Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

I was glad to see that Rolf did also send his reply to the list, 
though separately so that I did not receive that copy until later. I 
am glad he has made public his praise of Alviero Niccacci, and I 
withdraw any suggestion in my reply below that he is saying one thing 
in public and another in private. Nevertheless, this praise still 
seems a strange contrast to the criticism he wrote in his reply to 
Alviero.

Here is my reply to Rolf.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Forward Header 
__________________________________
Subject: Re: (long) Re[3]: WAW  the conjunction
Author:  Peter Kirk at IPOIP
Date:    11/01/2000 22:54


Dear Rolf,

Thank you for your long reply. I was sorry to see that you sent it 
only to me, as I think some of it may well be of wider interest to the 
list. I hope you may now be able to correct this. See some further 
comments below.

I was actually rather surprised at how far I was able to agree with 
you. My real disagreement comes only close to the end, when you imply 
that WAYYIQTOL is imperfective according to your definitions. I just 
don't see how this can possibly hold water. I would have expected you 
to conclude at this stage that (despite the uncertainties of 
morphology and Masoretic vocalisation etc) YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL are 
actually two different verb forms, imperfective and perfective 
respectively. That is certainly the conclusion I have reached from 
this study.

Peter Kirk

----------------

<snip>

Dear Peter,


Thank you for accepting my challange. Looking at your table and your 
explanation of it, your definition seems to exclude tense and be 
wholly
aspectual (as you yourself imply, position in the clause is just an 
observation, not a definition of meaning). You also show that your 
definition of aspect is different from Comrie's and similar to Broman 
Olses's definition. That is, you say that the perfective aspect 
(encompassing QATAL and WAYYIQTOL) is not only "complete" but also 
"completed", and the imperfective aspect (encompassing long and short 
YIQTOL,  WEQATAL, and WEYIQTOL) is not completed. Modality (not 
indicative)
is associated with the imperfective aspect. In my eyes your definition 
is
quite clear.

PK: Thank you for your comments. I am not sure that I would want to 
push any distinction between "complete" and "completed", which are 
very close to being synonymous in this context. Even if Comrie and/or 
Broman Olsen have defined them in ways to make a distinction between 
them, you should not read into my meaning any definitions of 
"completed" other than the common English meaning.

As for my approach to Hebrew, I will give a *sketch* of it below. I 
started
without any linguistic presuppositions regarding Hebrew (at least I 
tried
to do that; we all have our presuppositions).
What I wanted, was to "measure" the Hebrew verbal system in light of 
the
principal traits of language in general, namely tense, mood, and 
aspect
(TAM). To achieve that I needed a method by which the "semantic" parts 
of
the TAM-structure could be singled out, and I found such a method by 
help
of the work of Mari Broman Olsen. Any model of the verbal system of a 
dead
language will entail some circularity, because some assumptions must 
be
made along the way; but it is important to find a model that reduces 
circularity as much as possible.

You mentioned that you had some problems with understanding my 
fundament,
and I will express the difference between "semantic meaning" and 
"conversational pragmatic implicature" with the principle of H.P. 
Grice:
"Semantic meanings may not be canceled without contradiction or 
reinforced
without redundancy". Broman Olsen illustrates the point by following 
example:

(1) (a) Elsie plodded along,#but not slowly.

    (b) Elsie plodded along,#?slowly.

(2) (a)  Margaret plodded along, although she wasn't tired.

    (b)  Margaret plodded along, she was very tired.

Her point is that "tiredness" is associated with plod by 
conversational
pragmatic implicature (it can be canceled), while "slowly" is a part 
of the
semantic meaning of "plod",i.e. "slowly" can under no circumstances be 
separated from "plod".

PK: Thank you for clarifying this. Although I see a distinction in 
this case (but I find (1b) acceptable, even normal), I feel that you 
are making too great a leap in extrapolating this distinction into a 
major theoretical division which is necessarily applicable to every 
language. I will also repeat my question: how can we distinguish 
between these two, even in principle, in a dead language?

