Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Rolf,

Since you seem to understand the author's intention correctly, you seem to
be being rather perverse. But as you are not a native speaker, I will simply
remind you that you are in no position to judge the naturalness of different
interpretations of this sentence. I accept that I do not have the context
for this statement. But let us assume a context in a simple narrative about
a man getting himself some breakfast. In such a context this is to me, as a
native speaker, a 100% natural English expression (except in one particular
register of English, that used by old-fashioned schoolmasters) with a
meaning more or less equivalent to "he crossed the floor, then he opened the
cupboard". If we assume that this was the meaning of the author, and that he
correctly expressed this meaning in the English sentence "Crossing the
floor, he opened the cupboard", where does that leave us? One thing is
clear, that you have no right to contradict the assertions of naturalness
made by the original author and by myself; your task is to interpret English
as she is spoken, not as you (or even Dave Washburn) think she should be
spoken.

Peter Kirk

----- Original Message -----
From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: Linguistic assumptions, long (Rolf, also Dave)


> Dear Peter,
>
> I think it is better that you come up with an example of your own. My
> example was used to show that strange cases are possible. Counter-examples
> should not be special cases, and as long as we do not have the context,
(as
> I at present don't) we cannot be certain as to the relationship between RT
> and ET in that particular case. The most natural interpretation of the
> clause, without having seen the context, is that "he" moved the cuopboard
> along the floor and opened it in the middle of the crossing event. But
this
> was evidently not the meaning of the author. But why not, I do not know.
>
>
> Regards
> Rolf
>
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
>
>
>
> >Dear Rolf,
> >
> >Would the sentence you quoted a few days ago,
> >
> >"Crossing the floor, he opened the cupboard"
> >
> >be a counter-example to the situation you describe? This has a verb form
> >"crossing" which usually represents the imperfective aspect, but it seems
to
> >me that in this case "reference time intersects event time at the coda".
If
> >so, Broman Olsen's theory is falsified for English as it is really spoken
> >and written, and applies only to the idealised and sanitised English
which
> >Dave Washburn does not call "bad". That would hardly be a surprise. Real
> >language, as opposed to artificial constructs, just does not fit nicely
with
> >absolute categories like "non-cancellable", it has a strong tendency to
> >squeeze its way past such theoretical constraints.
> >
> >Peter Kirk
> >
>
> >
> >
> >> Dear Clay,
> >>
> >> I am not sure who the people you mention are and what is the sense of
> >> "'core' of semantic-functional significance". But regarding aspect, the
> >> situation i simple as far as English is concerned.  The characteristic
of
> >> the imperfective aspect (not only  its 'core'), represented by present
> >> participle, is that reference time intersects event time at the nucleus
> >> (before the end). The characteritic of the perfective aspect,
represented
> >> by the perfect, is that reference time intersects event time at the
coda.
> >> This is a non-cancelable relationship because it is always like that.
> >> Therefore Broman Olsen uses the term "semantic meaning".
> >>
> >> The definition is very clear, and it can be falsified by finding
examples
> >> where the relationship between ET and RT is different from the
definition.
> >> We cannot presume that the situation in Hebrew is similar to English,
but
> >> because the definition is so clearcut, I cannot think of a better model
by
> >> which to test Hebrew aspect.
> >>
> >>
> >> Regards
> >> Rolf
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
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