Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Peter,

Just a few short comments.



>Dear Rolf,
>
>I don't have time to look into details of your posting at present.
>Suffice it to say that I find Aramaic examples no more relevant than
>Chinese ones, and prefer not to base theories on "Late Biblical
>Hebrew" and poetic ones. I also note that you accept that you have not
>found semantic distinctions between Hebrew verb forms, and must rely
>on your view of the morphology, which conflicts with the view of
>experts in that area like Henry Churchyard.
>
>Your wrote: "This can also account for the several hundred examples of
>YIQTOL with past meaning.... To find an iterative, frequentative, or
>habitual explanation for these YIQTOLs is often forced. I therefore
>find good reasons to say that all examples of the prefix-conjugation
>with and without WAW are imperfective, and all examples of the
>suffix-conjugation with and without WAW are perfective."
>
>Let me respond to that: "... the several TENS OF THOUSANDS (?) of
>examples of WAYYIQTOL with past meaning.... To find an IMPERFECTIVE
>explanation for these WAYYIQTOLs is often forced. I therefore find
>good reasons to say that NOT all examples of the prefix-conjugation
>with WAW are imperfective..."


To avoid misunderstanding I will say something about the word "semantic"
versus "semantic meaning". The adjective has to do with "meaning" og any
kind. The expression "semantic meaning" used in linguistic contexts is
restricted to "meaning" that meets two demands: (1) It is specific in the
sense that it can be distingusihed from other kinds of "meaning" by clearly
defined borders. (2) It is uncancelable,i.e. it will always be a part of
the form in question in any use and in any context.

It is this special and restricted characteristic that I have not found in
the YIQTOL/QATAL opposition. Remember though that the same is true with
other parts of the verbal system. We cannot find "semantic meaning" in the
opposition indicative/subjunctive, and neither in infinitive constructus
and absolutus or in the participles. And neither is there a "semantic
meaning" distinguishing between stative and fientive verbs. However, it is
very meaningful to deal with all this groups! Semantic meaning do exist in
Hebrew, inside the Aktionsart system. The characteristics dynamicity,
durativity, and telicity are semantic, and verbs with such characteristics
are important tools in the study of the verbal system. It is also
meaningful to use the semantic meaning inside the universal tense system to
measure Hebrew verbs.

In addition to the approach based on semantic meaning,there are two more
areas: We can base our study of Hebrew verbs on *morphology* (which usually
signals a difference in meaning, though not necessarily a difference in
semantic meaning), and on *the use* of the verb forms. I agree that the
cognate languages cannot be used as a primary tool in the study of Hebrew,
but I am not aware of any article or work that has denied that a study of
the cognate languages can throw light upon Hebrew. The fact that Aramaic
uses YIQTOLs with past meaning even with telic verbs, reveals something
about the Semitic mind, and the purpose of such examples is to show that if
we claim that this is a trait of Hebrew as well, it is not without parallel
in a very close language. The linguistic literature abounds with examples
from a wide variety of languages.

All of us must choose our own corpus, but as far as I am concerned, I
prefer to work with the whole corpus of the Bible. That verb forms should
have different meanings in different genres, is i my view completely
without basis. That the meaning of verbs can change through time is
possible or even likely, but so far, no study has demonstrated this for
Biblical Hebrew.

And lastly, you have the right to draw your own conclusion as to the
meaning of WAYYIQTOL and have the opinion that "to find an IMPERFECTIVE
meaning for these WAYYIQTOLs is often forced". However, it would have been
a service to the reader to make clear by the help of which definition of
"imperfective" it is forced. This would be helpful, because I agree that
given the definintion of Broman Olsen and Comrie it *is* forced to view
WAYYIQTOLs as imperfective, but not if we use the definition of Carlota
Smith, Carl Backe or myself.




Regards

Rolf



Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo