Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Kimmo Huovila wrote,


>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.
>

Dear Kimmo,


I have loaded down your thesis and have looked quickly at its contents. I
look forward to reading it, particularly because I see that you are dealing
with several of the same questions that I have been concerned with for many
years.

When I wrote my mag. art. thesis regarding WAYYIQTOL, I used an aspect
model close to the general view of aspect, where beginning and end play a
distinguishing role. In the five years since I finished this work, I have
realized that the very definition of aspect should be scrutinized, and that
we cannot take for granted that Slavic aspect is the same as English
aspect, or that either of these is identical  with Greek or Hebrew aspect.
So when we discuss the concept "aspect" it is of primary importance that we
define the term, and particularly show how our language-specific definition
relates to event time. If not, we can disagree in words but agree in
substance.

As I already have stated in this thread, I believe that in the study of
Hebrew verbs, morphology is the fundamental property by which to start, and
then the use of the forms. This means that  I will not without strong
evidence accept that YIQTOL is imperfective in most contexts and perfective
in others and that QATAL is perfective in most contexts but imperfective in
others. This would be tantamount to linguistic anarchy. I have repeatedly
argued that QATAL and YIQTOL in hundreds of passages are used to signal
exactly the same thought. But this is not because they have lost their
particular aspectual value but because the aspects have several similar
traits, and they can be *used* similarly in different unmarked contexts.
Jouon/Muraoka 368,369 says that YIQTOLs in some contexts have the value of
QATAL, namely instantaneity. Given my definition of Hebrew aspect, the
problems that forced the mentioned grammar to take this strange standpoint,
have vanished and an imperfective explanation is possible. To have a sound
basis to evaluate this explanation one has to look at *all* the forms in
the Bible.


Regards

Rolf




Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo