Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Peter,

See my comments below.

PK
>Dear Rolf,
>
>Thank you for your clear statement of your falsifiable model. I have
>read all of this, but I have kept below the sections relevant to my
>own arguments.
>
>(I apologise if I seem to be repeating myself, but then so are you.
>At least this will save Jonathan looking through the archives.)
>
>Now you claim that your model is falsifiable. I have no quarrel with
>that. But a valid model is not only one which is falsifiable in
>principle: it is also one which has been tested and not falisified!
>
>As I understand it, you are including all WAYYIQTOL forms when you
>write "THE IMPERFECTIVE ASPECT (PREFIX FORMS) REPRESENTS A CLOSE-UP
>VIEW OF A SITUATION FROM A SHORT DISTANCE WITH THE DETAILS VISIBLE."
>Furthermore, you are saying that this imperfectivity is a semantic
>feature which is uncancellable. Please correct me if I have
>misunderstood this.

RF
I have not said that imperfectivity in Hebrew is a *semantic* feature which
is uncancelable. My requirements for "a semantic feature" are very strict:
(1) One or more clearly defined properties that are easy to distinguish
from other properties, and (2) the one or more properties must be a part of
the form in all contexts. Because of the nature of the aspects and because
(1) and (2) are very strict requirements, neither of them are fulfilled by
Hebrew aspects (as they are by the  English ones). This does not make
Hebrew aspects ambiguous or impossible to define more than modality or
stativity which neither have *semantic* properties.

PK
So, you are asserting as a falsifiable statement
>that every prefix forms in the Hebrew Bible without exception,
>including WAYYIQTOL forms, "REPRESENTS A CLOSE-UP VIEW OF A SITUATION
>FROM A SHORT DISTANCE WITH THE DETAILS VISIBLE." So, your statement is
>falisified if I find one counter-example. Is that correct? I will
>concede that we need more than one example because of the possibility
>of textual corruption, but two or three should be sufficient to avoid
>that possibility. >
>I would then bring you back to some examples of WAYYIQTOL which I
>mentioned before, and to which I did not receive a satisfactory answer
>before. Specifically, the large numbers of WAYYIQTOLs in the genealogy
>in Genesis 5 (which was hardly a close-up view, even on the most
>conservative possible datings this was written more than 2000 years
>after the events!) and in the account of the building of the
>Tabernacle in Exodus 36-39. If you want specific cases, look at the
>examples of WAYYAMOT in Genesis 5:5,8,11 etc. - I don't see how you
>can argue that the Aktionsart of this verb implies that details are
>visible. These are representative of a very large number of WAYYIQTOLs
>in narrative throughout the historical parts of the Hebrew Bible. I
>claim that it is simply not true that every one of these "REPRESENTS A
>CLOSE-UP VIEW OF A SITUATION FROM A SHORT DISTANCE WITH THE DETAILS
>VISIBLE." Indeed, most of them are much closer to your contrary
>definition of perfective aspect which "REPRESENTS A BROADER VIEW FROM
>SOME DISTANCE WHERE THE DETAILS ARE NOT VISIBLE." I claim therefore
>that your falsifiable assertion is falsified, not just by a small
>number of cases but by the majority of cases of the most common verb
>form in Hebrew, WAYYIQTOL. Thus your statement that WAYYIQTOL is
>imperfective, even on your own definition, is false.
>
>I await your response, including an explanation of how these
>WAYYIQTOLs can be considered imperfective on your definition.
>
>Peter Kirk
>

RF
I am glad you brought this up, because my definition is the essence of my
model. Yet, a definition has to be short and may itself need clarification.
When I presented my model of Greek and Hebrew verbs in my book about Bible
translation, I wrote in note 21 on p 86:
"We should not associate any quality with the concept "distance." What
counts is the scope of the aspect, and distance is used because scope is a
function of it, and to show that actions and states can be viewed exactly
as things are viewed. Apart from this "distance" has no meaning in
aspectual discussions."

Very often the imperfective aspect is defined as a view from the inside of
an event (=beginning and end not included) and the perfective aspect is
defined as a view from the outside (=beginning and end included). These
definitions imply that just a part of the event is visible in the
imperfective aspect, and the whole is visible in the perfective aspect. In
order to show that this is true in most instances in Hebrew but not in all
instances, and at the same time keeping the small-scope view of the
imperfective aspect and the broad scope view of the perfective aspect, I
use the words "a close-up view with the details visible". This definition
does not exclude those instances where the beginning or the end is included
in the small-scope imperfective aspect or when either beginning or end is
not included in the perfective aspect. The opposition "from the inside/from
the outside" do exclude this.

The point therefore is that the imperfective aspect makes visible a small
part of the event without telling on which part the focus is, but the
perfective aspect makes visible a broader part, including either the
beginning and a great part of the event, a great part of the event and the
end, or the whole event, beginning and end included. What is interesting,
is that the *combination* of each aspect with verbs with different
Aktionsart, and subjects/objects that are singular/plural,
definite/indefinite, countable/non-countable, will, on the basis of
linguistic convention signal different kinds of actions and events. Because
particular *combinations* are necessary to signal different meanings, both
aspects without these particular combinations can be used without any
visible difference in meaning.

Let me illustrate some of the imperfective possibilities:

xxx= focus B= beginning E= end

xxxB----------E   = conative (an attempt)

---Bxxx-------E   = inceptive (beginning included)

---B--xxx-----E   = progressive (neither beginning or end included)

---B-------xxxE   = egressive (before the end)

---B--------xxEx  = resultative (end included)


Your falsifying attempt above will not work for the following reasons.
(1) The aspect is from one point of view *nothing*, just a peephole, a big
or a small one. What is seen through the peephole, however, is an action or
a state. If the action is $YR, just a small glimpse of it is enough, we
ascertain a "sing"- action that is durative and dynamic. So we see the
details. These are also seen through the perfective peephole (the broad
view of the "sing"-event). However, the author may want to make particular
details visible, such as an attempt to sing that was not successful. Then
the imperfective aspect will allways be used.
(2) Punctuality is not a semantic property. I am not aware of any approach
that can definitely demonstrate that an event was punctual in a dead
language.

My model predicts that conative events only can be expressed by YIQTOL,
WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL. Conative events expressed by QATAL or WEQATAL would
falsify my model.
The model also predicts that events like (a) in (1) below only can be
expressed by YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, and WEYIQTOL. Such events expressed by
QATAL  and WEQATAL  would falsify my model.

(1) When Peter was singing (a), Rolf entered (b) the room.

You can try this as a starter in your falsification attempts.


I will close with a short note on WAYYAMOT, Genesis 5:5,8,11. The
"death"-event is visible with both aspects and with infinitives and
participles. I have argued in an earlier post that these WAYYIQTOLs
probably are resultative; the end is passed but no end is seen in the
resulting state (there is no way to prove that the momentary point of death
is stressed). To illustrate how combinations with an aspect and other
factors work, we may consider the following examples:

(1) Job 3:11 YIQTOL with past meaning, evidently resultative.
(2) 2 Samuel 3:33 YIQTOL, the single subject shows that death is viewed as
a progressive process. the same is true with the participle of the synonym
NKH in Numbers 35:11,15.
(3) 2 Chronicles 15:13 Passive YIQTOL  with past meaning, frequentative.
(4) Gensis 48:21, Exodus 12:33, participles, egressive.
(5) 2 Samuel 19:7, participle, resultative.
(6) 2 Chronicles 24:22, infinitive, egressive.

 Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo