Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kimmo Huovila <kimmo.huovila AT helsinki.fi>]

Rolf Furuli wrote:
> I appreciate your fine comments. Because of our common linguistic
> background we have the same understanding of many/most linguistic terms,
> but it appears that we differ in our understanding of the key-term
> "aspect".

Aspect is one of those terms that have so many different definitions by
different scholars. I have used the term aspect to refer to both the
semantic and morphosyntactic category. We must, however, remember that
they are two different things. Lindstedt uses aspectuality for the
semantic category and aspect for the morphosyntactic category. This is
one way of using different terms. When I feel I need to emphasize which
one I am talking about, I'll be explicit below.

<snip>
> At the risk of boring someone I will once
> more give a short outline of my premises:

Thank you for giving a repeat, as I have not had the time to follow all
your posts on the topic. By the way, I assume you have defended your
theory several times and often had to cover the same ground. I
appreciate that you do it, because it gives others the opportunity to
get acquainted with your theory and see how you defend it.

> (1) Aspect is connected with morphologic form and each form can only
> represent one aspect. Thus aspect is not connected with the context, to the
> effect that the same form in one context can be imperfective and in another
> perfective. There is no place for a neutralization of aspects.

This premise seems to make some empirically falsifiable claims whose
truth I doubt.

I take an example from Finnish. In some contexts aspect (semantic) is
grammaticalized in Finnish. One of such contexts is below (1a) and
(1b).

(1a) Luin kirjan. 'I read (past) the book (accusative).' (Perfective)
(1b) Luin kirjaa. 'I read (past) the book (partitive).' (Imperfective)

However, when negated, the aspectual opposition between the sentences is
neutralized, as in (2)

(2) En lukenut kirjaa 'I did not read the book (partitive).'
(Perfective/imperfective)

Grammar requires that the word book is in the partitive (because of
negative polarity). This is not specified with respect to aspect
(semantically). It may be understood as perfective or imperfective. The
context is the only clue, other than the imperfective possibly having
greater frequence (but this is just my gut feeling, I have never counted
any corpus for this).

The meaning difference is clear. The perfective requires that the book
is read through. The imperfective only requires that part of the book is
read.

How would you handle this data if there is no place for the
neutralization of aspectual opposition? (The difference in case is not
wholly aspectual. There is more involved in the selection between the
two forms. However, I chose a context where the morphological opposition
codes an aspectual (semantically) distinction.)

Perhaps I could draw an analogy with English tense. Temporal anteriority
is grammaticalized by the English past tense. Thus tense
(morphosyntactic category) grammaticalizes temporal reference
(anteriority). However, this is not always true in conditionals, where
it can signal counterfactuality. Thus there is similarly a discrepancy
between the semantic and morphosyntactic category in a specific context
(or alternatively we could say that in this context the form is not past
tense).

> (2) There is a semantic distinction between tenses: Reference time
> *allways* comes before the deictic point in past tense, and *allways* comes
> after the deictic point in future tense.

This is a good description of absolute tense (in the semantic, not
necessarily morphosyntactic, sense). I wonder if we need to take also
relative tense into account in Hebrew. Comrie, for example, analyzes
Classical Arabic tense as a relative tense (Tense, ch 3). I would not be
surprised if the Hebrew system started out as an aspectual system,
developed into the direction of relative tense and finally (at least in
modern Hebrew) into absolute tense. This could account for the rise of
waw-conversive.

> (3) There are only three *semantic* (uncancelable) Aktionsart categories,
> namely, durativity, dynamicity, and telicity. Properties such as stativity
> and punctuality are pragmatic and they are therefore cancelable.

I am not convinced about the strict dichotomy you make between semantic
and pragmatic categories, as punctuality does not always seem cancelable
(or perhaps I understand the cancelability of puctuality differently
from you). (I consider any STRICT distinction between semantics and
pragmatics somewhat problematic, though in general terms the distinction
is very useful. Cancelability is one attempt at such a distinction, and
I can accept that as a basis for discussion.)

I try to explain briefly my view on the relationship among the above
categories. Of course, this is not directly relevant to your point above
or my criticism of it, but I take the opportunity to clarify my view.

I do not make a semantic distinction between aspect and Aktionsart. I
view them as different layers of aspect (there can be more than two).
Aspects can be nested, in both the semantic and the structural sense. An
outer layer of aspect may change the aspect of the overall expression.
Thus for example, an accomplishment (Vendlerian classification), when
inside an imperfective, becomes an activity (this actually can result in
two quite different results: either iterativity is added or one single
event is described with an inside view). To illustrate this nesting,
consider (3).

