Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kimmo Huovila <kimmo.huovila AT helsinki.fi>]

I jump in the middle of this conversation that I have not quite been
following. I hope I am not repeating anything already said. It may be
that what I am saying is largely due to different terminology or a
different theory of aspect that we use, but here are a few comments to
Rolf anyway.

Your examples of giving birth in the yiqtol are, in my opinion, better
explained as aspectually perfective. That a result may be emphasized,
and even coded grammatically in a verb form, does not take away the idea
that the action is viewed perfectivally. The resulting state would just
add another (aspectually stative) sense, an enduring state. Thus we
would have two aspects combined in one verb form.
This is basically my analysis of the Greek perfect (p. 51-53, my
'Towards a Theory of Aspectual Nesting for New Testament Greek' at 
http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/hum/yleis/pg/huovila); practically
the same view as that of Fanning (Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek,
p.112-120), except for the underlying aspect theory.

If you want to see a reference to a result in these examples, then there
is a perfective element in the giving birth. It is viewed as having been
completed. The result is not that of a delivery in process. This
perfectivity needs to be addressed, in my opinion.

If you want to argue that these are imperfective, it would seem more
natural to render them using the English progressive - the result would
seem strange but not totally impossible.

The real test case would a punctual verb with no iteration in a yiqtol.
If there is such a one (I think there are many, just by looking at a
concordance with the word MC( ), it is a strong argument that
in this case at least the yiqtol does not code the imperfective aspect.

My guess is that the Hebrew 'tenses' have temporal, aspectual, and modal
meanings (and also relate to grounding). It would be interesting to
study one of these possible correlates at a time holding the others
constant. I guess the statistical correlations would be very revealing.
(Has anyone tagged any largish corpus of Biblical Hebrew according to
these semantic features?)

Kimmo

Rolf Furuli wrote:

> (2) Job 3:3  "Let the day perish (YIQTOL) in which I was born (YIQTOL), and
> the night that said (QATAL),  'A man-child is conceived (QATAL).'
> 
> (3) Job 15:7   "Are you the firstborn (YIQTOL) of the human race? Were you
> brought forth (QATAL) before the hills?
> 
> (4) Is. 51:2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you
> (YIQTOL); for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made
> him many.
> 
> To bear or give birth must either be viewed as semelfactive or telic verbs.
> But in (2), (3), and (4) they are used with past meaning, in (4) also in
> the Piel. The most likely explanation of the use of these verbs is the
> resultative one. Not only the act of bearing is stressed but also the
> result.