<snip - noted but no special comment>

(a) To find out whether tense is the semantic meaning of any of the 
verb
forms, what I had to do, was to look at all the examples of the form 
and
find out whether RT (reference time) and C (the deictic point) always 
had
the same relationship (RT>C - past tense), (RT=C - present tense), and 
(C>RT -future tense). Textual criticism had to be taken into account, 
as
well as a diachronic study, and special uses of the verb forms (such 
as
hypothetical conditional clauses) had to be taken into account, and 
also a
reasonable number of exceptions had to be accepted. But the numbers 
below
seem to say clearly that tense is not a semantic part of the verbal 
system
of Classical Hebrew.

The 836 examples (6,4%) of QATALs with future meaning, and the 1372 
examples (10.5%) of QATAL  with present meaning excludes that QATAL is 
a
past tense.
The 357 examples (5,8%) of WEQATALs with past meaning shows it is no 
future
tense
Regarding WEQATAL, YIQTOL, and WAYYIQTOL  I have not completed my 
research,
but about 5% of the YIQTOLs have past meaning, excluding it from being 
present or future tense. Between 5 and 10% of the WAYYIQTOLs have 
non-past
meaning which would exclude it from being past tense.

PK: I agree with you on this one, that (at least on your definition) 
Hebrew verb forms do not code tense.

b) To find out whether one of the verbal groups coded for modality 
while
others did not, it was necessary to see if subjunctive could be 
expressed
by all the groups, and my finds were positive. All agree that YIQTOL, 
WEYIQTOL,  and WEQATAL  can express subjunctive, and there are several 
examples of QATAL  and WAYYIQTOL that have modal characteristics as 
well.
Therefore I have drawn the conclusion that no particular verb form 
codes
for modality.

PK: Basically I agree with you. But I wonder if you have missed 
something by not making the distinctions between long and short YIQTOL 
(although I know that this distinction is not always made consistently 
even in those verbs in which it can be shown) and between 
sentence-initial and non-sentence initial YIQTOL. It could be suggested 
that sentence-initial YIQTOL is (almost) always modal, whereas 
non-sentence-initial YIQTOL is not (or rarely so). Would your approach 
allow for that distinction?

c) Because two members of TAM was excluded as representing semantic 
meaning
in Hebrew, only the third remained, namely aspect. Even though the TAM 
system is quite universal, neither of the members need to be present 
in
Hebrew, but when two was excluded, a logical step was to test the 
system
for the third member, namely aspectuality.
Aspect has something in common with mood, and there are different 
definitions of aspect. There is, however, a common denominator between 
the
differing viewpoints which can be expressed in three points:
(1) Aspect is a subjective viewpoint; i.e. it shows how the reporter 
chooses to report an event.
(2) Aspect somehow makes visible or accentuates, either a part (the 
imperfective aspect) or the whole (the perfective aspect) of event 
time
(the non-deictic time it takes to complete an event,from the beginning 
to
the end).
(3) The beginning and/or the end of an event is important for 
distinguishing between the imperfective and the perfective aspect.

If we start with QATAL  and YIQTOL, it seems that all three points are 
compatible with their use. The subjectivity of (1) is seen in the fact 
that
the same event can be described both by a QATAL  and a YIQTOL without 
any
visible difference in meaning. Aspect is non-deictic and YIQTOL and 
QATAL
can be used for past, present and future, and the fact that 
semelfactive
and telic verbs expressed as YIQTOLs make the action iterative, 
habitual,
or frequentative, while QATALs do not have this effect, is both 
compatible
with (2) and suggests that YIQTOL has imperfective characteristics and 
QATAL has perfective characteristics. The end of an event evidently 
has
some importance, because most QATALs include it while most YIQTOLs do 
not.
Based on these observations I see a basic similarity between YIQTOL 
and
QATAL and the general definition of aspects, so I proceded with the 
view
that one of the TAM members exists in Hebrew, namely, aspect. (Past, 
present, and future meaning can of course be expressed, and 
subjunctive as
well, but not by morphosyntactic means, except possibly by the ekstra 
long
and short YIQTOL.)

PK: I think that I agree with you in this as well.