(3) I was building a house.

'To build' is an activity (imperfective). The next layer of aspect is
'to build a house' which is an accomplishment (perfective). And the next
layer is 'was building a house', where the perfective is opened, making
the overall expression imperfective again.

In this example the structural and the semantic aspect overlap, but it
is not always the case.

Aspects can be put into two hierarchies: imperfective>stative and
dynamic>perfective>punctual.

This hierarchy, taken from my thesis, makes a distinction between
imperfective and progressive. Progressive is not mentioned, because it
was not relevant to the purpose at hand (in my thesis). They differ with
respect to stativity. More on this below.

(By now you must have gathered that I view stativity etc. aspectual
phenomena.)

This presentation of my view is perhaps a little bit cryptic, as I tried
to keep it short. It is expounded at a greater length and clarity in my
thesis (ch 2). But I guess this attempt may help the list, and you also
if you have not read my thesis.

<snip>
> The strength of my model based upon these participles and with the
> definitions of perfectivity and imperfectivity given, is that *all* the
> verbs of the Tanach can be accounted for, those being viewed as anomalous
> as well.

Well and good. However, it is possible to make a theory that can explain
all the data, be falsifiable in principle, and yet be too wide. Another
criterion for a theory is whether it makes all the necessary
restrictions, thus predicting the non-occurrences of certain cases.

How would you prove a form not to be imperfective?

> Another strength is that the points of reference both are clearly
> visible and are restricted and I am bound by them. This makes the model in
> principle falsifyable and reduces circularity (The premises may be wrong,
> but they are distinct and clearly expressed, and I must be able to defend
> the imperfectivity of *all* examples of YIQTOL  and WAYYIQTOL  and the
> perfectivity of *all* examples of QATAL  and WEQATAL.)

Methodologically very good.

> The model predicts that in many instances the perfective and imperfective
> aspects are used with the same *sense*. This is not because the aspects are
> neutralized, but because the Aktionsart of the verbs plays a more important
> part to convey meaning than the aspects do. For verbs with a particular
> Aktionsart, therefore, neither of the aspects does add anything to the
> meaning, and both can therefore be used interchangeably. The best place to
> see this, is in accounts that occur two times in the Tanach.

I think that seldom are they equivalent as far as truth conditions go.
The perfective of an accomplishment needs to be fulfilled, whereas the
imperfective may or may not be. The perfective is the unmarked aspect
for punctuals, whereas an imperfective requires iteration (or the inner
aspect (or Aktionsart, if you prefer) ceases to be punctual).

> Because states by definition are durative but not dynamic, and only
> occationally telic ("She is pregnant."), a perfective or imperfective verb
> can be used without any difference in meaning, as is seen in (1) and (2).
> The aspects does not add anything to the durative nature of the
> "Aktionsart" of the verb. (States cannot rightly be said to have
> "Aktionsart" because there is no action, but states usually are put in the
> same category because they exist on the same plane as Aktionsart.)
> 
> (1) 1Kings 9:8 And though this house is (YIQTOL) so high,
> 
> (2) 2Chr. 7:21 And this house, which is (QATAL) so high,

According to Comrie (Aspect) there is no perfective stative. A stative
will cease to be stative if the beginning or end of the situation is
included in the scope of predication. Some languages (e.g. English) use
the same form with the perfective aspect of dynamic verbs and the
imperfective aspect of stative verbs. This opposition he calls
progressive/nonprogressive. So here is a point in which languages differ
(whether they express perfective/imperfective opposition or
progressive/nonprogressive opposition). (I am not saying that we need to
follow his terminology, but that we need to be aware of this
distinction.)

Thus (1) and (2) might well differ. Assuming (not that these are
necessary assumptions) the forms code aspect and are meant to mean the
same thing, diachronically they could signal historical change or
vacillation between these two aspectual systems. However, I wonder if
there would be other aspect languages that express no difference between
a perfective/nonprogressive and an imperfective/progressive with a
state.

> The verb "to ascend" is durative and dynamic but not telic. Consider (3)
> and (4)  where the situations are telic. Do the different aspects give the
> clauses different meanings? Hardly! The important factor is the lexical
> meaning of (LH - "to go up". The context - and not the aspects - shows that
> the end of the action was reached and that is all we need to know. An
> infinitive or a participle could have been used in each case without any
> addition or substraction of meaning, and the same is true with a QATAL and
> a YIQTOL. It is true that the natural interpretation of the QATAL is that
> it includes the end, but that the end objectively was reached we already
> know from the context.

