Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Rolf,

I don't have time to deal with this in detail tonight. A few points:

Sorry for the misunderstanding about semantic meaning. I remember now 
that I realised before that you had failed to demonstrate ANY 
distinctions of semantic meaning within the Hebrew verb system, and 
seemed to have abandoned this quest. In that case, why not abandon 
your seeming fixation with saying to others "But you have not 
demonstrated the semantic meaning!" when you yourself can do no 
better, and usually no-one is actually trying to claim that they have 
demonstrated semantic meaning. I suggest we all just forget the 
concept of semantic meaning, as you define it, in the context of the 
Hebrew verb system, and instead discuss the things which can be 
studied.

Then you write, "We should not associate any quality with the concept 
"distance."". But we must do so if your definitions are to be 
falisifiable. If your "FROM A SHORT DISTANCE" is so flexible as to 
allow for periods as long as millennia, it then becomes quite 
meaningless. If your definition is to be falsifiable, it requires some 
kind of definition of "SHORT" which can be used for comparison, not I 
agree in terms of a fixed period of time, but some clear indication of 
what distances are considered as "SHORT".

I will not accept your carefully chosen non-starter as a starter for 
my falsification attempts and come back to the example I chose: 
WAYYAMOT. I notice that none of the examples you quote are from the 
same conjugation (the first two, Job 3:11 and 2Sa 3:33 are long 
YIQTOL, note the long U vowel), and so all are of doubtful relevance. 
While I don't quite understand your point here, I don't see how you 
can deal with the form WAYYAMOT without considering any one of the 
hundreds of examples of this precise form or of other forms of the 
same conjugation. Meanwhile I view your resultative interpretation as 
a non-starter except perhaps in a very few cases.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[2]: YIQTOL with past meaning
Author:  <furuli AT online.no> at Internet
Date:    30/01/2000 23:57


Dear Peter,
<snip>

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.

<snip>

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."

<snip>

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