Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Kimmo,

Your post contains much sound linguistic theory, but as you yourself
express, it is difficult to comment on it all. While we both have a
knowledge of fundamental linguistic principles, it appears that our
approach to dead languages is very different. Just allow me a few general
comments. I think  you share my view regaring the following points:

1) A dead language can never be fully understood.
2) No description of Hebrew verbs is the final one.

I agree there are problems with a strict differentiation between pragmatics
and semantics. However, which theory or model is without its problems?
Because of this, I try to avoid very theoretic and hingflying theories and
models, in order not to force upon Hebrew models which are foreign to it.
Instead I try to use  more down-to-the-earth models, whose parts can be
readily understood.

The realization that punctuality is not a semantic property is important,
because many wrong conclusions have been drawn of the basis that it is
semantic. The realization that durativity, dynamicity, or telicity of verbs
marked for one of these characteristics is semantic, may also be helpful.
These are simple pospositions which can be falsified. And note, there is no
problem for the proposition that it sometimes is difficult to see if a
particular construction is punctual or durative. And further, there is no
problem that polysemy exists and that it is sometimes difficult  to be sure
whether or not a construction is durative, dynamic, or telic. When *some*
constructions have these properties and they are cancelable in these
constructions, the proposition is true.

I am surpised that you are uncomfortable with the tense model of Broman
Olsen (see my words below and your comments).

CH:>>RF Regarding tense, Broman Olsen's scheme of semantic meaning is as
follows:
>> Past tense: Reference time comes before the deictic point.
>> Present tense: RT coincides with C.
>> Future tense: RT comes after C.
>> This relationship is uncancellable, and it can be applied to Hebrew. If we
>> find one form with a particular morphology, to be a tense, its occurrences
>> should have a uniform pattern as to the relationship between RT and C. No
>> such form exists, and therefore Hebrew does not have grammaticalized 
>> tenses.
>
>CH:I think here we are in danger of making the same mistake Porter made (in
>my opinion) with his analysis of Greek. Yes, we find that there is no
>time relation with any Greek 'tense' that could not be canceled (contra
>Olsen, as argued by Decker). But that does not justify the idea that
>Greek has no tense. Take English, for example. There are excpetions to
>the past meaning of the imperfect (If I was to come...). So English does
>not have tense either (you could find exceptions to any English tense).
>Or Finnish, even more temporal language (though without an obligatory
>future tense). The Finnish imperfect does code past tense almost always
>(including conditionals). But there is a future or present referring,
>rare use, based on presupposition. If I assume that you know something
>already, I could, in some contexts, refer to it with the imperfect even
>if the situation is in the future (the logic being that this WAS how the
>situation would stand - as you know it from the past information, even
>though the situation is in the future). If
>the assumption is not shared, the expression can result in
>misunderstandings. So the Finnish imperfect is no past tense either? But
>in almost any context (with some exceptions, like the one I described
>above) the native intuition is that the form codes exactly past tense,
>and does not allow for other interpretations.


The model is extremely simple and is not difficult to grasp for anyone with
a basic linguistic knowledge, and no highflying theories are necessary. A
discussion of whether this model fits the English verbal system (or the
Hebrew for that matter) is also quite simple. So I do not see that your
objections have much force (if I understand you correctly).

The definition of tense is quite unproblematic, namely, "a
grammaticalization of location in time." I would go so far as to say that
if we cannot use Broman Olsen's scheme as one of reference for the study of
Hebrew, because some languages have some "counterexamples", linguistic
analysis of a language would be a waste of time, and we would have
linguistic anarchy, anything would be fine for everything. Nobody denies
that verbs with past tense can be used in situations with non-past
reference in many languages. But that fact alone does not nullify Broman
Olsen's scheme or her claim that the relationship between the deictic point
(C) and reference time (RT) in the different tenses can be viewed as
semantic.

Comrie discusses this problem (Tense 1985:19,20) His conclusions regarding
English examples is as follows: "In order to abandon the characterisation
of the English past as indicating basically past time reference, it would
be necessary to show that there is some alternative characterisation of its
meaning, from which past time reference, as well as politeness (and perhaps
present counterfactuality) would all fall out automatically as special
cases. Suggestions that have been made in the literature strike me as
either incorrect (if interpreted literally) or as too vague to be
testable." You even tell that your Finnish example is a special case, and
special cases are not problematic for the scheme.

I therefore think I am on sound linguistic ground when I compare all the
Hebrew finite verbs regarding the relationship between C and RT, and say
that because there is no uniform pattern, tense is not grammaticalized. I
am open for the view that there may be exceptions in the material, so a
group with a high score of uniformity (such as WAYYIQTOL) can have a
uniform relationship after all. But in that case I demand that it must be
explained why all these forms are exceptions (the way Comrie says).
Something which is a half tense is in my view nonsensical; either a verb
form is a tense ("grammaticalization of location in time") or it is not a
tense (BTV: Has anyone come up with an example of a non-past use of Greek
Imperfect?) The advantage of the described approach, is that something
which allways has been assumed to be semantic (the role of WAYYIQTOLs in
narrative), can be reviwed, and can be analyzed for pragmatic
characteristics.


Regarding aspect (I differentiate strictly between "asepct" (the
non-deictic relationship between event time and reference time) and
Aktionsart (the lexical meaning and nature of verbs- durative, punctual
etc). I think I am on the same sound linguistic ground when I compare all
the Hebrew verbs on the basis of the relationship between event time (ET)
and RT, and I think this gives information about Hebrew aspect.

I welcome the use of any scientific model for the study of Hebrew verbs; we
can learn something from them all. But we should remember that the results
are not better than their assumptions. One assumption which is fundamental
for most models, is that Hebrew has four conjugations. If it has just two,
as I claim, it is easy to see why many of the traditional conclusions are
wrong. I have never seen a model with so few assumptions as Broman Olsen's
model; it has a great explanatory force, and it is simple. This is the
reason why I use it.



Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo









>Dear Rolf,
>
>Wow! This thread has so many interesting comments so fast. Next time I
>read my e-mail there were tons of comments to your theory. I understand
>if you run out of time responding to each claim made so far, but I
>comment on a few things anyway. (Also, a brief response to Dave at the
>end.)
>
>At the time it took me to write this, some of the points have already
>been addressed, but I send my version anyway rather that go through the
>whole text again deleting part of the text.
>
>Rolf Furuli wrote:
>
>> What you say above is exactly my point. it does not make sense to speak of
>> a durative verb being punctual. And my intention was therefore to argue for
>> the existence of fundamental linguistic units that can be said to represent
>> "semantic meaning", i.e. meaning that under no circumstances can be
>> canceled. Randall does not seem to accept the existence of such units. So
>> when we accept the elementary and fundamental principle, the question is
>> whether such verbs (with uncancelable meaning) do exist in reality, in
>> Hebrew. Grice's principle is that "semantic meanings may not be canceled
>> without contradiction or reinforced without redundancy." This means that
>> the features of the verbal system which in no context and under no
>> circumstances can be changed or canceled, represent semantic meaning, while
>> features that can be changed or canceled represent conversational pragmatic
>> implicature, even though they may seem to represent a uniform meaning.
>
>I am afraid that you might be using a definitional point trying to prove
>something about (linguistic) reality. It does not work.
>
>I think that the above dichotomy between semantics and pragmatics is
>overly simplistic (though rather common). I am afraid that it just helps
>cloud some issues. Grice has a nice theory of pragmatic implicature, and
>as far as I know, it has not been seriously challenged. However, to
>limit linguistic meaning to uncancelable semantic meaning and pragmatic
>implicature (such as Grice's theory handles) is to rob language a whole
>lot of meaning. The sentence
>that many pragmatics text books use as an example ('Could you pass me
>the salt?') can be explained as a request by Grice's maxims. But the
>maxims cannot explain why 'Are you capable of passing me the salt?' does
>not produce the same effect.
>
>The phenomenon here is conventionalization. One sentence used an idiom
>that has become a conventional way of expressing a request. The other
>does not. Now, my question is what component of our language theory will
>deal with matters like this. I cannot see that any theory of pragmatics
>could do it without making explicit statements about conventional
>expressions (Grician pragmatics surely is inadequate). And if you
>exclude this kind of data from semantics, what are you left with? If you
>say that pragmatics deals with these phenomena, then you need a theory
>of pragmatics that can adequately do it (and it comes out resembling
>semantics theories in many points more than pragmatics theories).
>
>I know that many have tried to draw a line between semantics and
>pragmatics as to what is cancelable and what is not. Then we must be
>ready to give pragmatics a whole lot of idiosyncracies and meaning that
>cannot necessarily be handled by pragmatics theories.
>
>Even with the cancelability thing, it is not always clear as to what is
>cancelable and what is not (even for natives). I view
>semantics-pragmatics as a continuum rather than a strict dichotomy. Any
>strict distinction between semantics and pragmatics is somewhat
>arbitrary. Conventionalization of an expression is not a binary thing.
>It is continuum like. At the one end there is totally conventional,
>semantic meaning. At the other there is pragmatic meaning that can be
>adequately handled by Grice's conventional maxims.
>
>Why go to such lengths at defining the difference between semantics and
>pragmatics. I think that it is crucial if one tries to build a theory of
>a linguistic form that a priori assumes that its meaning is or is not
>cancelable. I think that there are both cancelable and uncancelable
>elements of meaning in language. The meaning of syntactic elements is no
>exception.
>
>It is definitely a worthwhile attempt to characterize the uncancelable
>properties of an expression. However, one may end up with a highly
>abstract property that cannot explain all the data, though  is in no
>contradiction with any of it (this is how I took Randall's basic
>argument). For example, what is the uncancellable property of the
>English genitive (that would characterize all possible uses of the
>genitive)? Can someone come up with anything better than an asymmetrical
>relation? Surely an adequate description of the English genitive must go
>beyond that (would you call it going into pragmatics?).
>
>> The difference between stative and fientive verbs in Hebrew is very
>> important. But if we apply the cancelability test to stative verbs with the
>> question: «Is stativity a semantic property?», we find that the answer is
>> no. As in the case with the verb used in (5) and (6), verbs which generally
>> are stative may in some contexts be interpreted as fientive. This does not
>> mean that we should discard "stativity" as a meaningful concept, or that
>> the importance of it is reduced. But it means that stativity is the most
>> common interpretation of particular verbs, not the only interpretation.
>
>The basic lexical aspect of many verbs can vary. In other words, many
>lexemes are aspectually polysemous. This does not necessarily exclude
>these aspects from being part of semantics any more than lexical
>polysemy (cf. Wittgensteins example of 'game'). (I view stativity etc.
>(Vendlerian categories) as aspectual. There is no clear, semantic
>distinction with what has been called Aktionsart. Both phenomena are
>best handled by the same theory.)
>
>> In relation to Aktionsart (or the Vendlerian categories) there are three
>> fundamental semantic units in Hebrew and English: dynamicity, durativity,
>> and telicity, but punctuality (such as "hickup", "find" etc) are not
>> semantic because any "punctual" verb can also have a durative
>> interpretation.
>
>I do not think this is quite true. Many punctual verbs can (I view this
>as aspectual polysemy), but not all. As a matter of fact, there are
>linguistic studies whose objective is to categorize punctual verbs into
>those that allow for a durative interpretation and those that do not.
>
>> The reverse is not true; verbs with durative Aktionsart can
>> not have a punctual interpretation. To show that some semantic units are
>> uncancelable I challenged Randall to find an event where "run" or "sing"
>> could have a punctual interpretation.
>
>But this is because of the way we define durativity. It does not
>describe linguistic reality per se. I do not think that this proves
>anything about the uncancelability of semantic units. You asked Randall
>something that is definitionally impossible. On the matter of
>uncancelable semantic units, I think they exist, but some semantic units
>are cancelable. Our general theory must be equipped to deal with both.
>We cannot force our data to fit a theory if it does not. If our theory
>excludes either kind of semantic units, then we are in danger of this
>very thing. (Here I do not mean that we need to call those aspects of
>meaning as 'semantic'. Call them pragmatic, if you will. But they have
>to be included in the analysis.)
>
>(Some authors, e.g. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in NT Greek, p. 150, do give