When we are dealing with the meaning of the verbal form, they differ
even if we can infer (pragmatically) whether the end was reached. The
issue is whether the context alone or the context and the aspects show
it, and which has textual fit.

<snip>
> From the observation above we can formulate the following rule: "When the
> imperfective and perfective aspect do not add any new information, but all
> the information the writer wants to convey can be gathered from other
> factors (Aktionsart, context, linguistic convention etc) both aspects can
> be used without any difference in meaning (though there may be a difference
> in use due to the linguistic convention, and this can be seen by discourse
> analyzis)." The aspects are not *neutralized* because their own meaning is
> there, but it is not necessary information because it does not add anything
> new. To use the terminology from my previous post: the progressive nature
> of the imperfective aspect is accounted for because of the durative nature
> of the verb. So we need not use much energy to find a difference in meaning
> in every instance when different aspects are used.

OK. I agree that there are many cases when an imperfective can be used
instead of a perfective because it is semantically less restrictive with
durative verbs. However, I still assume that 'the linguistic convention'
(seen by discourse analysis) is not arbitrary. I would expect there to
be some emphasis on the process or lack of emphasis on the result when
the imperfective is used. This is what I meant when I questioned the
textual fit.

> It seems to me that the most important obstacle for understand the Hebrew
> conjugations, is that researchers force their Germanic (or Modern Hebrew)
> consciousness of tense upon Classical Hebrew. On the basis of this
> thinking, it is concluded that an account of terminated actions in the past
> can only be described by verbs with past tense or the perfective aspect.
> And this is the foundation of the modern understanding of WAYYIQTOL. One of
> my principal points is the very opposite, namely that narrative is
> expressed by imperfective verbs where only a part of the action is made
> visible, and the end is not foucsed on at all, but it is construed from the
> context (the nature of narrative accounts).

I assume we both agree that much harm has been done when using Latin (or
an Indo-Europian language) as a standard for analyzing non-Indo-European
languages. I have no problem with languages that have no tense (though I
am not a speaker of any of them).

> The reason why I reject a
> neutralization of the aspects is the same, nemely, that this way of
> reasoning is also based upon tense-thinking.

But this I disagree with. Tense has nothing to do with my Finnish
example above, nor with the reason I originally suggested the
neutralization, which had to do with your analysis of Ps. 136:10. To
regard it as focussing on the progressive action just seemed to stretch
the evidence too much to be convincing. Even if originally the
participle expressed the progressive or imperfective action (which to me
is aspectual), this is a clear example of a case where there is no
emphasis on the progressive nature. It may be argued that it is not
contradicted either
(this requires an understanding of the slaying of all the first-born not
occurring simultaneously). But given the typicality of this kind of an
identifying participle (e.g. the whole Psalm is full of them) and the
lack of a non-progressive counterpart, it would be very surprising if
the language would not develop into having true punctuals also used in
the same construction without an iteration - to me a sure sign of
imperfectivity. This is why I suggested neutralization.

> BTW, I find the Greek aspects
> to have the same nature as the Hebrew ones, though being more restricted in
> use, because there are more "conjugations" (usually called "tenses").
> Fanning´s study is very fine, but I reject his idea of punctual present for
> the same reason as stated above.

I agree that his suggestion is controversial. I tried to show that there
are other possibilities of understanding your example (of an
imperfective including the end point as well as the succeeding state).
Therefore it did not convince me, but I am very open to look at more
examples. To me it seems that your view of the imperfective (in Hebrew,
corresponding to this example) is a lot like my and Fanning's view of
the perfect in Greek (ignoring my differences with Fanning). I can try
one more option with less controversial premises (the exmaple was Mark
2:5). The forgiving is iterated - your sins will be forgiven over and
over again (whenever you commit them). By the way, I am not trying to
defend this or these other interpretations for the passage, I am just
noting that these possibilities have to be excluded before the example
truly proves the point.

As far as the Greek present used perfectivally is concerned, if you
accept Fanning's premise that performatives are aspectually (in the
semantic sense) perfective, then he has proved his point. It would be
interesting to know how performatives are coded in other aspect
languages, especially those whose aspect system is very separate from
the temporal system.

Of course Hebrew may differ from Greek at this point, but from a general
linguistic point of view this is interesting. And if you find a language
that definitely uses the imperfective form systematically that way
(=state following the completion of the action), you will have greatly
strenthened your position, because then it is not a Hebrew peculiarity,
but something other languages show also. (I am somewhat suspicious of an
analysis of a dead language that shows no counterparts in a living one -
but it does not mean that I would not accept good arguments.) 

Kimmo