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b-hebrew - Re[3]: (long) Re[3]: WAW the conjunction

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  • From: "Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[3]: (long) Re[3]: WAW the conjunction
  • Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 18:47:28 -0500


Dear Rolf,

I agree that this thread is running out of steam, and I thank you for
giving me a lot of help from it. I think we understand one another a
lot better now, and we are not as far apart as we might have thought,
for a lot of the differences were in definition. I hope you can now
get on with your new semester without too much distraction from this
list.

However, there do remain some differences of substance, related to
your newly introduced material on other Semitic languages. Now I am
not an expert on this. So let me ask a question to you or to others. I
have read that there was a prefix conjugation preterit in Ugaritic as
well as in Akkadian. Is that a general opinion? I understand that this
has not been proved to your satisfaction on your theory - I don't see
that it could be, especially given the limited and unvocalised corpus
of Ugaritic. But am I right in saying that in Ugaritic and Akkadian
there is a "short" prefix form (one of the ones listed as
"subjunctive" below) commonly used in what appears to be narrative,
with no clear indication of modality in the context, just as WAYYIQTOL
is used in Hebrew narrative? If so, I think that must be a strong
argument for a distinction between two prefix forms going back to
proto-Semitic, one of which is "imperfective" and the other (apart
from its modal uses) is something like a preterit. You wrote: "There
can be little doubt that the line of demarcation in the verbal systems
of the Semitic languages is drawn between
prefix-conjugation/suffix-conjugation." But to me, this evidence puts
a very large measure of doubt on this statement.

If you ask, how could this improbable situation have arisen, let me
speculate into the prehistory of Semitic, to a time when most verb
forms were (rather like in English) not inflected for person, but the
person was indicated by a pronoun before the verb. Perhaps at that
time there were two basic verb forms, something like QTUL for non-past
and QTULU for past. There was also (to speculate) a participle form
something like QATAL used for more stative situations, and for some
reason the word ordering was that the personal pronoun came after the
participle. Perhaps the 1st person plural personal pronoun was
something like NA. So we had forms NA QTUL non-past and NA QTULU past,
and QATAL NA as an alternative for stative situations. Join the words
together, and you get close to the b-Hebrew situation with three basic
forms rather than two. Just speculation, I know, but sometimes it is
useful to speculate to get around the type of argument that "this
situation could not have arisen" which you like to use.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re[2]: (long) Re[3]: WAW the conjunction
Author: <furuli AT online.no> at Internet
Date: 15/01/2000 22:19


Dear Peter,

<snip>

RF
This seems to be a better model than the previous one, and you should make
some work on this scheme.
Regarding the number of morphologically distinguished conjugations, I still
just see two. There can be little doubt that the line of demarcation in the
verbal systems of the Semitic languages is drawn between
prefix-conjugation/suffix-conjugation. It seems to me that modality
(non-indicative) can be signaled in several ways in Hebrew:

<snip>

I do not view the cohortative as a conjugation of its own, and neither is
it logical to view the short YIQTOL as an independent conjugation. Looking
at the cognate languages, we find that indicative is long and subjunctive
is short:

ARAMAIC: Indicative (2 p. pl) TIKT:BUN - Jussive: TIKT:BU
GE'EZ: Indicative: YENAGGER, Subjunctive: YENGER
ARABIC, Indicative: YAQTULU, Subjunctive: YAQTUL, YAQTULA..
UGARITIC: Indicative: YAQTULU, Subjunctive: YAQTUL, YAQTULA, )QTULA..
ACCADIAN: *Indicative*: IPARRAS, *Subjunctive*: IPRUS

I have marked Accadian with asterisks because the usual designation for
IPARRAS is "present" and for IPRUS is "preterit", and there is a form
ending in -U in subordinated clauses which is called "subjunctive" (that
does not have the modal force we usually ascribe to "subjunctive").
However, in the wish- and asservative forms forms (precative, vetitive, and
cohortative) the short IPRUS-stem is used, connecting it with modality.

The difference in meaning between short and long prefix- forms in the
Semitic languages is one of modus, not one of tense or aspect (except
possibly in Accadian). Therefore I think we should speak of just two
different conjugations that are morphologically different.

And remember: There are short and long prefix-forms in Ugaritic, but it has
never been *demonstrated* that this difference shows a difference in
*tense* (that the short form being a preterit). How could that have been
demonstrated when nobody has ever made tests of these form where *past
meaning* and *past tense* have been systematically distinguished?

You have taken my challenge to present your model, and I have taken your
challenge, so for my part, this is the last post in this thread.



Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo.






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