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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[5]: <wayyiqtol> again
  • Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 00:35:38 -0500


Dear Rolf,

I wonder if I am confusing myself, and no doubt anyone else who is
reading, by making examples too complex on this issue. I certainly
don't want to get into complex matters like the Psalms until I have
understood simple narrative according to your theory. So let's look at
something very simple:

(1) This morning I got up.
(2) After I got up I washed myself.
(3) After I washed myself I got dressed.

How would you analyse these sentences? (And Galia, how would you
analyse them?) The following is how I would expect you, Rolf, to
analyse them, am I right?

(1) C is speech time, RT is "this morning", ET is "I got up".
(2) C is speech time, RT is "I got up", ET is "I washed myself"
(3) C is speech time, RT is "I washed myself", ET is "I got dressed"

But on this analysis, in (2) and (3) RT is BEFORE ET and does not seem
to intersect with it at all. So how would this fit into Broman Olsen's
theory?

Or perhaps in (2) RT is the unspecified time after "I got up" when I
washed myself (or completed doing so), i.e. the same as ET - and
similarly in (3). Which do you think is correct? On this latter
analysis, as RT in (2) and (3) is only specified as after a particular
time, we can say nothing about its relationship with ET. So we cannot
determine whether the verbs are "perfective" or "imperfective"
according to Broman Olsen's definition.

But I guess that Broman Olsen would say that in (1) RT intersects ET
at the nucleus, and so the verb is "imperfective". Well, actually RT
not only "intersects" ET but engulfs it - as if one would ask where a
road intersects with a pencil lying in it in a crosswise direction. Or
is RT an unspecified point of time during this morning? Note that in
Russian the verbs in all three sentences would have to be perfective.
I am very suspicious of definitions of "perfective" and "imperfective"
which contradict Russian usage as (if I understand it correctly) these
terms are borrowed from Russian grammar; if Broman Olsen means
something significantly different from the meaning in Russian (even in
a simple case like this one), she would have done better to use
different terminology.

Either of my analyses above ties in with Galia's idea of building a
new reference time, if I am now right in trying to identify the
concepts of reference time in the two theories (as apparently Broman
Olsen herself wanted to). But is Galia's new reference time in (2) the
time when I got up, or the time after that when I washed myself?

Now let's replace (1-3) by:

(1) This morning I got up.
(2a) Then I washed myself.
(3a) Then I got dressed.

Same analysis? I assume so. Then let's translate into BH. We could
come up with something like:

(4) hayyom babboqer qamti wa'erxac wa'elba$ 'et-bigdi

Would you agree? My point is that the structure is the same as 2 Kings
17:6 and countless other verses in the HB. Now we cannot assume that
the analysis of this Hebrew is the same as the analysis of the English
from which I have translated it, but in this case I can see no good
reason for a different analysis - though I could argue for "hayyom
babboqer" being C for these sentences. Can you see any reason for a
different analysis?

I would like to be able to sort out this simple case before going on
to anything more complicated.

Peter Kirk





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