed when it is our own theory that is
>wrong.

        Yes, there is such danger. We need strong arguments and good
empirical findings to confirm such claim.

We can, for instance, think of the book of Qohelet. Its use of QATAL
>is strange compared with many other books, but WAYYIQTOLs do occur as well,
>and to claim that the book has a different conjugation system is hardly
>possible.

        Why not? As you mentined before, the Mishnah has a different
system, why can't we have a different system for Qohelet? Just because it
happened to be grouped together with other books forming the Bible?

So again, how can we know whether the books of the second temple
>(if we are able to know which books we have to deal with) have another
>verbal system?

        Re your comment in brackets - this has been done independently of
the semantics of the verb forms. I mentioned Hurvitz, but there are many
other accounts, to name one strong name, see E. Kutcher.  Re your question,
this is what research is about.

>
>The best method of which I am aware is: Map all the finite and infinite
>verb forms of the Bible

        Why not add to them all the verbs also from the Mishnah? Just
because you can see without doing any research that the Mishnaic system is
different?

(1) regarding the relations between the deictic
>point and reference time, (2) regarding verb classes, (3) regarding
>position in the clause, (4) regarding particular syntactic functions, (5)
>and regarding mood.

        You are talking now about the method. I believe in theory. Now, if
one agrees with my analysis of the system in the early books, s/he would
examine it with respect to the books form the Second Temple. If it does not
work (i.e., more counter-examples than supportive examples), we come to the
conclusion that the system had changed.

A comparison between Genesis-Kings and the other books
>should reveal if there is a difference in verbal meaning.

        Yes. See my comment above.

If someone else
>has other suggestions about how to find out whether the verbal system has
>changed, I would appreciate that.

        I am not familiar with diachronic techinques. Historical
linguistics  might have developed some ways I am not aware of.


>Regarding Ben-Hayim you wrote: "He also emphasises the importance of
>analyzing the verb forms separately in the prose and the poetry texts."
>What does this mean in practical work? You recently wrote that the semantic
>meaning of a verb form would not change regardless of the context in which
>it occurred; and I agree with this. Because poetry does not have strict
>rules based on linguistic convention, the position of the verb in the
>clause and other factors can be different compared with narrative. It can
>also be more difficult to pinpoint the relation between the deictic point
>and reference time in poetic texts, but how should verb forms be "analyzed
>separately"?

        I agree with you that the forms would not change from my text to
the other with respect to meaning, but they make different uses of their
semantic properties in different contexts. Recall my analogy to people.
People occupy space, so when boarding an air-plane they would form a
space-sequence (a line), but when they are in a room listening to someone
giving a talk they would not.

>
>Let me use an example. Psalm 10 describes how the wicked acts. Verse 6
>starts with the QATAL )MR, and my analyzis is that C=RT, i.e. it has
>present meaning. The following YIQTOL MW+ I analyse as having future
>meaning (C>RT). Going to verse 11, we find that it starts with the QATAL
>)MR as well. I make the following andlysis:
>(1) )MR has present meaning (C=RT), because it is a description of how the
>wicked use to behave without the author having a particular person and
>situation in mind.
>(2) §KX (C=RT) It has perfect meaning. The verb is telic and because the
>wicked refers to something characterizing God, it is natural that God has
>done something that still holds.
>(3) STR (C=RT) as (2)
>(4) R)H (C>RT) It has future meaning because it is connected with LNCX.
>There is a certain parallel in the thoughts of vv 6 and 11. The Wicked
>thinks he will not   be moved from generation to generation (v 6), and the
>reason is that God has forgotten and will never see.
>
>Much of the material in this Psalm is gnomic or describes the
>characteritics of the wicked. This must of course be taken into account.
>However, I cannot see that this would neutralize the semantic meaning
>(which would be a contradiction of terms) of the verbs used. Rather than
>blotting out the meaning of the QATALs it helps me to find the relationship
>between C and RT in the two occurrences of )MR. Regarding the other QATALs
>I cannot see that the gnomic frame of the account has any bearing of the
>analyzis of them. My analysis of the two verses of Psalm 10 is exactly the
>same as if the words had been prose. So how should the analyzis have been
>done if Ben-Hayim's suggestions were followed?

        As Psalms is from a later period and it is also poetry I don't feel
qualified to discuss it.  In principle, however, I can make the following
comment. In order to be able to analyze the passage with respect to the
verbs, one need first to know something about poetry. Then we should
examine the properties established for the forms via narratives and see how
poetry makes use of them.


        Galia

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>Regards
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>Rolf
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>Rolf Furuli
>University of Oslo