Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Dear Rolf,

Thank you for clarifying how the term "semantic meaning" has a meaning 
greater than the sums of the meanings of the words "semantic" and 
"meaning". Just like WAYYIQTOL may mean more than the sum of WE- and 
YIQTOL. Well, technical terms work differently from verbal semantics, 
so that's not a serious line of argument!

I cannot comment on your Aramaic except to say that most of the 
examples of past YIQTOL you quoted from Daniel 4:12,36 could easily be 
read in an iterative and/or gradual (what should I call this if 
"durative" is wrong?) sense. So they would teach us nothing even if 
they were Hebrew. I am not sure about "my reason returned", but 
perhaps the suggestion is that this was a gradual process, though this 
could also be telic like your YLD examples from Job.

Joshua 7:6 is an interesting example. The NRSV "and fell to the 
ground... until the evening" is not good English, but I think we need 
to read the Hebrew (AD-HA(EREB as something like "AND STAYED LIKE THAT 
until evening". My explanation would be that the WAYYIQTOL has its 
normal meaning, ingressive with respect to the resulting state, and 
that state lasts for the time indicated by the (AD phrase. I have a 
feeling that this is a common idiom, can anyone confirm it?

As for my point about finding an imperfective explanation of WAYYIQTOL 
forced, the explanation I was thinking of was the one which you made 
in your posting, about WAYYIQTOLs being imperfective because they are 
resultative, even in the case of MWT because of beliefs in the 
afterlife. This explanation is of course based on YOUR definition of 
"imperfective". I find this explanation forced, simply because in a 
vast number of cases of WAYYIQTOL there is absolutely no focus on any 
sort of result. Indeed in many cases there simply is no enduring 
result, e.g. to take an example at random, in 1 Kings 2:40-41:

"Shimei arose (WAYYIQTOL) and saddled (WAYYIQTOL) a donkey, and went 
(WAYYIQTOL) to Achish in Gath, to search (INF CONSTR) for his slaves; 
Shimei went (WAYYIQTOL) and brought (WAYYIQTOL) his slaves from Gath. 
When Solomon was told (WAYYIQTOL) that..."

Shimei went to Gath, but there was no resulting state because he came 
straight back, and had already returned before verse 41. At least I 
think that any explanation of these WAYYIQTOLs as resultative and so 
imperfective would be forced. Of course you are welcome to try to come 
up with an explanation which is not forced, but I don't expect to see 
one.

Peter Kirk




______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[2]: (long) Re[3]: WAW  the conjunction
Author:  <furuli AT online.no> at Internet
Date:    14/01/2000 19:34


Dear Peter,

Just a few short comments.

<snip>

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