Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

Joseph Tucker has asked specificially about 'statives'.

Well, the lines on these are not clear. Many verbs are 'stative' or
'not-stative' by some persons' semantic definition, but that is not the
same as the BibHeb stative category. 

In BH many verbs cross lines: 
shama` 'he heard' is/was a stative that crosses the line. The participle is
shomea` like non-statives, but the pausal forms preserve shamea` and Arabic
sami` shows that this was an ancient categorization. 

Basically, statives could be grouped by those verbs that join yif`al prefix
forms together that are not caused only phonetically by a guttural letter.
(but that will drop out verbs like Hafets--stative participle,
yaHpots--non-stative yif`ol.) 

So define it as a morphological category and recognize that it was in flux
and undergoing change. Which means don't take it as a semantic
straightjacket. Instead, take it as an etymological tendency. 

The categories are nicely and succinctly outlined:

Joseph katav:
>Stative Verbs Perfective Definition: Verbs describing a state or quality 
>rather than an event.
>
>Used in past time:
>Telic - Possessing a goal or endpoint. 
>Ingressive - The function that emphasizes the beginning or transitional 
>stadium of the event indicated.
>Constative - Refers to remaining or persisting in a state.
>
>Present time: 
>Gnomic - Having the character of a rule, proverb, or byword.
>Adjectival Present Perfective - Directs attention to the subject's 
>involvement.
>Durative Stative Perfective - Quasi-fientive verbs, indicating an ongoing 
>emotional response.
>
>State of Affairs - A Stative verb cannot express a 'once-off,' completed 
>action.

But SoA 'never complete'? Maybe in proto-Hebrew. I can't buy it for the
synchronic language. shama`='he heard'.

>Translation - It always carries a certain element of duration.

NO. 'always' ? I can't stop an English person from always putting such a
translation into a biblical context, and every event can always be
described with some amount of duration, but that doesn't mean speakers
intended such. (Remember, suffix conjugation is also the defalt form in
situations for simple past reference. See under translation below.)

>The translation is determined by context. 

When you say 'translation' do you mean 'semantic reference'? Translation is
determined by the target language and target language audience. 

Meaning is determined by a mapping/contrast/collacation within a language's
own semantic domain and grammatical system and agaianst the assumptions of
the speaker/hearer interaction.

>Translation - In dialogue it is usually translated with the present tense.


If so, that would be by accident. Remember, in dialogue anyone can tell a
story and give a report about what happened. In which case, classic
narrative structures will normally be used. The only difference is that
more elaborate settings do not usually need to be given at the beginning
because the participants and situation are already present around those
engaged in the dialogue.

bivraxot

Randall Buth
Jerusalem University College