Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Rolf,

Just a few points in response to a part of yours to Alviero.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: WAW  the conjunction
Author:  <furuli AT online.no> at Internet
Date:    11/01/2000 06:00


Dear Alviero,

Thank you for your answers to my questions. See my comments below:

<snip>

RF
Your comments to point 6 reveal in my mind an important weakness with your 
method, namely circularity. I heartily agree that "the 'real course of 
events' as such remains outside the verbforms and outside the text". A 
writer can present the same complex event as a fact (I find "point" 
problematic and would rather use Comrie's "blob") or as something going on. 
My point is: How do we know which view is signaled? If we start with "good 
texts" as you say, and we find that several WEQATALs express habitualness, 
we cannot at the outset know whether the reason is semantic (habitualness 
*is* a characteritic of WEQATAL) or pragmatic (habitualness is a function 
of the Aktionsart of the verbs, the context, and our knowledge of the 
world). The problem of your method is that it does not tell us *how* we can 
differentiate between semantic and pragmatic factors...

PK: But does YOUR method, Rolf, tell us how we can differentiate? 
Well, you seem to be able to say that many factors are pragmatic 
rather than semantic, or that they cannot be proved to be semantic. 
But I still do not understand how even in principle such factors could 
be proved to be semantic, in a dead language. I would like to see such 
an explanation, if possible with an example of a factor in Hebrew 
which you can prove to be semantic. If you cannot answer this 
objection to your objections, you are open to the charge that you are 
asking your opponents to do what is impossible in principle, and also 
condemning your own studies to the ultimate failure to determine any 
semantic factors within the Hebrew verb system.

<snip>

RF
What I asked for was one example where we on the basis of the verb *alone*, 
without any preconceived ideas can see that a WEQATAL is habitual. Your 
examples does not fulfill this request. Let us look at your first example, 
Exodus 18:25.26. There can be no doubt that the course of the events of the 
judging is habitual, but how can we know that the verb form signals 
this?...

PK: Good question, how indeed can we know that this is true OR false? 
If your method can determine neither truth nor falsehood for such 
questions, it is not very helpful.

PK: Meanwhile, let Prof. Niccacci have his own arguments, which are 
not circular (as long as he argues from examples with a clear context 
to uncertain examples) even if they are not semantic according to your 
theory. He finds that certain verb forms are regularly used in certain 
contexts, and not used in certain other contexts. Even if this cannot 
tell us the semantic meaning of the verb forms, it does tell us 
something quite significant and useful. For example, if we find that 
WEQATAL is generally used in the past habitual contexts but never in 
the past in contexts which cannot be habitual, this surely helps us to 
interpret an occurrence of WEQATAL in a case in the past where 
habituality is otherwise ambiguous.

Peter Kirk