A very important question would then be: Can we find any semantic 
(uncancelable) property in YIQTOL and QATAL? In the English aspectual 
model
of Broman Olsen we have such properties. The perfective aspect shows 
definitely that an event has ended at C (the deictic point) while the 
imperfective aspect shows definitely that it has not ended. This 
inticates
that the two aspects are different ways of viewing (or presenting) the 
internal time of an event, as Comrie defines them.
To test YIQTOL  and QATAL for this, we can make the following 
prediction.
If there is a semantic difference between YIQTOL and QATAL as it is 
between
the English imperfective and perfective asopect, we expect to find 
that
YIQTOLs *only* are used with events and states that are not terminated 
at
C, and that QATAL is used for events and states that are terminated. A 
test
shows that the prediction holds in many, but far from all cases. 
(Alviero
is right when he says that the verbs do not describe the events as 
they
objectively are, but only the way the reporter chooses to depict 
them.)

PK: Now I am confused: I thought that in Broman Olsen's model aspect 
was to do with the relationship between ET and RT, and was independent 
of the relationship between RT and C which is the domain of tense. Thus 
the definition I was working on was more like "The perfective aspect 
shows definitely that an event has ended at RT (the reference time) 
while the imperfective aspect shows definitely that it has not ended".

<snip to save bandwidth, though this is very important stuff>

The most narrow generalisation that accounts for all these 
observations
associated with YIQTOL  and QATAL is one centered around distance and 
scope, and this is my definition of aspect:

THE PERFECTIVE ASPECT REPRESENTS A BROAD VIEW FROM SOME DISTANCE WHERE 
THE
WHOLE SITUATION OR A GREAT PART OF IT IS FOCUSED UPON. THE 
IMPERFECTIVE
ASPECT REPRESENTS A CLOSEUP VIEW OF A SMALL PART OF THE SITUATION 
WITH
DETAILS VISIBLE.

For the most part the narrow scope is directed toward a part of the 
situation *before* the end, but it can also include the end, as it 
does in
the resultative and factitive situations in the Piel binyan (but in 
such
cases we can still say the aspect is "open" because the end of the 
resulting state is not reached). For the most part the broad scope 
includes
the end, but there are many instances where the situation continues 
after
it is presented by the perfective aspect.

How useful is such a definition? When a definition is not semantic, 
there
is always the danger that it can be too vague and therefore be 
useless. On
the other hand, we cannot make a definition that is more definite than 
the
data. So perhaps we need to do some reflection. While I view the model 
of
Alviero as completely circular as far as the *meaning* of the verb 
forms is
concerned, I find its description of the *use* of the different forms 
extremely valuable. Alviero has done a descriptive work that deserves 
admiration. I think that a study of the use of the different forms to 
a
great degree can compensate for the lack of *semantic* meaning of 
YIQTOL
and QATAL. Exactly the same is true regarding modality, a lack of 
semantic
meaning is compensated by a description of use.

PK: Interesting, you are coming close to what I was accusing you of in 
my comments on yours to Prof. Niccacci (which I wrote before reading 
this one). That is, you are accepting that you cannot find any 
semantic distinguishing factors between Hebrew verb forms (though not, 
as I was suggesting, that this is impossible in principle), and 
agreeing that a study based on pragmatics rather than semantics is 
helpful. But it does seem rather odd to me that you are publicly 
(on-list) criticising Prof. Niccacci for taking this approach while on 
the same day privately (off-list to me) calling his approach 
"extremely valuable" and proposing to do something similar yourself. I 
don't think he even claimed that he was describing the *meaning" of 
verb forms rather than their *use*, which makes your accusations of 
circularity baseless.

<snip - a useful analogy>

Apart from situations where particular properties are signaled, the 
two
aspects can in principle be used for any situation. YIQTOL and QATAL 
are
used with past, present, and future meaning, and with indicative and 
subjunctive force. But looking at the MT landscape, there are 
particular
patters that lead most workers to see four or five different 
conjugations
and not just two. As I see it, this is a wrong view, which is 
inherited
from the "fathers" right back to the Middle ages, and it is based on a 
misunderstanding of the use and function of the conjunction WAW, and 
on the
lack of a distinction between semantic and pragmatic factors...

PK: I don't think it is very fair to criticise medieval fathers, or 
for that matter modern scholars such as Prof. Niccacci, for not making 
the exact distinction made in the linguistic theory to which you hold.

