Biblical Hebrew Forum

[rolf.furuli AT east.uio.no (rolf furuli)]

Dear Randall,

The reason why we misunderstand one another and disagree, may, to a certain
extent, be that we use different terminology. Let me clarify mine:

When I speak of "semantic meaning" I have in mind a meaning that is
uncancellable. Per definition "semantic meaning" will be the same in any
context and under any circumstances. So the question is whether such
fundamental linguistic units do exist. Please note that I am not speaking
of *function* (pragmatics) but of semantics.

Let us start with an English Aktionsart-example. Durativity is a semantic
property. Verbs that "are born" durative can never change being durative.
The English "sing" will, regardless of tense, aspect, mood, diathesis,
nominailzation or whatever, be durative - sounds and words come out of
someone's mouth. The same is true with Hebrew $YR. Statitivity is on the
other hand pragmatic; any verb having a stative interpretation can have a
fientic one as well.


 Fundamental words and grammatical forms signal a concept in the minds of
people with the same presuppositon pool. The core of this concept is quite
clear but it becomes more fuzzy at the edges. When the word or the form is
used, the context does not generate new semantic meaning, but it helps to
show the reader which area of the semantic meaning of the word/form that
the author wants to make visible. The fundemantal linguistic units such as
words and grammatical forms serve as building blocks, and a combination of
these in a particular context can by implication or pragmatically convey
new meaning (but the semantic meaning is fixed and uncancellable.

Let us use the English present participle as an example. The core of its
semantic meaning is "ongoing action". It can be used as a verb, adjective
or substantive - this is function - but it's semantic meaning is unchanged.
It can even be used as implicature. A friend of mine who completed her
Ph.D. had the following clause in her corpus: "crossing the floor, he
opened the cupboard". Even though the meaning was that he opened the
cupboard after having crossed the floor, the semantic meaning of the
participle was not changed, and this seemingly contrafactual use could be
explained pragmatically. It is exactly the same with the Hebrew active
participle. it signals a semantic meaning that never change, but its use
certainly do change. The semantic meaning of English simple past is that RT
comes before C, and the semantic meaning of English future is that RT comes
after C. There may be situations where this pattern seemingly is deviated
from, but these exceptions can be explained pragmatically.

Regarding Hebrew we must differentiate between form and function, between
semantics and pragmatics. In the minds of the writers of the Hebrew Bible
the participles and infinitives each signalled a concept in their minds
which can be said to be their semantic meaning. We need to find this
meaning, and then we can better understand how the forms are used.
Regarding YIQTOL, we need to find whether it represents one, two, or three
different fundamental semantic units, but in any case we can expect that
each fundamental unit has one particular semantic meaning. The question is
whether the long and short form are varieties of one semantic meaning,
whether we have a short preterit, a short jussive, and a long indicative
form, or whether we have a short jussive form and a long indicative form.
And further, are there two qatals, one with past/perfective meaning, and
one with present/future/volitional meaning? Or, to state it differently,
does YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, and WEYIQTOL have one semantic meaning, though
being used differently, or two or three different semantic meanings? And
similarly with QATAL,WEQATAL, and WEQATAL.

The method that I outlined in my previous post can serve as a tool both to
find the number of the different fundamental semantic units and their
semantic meaning.

We have no quarrel about the change of language, the inventions of new
meanings and new uses. But a study to find the semantic meaning of the
fundamental linguistic units ought at the outset to be synchronic. The
question,then, would be how many such synchronic studies we need to
undertake to find the diachronic pattern of Hebrew - *if* there is such a
diachronic change of the semantic meaning of the fundamental linguistic
units of our corpus (Tanach).

I conclude that any language has different fundamental linguistic units
with an uncancellable semantic meaning; durativity and telicity are two
such properties. But again, beware of confusing pragmatics and semantics!


Regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




>Rolf katav:
>>ASSUMPTION: The fundamental linguistic units of a language have the same
>>semantic meaning in all contexts.
>
>Brittle.
>That is a bad assumption based on every language I know. That is a
>assumption that prevents POrter from saying 2+2=4 with regard to the simple
>past tense in Greek. Languages are continually developing and expanding
>idioms, dissolving and recombining categories. They are "never" absolutely
>consistent in their 'semantic meaning' in all contexts. It is an assumption
>guaranteed to produce something non-real.
>
>E.g. Arabic lam yaktub is a negativized past. If that gets blended in with
>the normal yaktub or with yaktubu the result is simply a mistake. Call lam
>yaktub an idiom, or call it a vestige, it is not the same as yaktub.
>
>Based on real language use, you can expect to find exceptions. The
>assumption is particularly probable to be misleading when the language uses
>a smaller number of options. Even more misleading if the researcher were to
>delete data like vayyiqtol versus veyiqtol.
>
>bottom line: just like children you will need to discover how consistent a
>language is in mapping structures with situations.
>swans made of straw: how do you prove/disprove that most geese fly? or that
>most geese are not white?
>
>bivraxot
>Randall Buth