>positive tests of punctuality: "I bought this book at five o'clock", but
>"*I read this book at five o'clock." Yet this hardly disproves my point.
>The issue with this test of Fanning's is not aspect per se, but our
>knowledge of the world. "I drank a glass of water at five o'clock."
>would be OK, just because it takes less time, not because the aspect is
>different.)
>
>The situation would be opposite if we were to define durativity as a
>semantic feature that specifies that the activity is predicated to have
>taken time, and punctuality as the converse, then any durative verb
>could also be punctual (eg. 'I sang' - it is not predicated as taking up
>time any more that the usual example of punctuality 'the cable snapped';
>we are just relying on our knowledge of the world, and perhaps partly on
>the fact that 'snapped' does not allow for a durative interpretation
>(thus being a counter-example to your claim that any punctual verb can
>be durative).).
>(What a complex sentence I just wrote. Perhaps I should study how to
>write readable texts :-)
>If we were to define our terms the way I described above, linguistic
>reality would remain unchanged. This is why I feel uncomfortable with
>the conclusions I think you are making from this point.
>
>> Regarding tense, Broman Olsen's scheme of semantic meaning is as follows:
>> Past tense: Reference time comes before the deictic point.
>> Present tense: RT coincides with C.
>> Future tense: RT comes after C.
>> This relationship is uncancellable, and it can be applied to Hebrew. If we
>> find one form with a particular morphology, to be a tense, its occurrences
>> should have a uniform pattern as to the relationship between RT and C. No
>> such form exists, and therefore Hebrew does not have grammaticalized 
>> tenses.
>
>I think here we are in danger of making the same mistake Porter made (in
>my opinion) with his analysis of Greek. Yes, we find that there is no
>time relation with any Greek 'tense' that could not be canceled (contra
>Olsen, as argued by Decker). But that does not justify the idea that
>Greek has no tense. Take English, for example. There are excpetions to
>the past meaning of the imperfect (If I was to come...). So English does
>not have tense either (you could find exceptions to any English tense).
>Or Finnish, even more temporal language (though without an obligatory
>future tense). The Finnish imperfect does code past tense almost always
>(including conditionals). But there is a future or present referring,
>rare use, based on presupposition. If I assume that you know something
>already, I could, in some contexts, refer to it with the imperfect even
>if the situation is in the future (the logic being that this WAS how the
>situation would stand - as you know it from the past information, even
>though the situation is in the future). If
>the assumption is not shared, the expression can result in
>misunderstandings. So the Finnish imperfect is no past tense either? But
>in almost any context (with some exceptions, like the one I described
>above) the native intuition is that the form codes exactly past tense,
>and does not allow for other interpretations.
>
>However, I think that we should strive for understanding the core
>meaning of Hebrew verbs. Also relevant is the semantic and syntactic
>constraints on canceling (assuming that the canceling is not just by
>implication and that it can be done with any sentence; perhaps this is
>how you see it) like those on the Finnish future referring imperfects.
>If it can be argued that apart from certain, well-defined situations,
>Hebrew verbs do all behave according to a temporal theory, then we have,
>in my opinion, proved that Hebrew has tense (to a degree). Of course, it
>is possible that we come up with
>another theory with less exceptions that is not based on tense per se,
>but that has temporal implicaitions in the semantics of the language.
>This sort of phenomenon would be like tense-mood in some languages. The
>verbal
>system can be analysed from a temporal or modal viewpoint, and results
>can be very close. In such cases one may argue that the language codes
>mood and another that it codes tense. Does it have to be an either-or
>necessarily (though some analysis may capture more data). Prototype
>theory of linguistic categorization does not force us to make it an
>either-or situation (but allows us to do it if data directs us in that
>direction).
>
>The interesting question is if there are contexts where the Hebrew verb
>allows only for a certain temporal reference (grammatically speaking,
>not discourse coherence). If there are, then at least in those contexts
>the form grammaticalizes tense (though this does NOT necessarily mean
>that tense is the best analysis for the Hebrew verb).
>
>I am not arguing that the Hebrew verbal system is purely temporal. Nor
>am I arguing it to be purely aspectual. Or purely modal. Just too many
>exceptions. What is it then? Perhaps a combination of these. I do not
>know (but I want to).
>
>Dave Washburn wrote:
>
>> Could you give a constructed
>> > example of a sentence that would demonstrate a punctual use of 'run' or
>> > 'sing'?
>>
>> "He ran to the door."  "She sang one staccato note."
>
>Punctuality does not mean short duration. Our knowledge of real world
>events does not necessarily correspond to linguistic punctuality. If
>'the cable snapped' is punctual, we still could analyse the time that it
>took for the cable to emit the sound. However, if we try something like
>'the cable snapped for two milliseconds', we have made an iterative
>expression or we mean that the results of the snapping remained for two
>milliseconds. Punctuality means that the event cannot be predicated over
>time. Durativity is its converse. "She sang one staccato note." is no
>more punctual than "she sang five arias." Both can take an adverbial of
>minimum duration ("she sang five arias for twenty minutes."; "She sang
>one staccato note for X time" (I do not know how long it would take)).
>(The
>aspectual behavior of such sentences is not adequately handled by just
>analyzing punctuality here. Something happens also to perfectivity when
>we add the adverbial of minimum duration. Here the concept of nesting
>helps.)
>
>Well, Dave, if you want to define punctuality so that your senteces are
>punctual, feel free to do so. However, I assume that Rolf would not
>consider these sentences (in English or Hebrew) to be counter-examples
>to his theory. The definition I gave above is roughly the one I have
>seen most used. I do not claim it to be sacrosanct.
>
>P.H. Matthews defines punctual as "marking an action, etc. taking place
>at an undivided moment of time" (Concise Dictionary of Linguistics).
>
>Comrie defines punctual as follows:
>"The opposite of durativity is punctuality, which thus means the quality
>of a situation that does not last in time (is not conceived of as
>lasting in time), one that takes place momentarily. It should be noted
>that the crucial point here is that punctual situations do not have any
>duration, not even duration of a very short period. Thus a punctual
>situation, by definition, has no internal structure, and in a language
>with separate imperfective forms to indicate reference to the internal
>structure of a situation, then clearly punctuality and imperfectivity
>will be incompatible." Aspect, p. 42.
>
>Frawley's definition: "If an event is momentary and has no temporal
>duration, it is punctual; if it is necessarily distributed over time, it
>is durative." Linguistic Semantics, p. 306.
>
>>
>> Next question.
>
>Would you explain the whole universe and give two good examples? :-)
>
>Kimmo