RF:... What then, do
the patterns represent? The same that is the reason for the pattern of 
infinitives and participles, namely, on linguistic convention. Several 
grammars view YIQTOL and WEQATAL on the one hand, and QATAL and 
WAYYIQTOL
as similar, or quite similar in meaning, The reason is a similar use, 
and
that is true. But this need not be explained as a converting force of 
WE-
and WAYY- or that these prefixes signal an opposite meaning from the 
forms
without prefixes. Given my definition of aspects, the reason for the 
use of
QATAL  and WAYYIQTOL in past contexts and YIQTOL and QATAL in future 
contexts, can be that both aspects can be used in these "unmarked" 
situations without any problems of meaning. And the reason why past 
contexts start with QATAL and continues with WAW+YIQTOL while future 
contexts starts with YIQTOL and continues with WAW+QATAL can be 
explained
as convention, a way to order the parts of speech in a language 
lacking
tenses but having aspects. The use of YIQTOL with past meaning and 
QATAL
with future meaning can be explained by discourse function, word 
order,
genre (e.f. many QATALs with future meaning in prophetic texts) and 
foreground, background etc.
(Even when persens have defined four (or five) conjugations solely on 
the
basis of aspect, tense has been lurking in the background. One good 
advice
for those working to find the number of conjugations, is to look at 
the
role *tense* (and I mean "tense", not "time") plays in one's model. 
Either
it should be discarded completely if one thinks it is absent in 
Hebrew, or
one should allways keep in mind the influence it has on the 
conclusions if
it is used. The way in-between, when one uses tense without admitting 
it or
being conscious of it, is very common - and dangerous.)

PK: My objection to your claimed identity between YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL 
is not based on tense (for both can be past, present or future) but on 
aspect. You have described YIQTOL as imperfective in the sense that 
"THE IMPERFECTIVE ASPECT REPRESENTS A CLOSEUP VIEW OF A SMALL PART OF 
THE SITUATION  WITH DETAILS VISIBLE", and that is a definition within 
which I can work. But I do not see any way in which WAYYIQTOL, in its 
most common occurrences within narrative, can be described as 
imperfective according to this definition. In a great many cases 
events descibed with WAYYIQTOL take place in a quick series viewed at 
a distance with no details visible. For example, consider the very 
common WAYYAMOT "and he died" (or perhaps "and he will die"). This is 
rarely if ever accompanied by a description of the process or means of 
dying or with any event that took place while the person was at the 
point of death. It is often part of a chain of WAYYIQTOLs, generally 
preceded by an event which took place during the person's life and 
followed by an event which certainly took place after he was dead e.g. 
his burial. This is a classic example of perfective aspect, or at the 
very least of neutral or undefined aspect, and I think I am basing my 
objections not on "English" aspect but on your definition of aspect in 
Hebrew. Do you really consider WAYYAMOT in such instances to be 
imperfective, and how can you justify that?

I will like to repeat that the description above is just a sketch, and 
many
questions remain to be answered. The two most pressing questions 
regarding
the model is:

(1) How can imperfective forms be the basic forms bringing the action 
forwards in past narrative? Answer:The argument against this is based 
upon
the "English" aspect where aspect describes event time in an objective 
way.
Hebrew aspect is different. The prefix form is used for narrative in 
Aramaic and Ugaritic as well.

PK: I think I have answered this above, except for the last sentence 
which is of doubtful relevance.

(2) How can WAYYIQTOL be viewed as identical with YIQTOL when it is so 
different in form? Answer: In unpointed texts the difference is 
minimal and
it is not demonstrated any morphological difference before the 
Masoretes.
Nobody has ever conclusively demonstrated that the WAYY-element change 
the
meaning of the following YIQTOL. It need not have any semantic 
meaning.

PK: I think Henry Churchyard has sufficiently conclusively 
demonstrated that the WAYYIQTOL cannot be a simple compound of the 
conjunction WE- and the long form YIQTOL, and others have demonstrated 
that in cognate langauges (which you have juse appealed to yourself!) 
there are two different prefix forms. But no, no-one, including 
yourself apparently, has been able to demonstrate that anything in 
Hebrew has any semantic meaning by your definitions, so they can 
hardly be expected to have demonstrated it in this instance.


Regards
Rolf



Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo