Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Rolf,

I also do not want to go on with this much longer. But I will make a 
few more points below.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: Diachronic Hebrew (was <wayyiqtol> again)
Author:  <furuli AT online.no> at Internet
Date:    05/01/2000 15:03


Dear Peter,

I do not think that we should proceed this thread much longer; just a few 
comments. And you are of course free to make your comments.

<snip>

>RF
>.. So we have to start with the data from the unpointed manuscripts. 
>Everybody can see that the orthography just distinguishes between two groups 
>of verbs. But are there more than two? Those who claim that should prove it, 
>and before this is done I just see two (without assuming just two).
>
>PK: I would say that everyone can see from the orthography, including 
>the pointing which is part of the orthography, that there are five. 
>But, as you point out, the situation is a little more complex than 
>this superficial judgment. So let both sides demonstrate their cases 
>equally without presuppositions. Actually you said almost this at the 
>end of your first paragraph above.

RF
The normal use of "orthography" in Hebrew studies, as I have learned it, is 
as a reference to consonants and not to vowels. In all the old unpointed 
manuscripts we can differentiate between just two groups of verbs. Origen, 
in his transliteration of Hebrew texts did not distinguish between more than 
two; he did for instance not differentiate between WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL. 
The first time we see a difference that *is compatible with* but does not 
prove there are five conjugations (by "conjugation" I mean a gruop that 
semantically is different from another group).

PK: I was using "orthography" in the sense I have learned it in more 
general studies as meaning the entire writing system, all of the marks 
made on the paper or whatever to represent the language. To avoid 
confusion, I will speak of "writing system" instead. As usual, half of 
the problem with understanding what you write is the terminology you 
use.

PK: There is of course even in the unpointed text a difference (apart 
from the W) between non-jussive YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL in a significant 
minority of verb forms, the difference between long and short suffix 
forms. I think this is found fairly consistently in all MSS including 
ancient unpointed ones. You need to explain this also.

PK: As for Origen, I don't rate his evidence highly. If I remember 
rightly, he knew no Hebrew and presumably based his transliteration on 
how he heard and rendered into the Greek vowel system and orthography 
the Hebrew text being read aloud. The reader probably didn't know much 
Hebrew either and was relying on memory rather than understanding to 
correctly vocalise the text. So either the reader was failing to 
clearly distinguish WEYIQTOL from WAYYIQTOL, or he was distinguishing 
them but the vowels in both fell within the area of sound which Origen 
rendered with alpha. And then we must remember that we only have some 
very small fragments of Origen's Hebrew transliteration. So I would 
not take this as a decisive witness.

RF: The onus of proof is not the same for me and those who claim there are 
four (or five) conjugations. I do not claim anything, just note that the 
orthography separates two groups of verbs, the prefix-form and the 
suffix-form, and I try to account for the difference in function between 
these two...

PK: And I "do not claim anything, just note that" the full writing 
system including vowel points separates five groups of verbs, and I 
try to account for the differences between them all. How is the onus 
of proof different?

RF:... I further point out that the apparent differentiation of five groups 
in the MT need not be more than a stylistic or syntactic phenomenon where 
the conjunction WAW plays an important role (and even you will say that two 
of the five, WEYIQTOL  and YIQTOL have the same semantic meaning). So far I 
have not found any instance of WAYYIQTOL, WEYIQTOL  or WEQATAL that cannot 
be accounted for by the use and meaning of the conjunction WAW. So again, I 
am not claiming any number of conjugation, just pointing out what is seen by 
the orthography, that there are two different groups. When you claim more 
specification to the point where you see four (or five) groups with 
different semantic meaning, it is *your* task to prove that these four (or 
five) really do exist. You ought to demonstrate two important points: (1) 
that the WE- of WEQATAL  and WEYIQTOL and WAYY- of WAYYIQTOL is more than 
the simple conjunction, and (2) that there is a semantic difference between 
the four (or five) apparent groups...

PK: I think (1) will be a consequence of (2). The forms exist, in the 
pointed text. The task is to demonstrate how they relate to one 
another semantically. I don't take this as my personal task, but it is 
a task which the scholarly community as a whole has been busy with and 
in which I may be able to play a part.

RF: ...I will of course rivew your evidence once it is contributed, and if 
I still see just two conjugations I must be able the account for all uses 
of the verbs from the point of view of two conjugations. If I am able to do 
that, I can relax and say: Hei, on the basis of orthography I see just two 
conjugations, so I will not believe in more before that has been 
demonstrated.

<snip>
>
>PK: I do not presuppose, as you seem to, the relevance of "past 
>meaning" as you define it to the analysis of Hebrew verb forms. Indeed 
>I have yet to see it demonstrated that the relationship between C and 
>RT is a factor in the choice of verb form in Hebrew, or even that C is 
>a definable and useful concept in Hebrew. The direction our other 
>thread seems to be going in is that the verb form depends on the 
>relationship between RT and ET, and perhaps between RT and the RT of 
>the previous clause, with additional factors of aspect and modality. 
>But my own thinking in that direction is far from mature. I am 
>grateful for your continuing help to my thoughts.


My research is based on truth-conditional lingustics, as is the case with 
Galia's work as well. In such a system past, present, and future meaning is 
the backbone. And the point is that, an event that occurring before our 
vantage point has past meaning, an event contemporaneous with the 
vantagepoint has present meaning, and an event occurring before the 
vantagepoint has future meaning. Wheter you describe this with letters or 
not is unimportant. If you do not find truth-conditional linguistics 
meaningful, that is your privilege.

PK: It is, I am sure, very meaningful and helpful with many languages. 
But you cannot assume it to be helpful for Hebrew. Indeed your data 
below seem to show clearly that WEQATAL cannot be classified clearly 
on the past-present-future axis or backbone. You have said the same 
about QATAL and, less recently, WAYYIQTOL. So this seems to be 
evidence that Hebrew is tenseless, as other languages are known to be. 
(An alternative way to rescue the relevance of tense in Hebrew would 
be to refine one's notion of tense in Hebrew to make a better fit with 
the facts, e.g. one might in principle be able to find that these past 
WEQATALs are in some sense "future in the past" or "relative future".) 
I don't see how a system in which past, present and future is the 
backbone can be especially helpful for study of tenseless languages.

>RF
>Of 6087 WEQATALs (ambiguous forms were skipped) I found the following 
>characteristics:
>
>                                %
>
>        PAST        357                5,8
>        PRESENT        192                3,15
>        FUTURE        4100                  67.35 ...

<snip>