Biblical Hebrew Forum

["M & E Anstey" <anstey AT raketnet.nl>]

Hi Rolf,

Some brief answers:

> As you both correctly say, linguistic theory must play an important role
in
> the study of BH. However, the theory we use should function as a framework
> to which we can refer, and which can help us make our study orderly and
> systematic. A theory that implicitly has the linguistic answers we are
> seeking before we start to process our data, gives little insight. This
> means that the data have priority and the theory is just a device to order
> the data.

I would think that there is in linguistics not much "pure data", unless one
works in phonetics. The texts we have can only begin to be analysed with
linguistic theories once an enourmous amount of implicit and explicit
interpretation has been done. The very prerequisite that one knows BH before
analysing it underlines the fact that there is no "view from nowhere" as
they say. Take phonology in BH: it could seem to the uninitiated that
providing BH (or Tiberian Hebrew) with prosodic and phological structure
would be not too difficult, and that experts could agree. Quite the opposite
in fact, it is extremely difficult and major disagreements still exist on
many issues.

>
> What has surprised me more than once when I have read previous studies of
> Hebrew verbs, is the lack of interest in finding a theory that can help us
> distinguish between semantic factors  (factors having uncancellable
> meaning) and pragmatic  factors (factors having cancellable meaning,
> depending on the context). I am simply not aware of a single study with
> this approach.

Have you seen the following:
Baayen, R. Harald. 1997. The pragmatics of the 'Tenses' in Biblical Hebrew.
Studies in Language 21 (2):245-285.
I would also recommend reading Myhill's publications. At SBL this year there
are several talks on the BH verb system. I can't go unfortunately.
>
> Let me illustrate the need for the mentioned approach:
>
> In unpointd texts there is no formal difference between WAYYIQTOL and
> WEYIQTOL (many WEYIQTOLs are apocopated).
> Therefore, assuming that YIQTOL

What's a YIQTOL if your data is unpointed? Similarly, what is a WAYYIQTOL,
QATAL, and so forth? You can't throw out the Tiberian bathwater and keep the
morphophonological baby.

> represents the imperfective aspect, we cannot know from the original
> morphology whether WAYYIQTOL is an expression of the conjunction WAW+the
> imperfective aspect, or whether it repsesents something completely
> different, say, the perfective aspect.

But if you stick to theory-less data, you can only assert that the unpointed
text is allographemic between pointed wayyiqtol and weyiqtol. In an
unpointed text how can one ever discover that WYQTL represents two different
verbs?
>
> Three basic arguments have been used in favor of WAYYIQTOL representing
> the  perfective aspect, 1) most WAYYIQTOLs have past reference, 2)
hundreds
> of WAYYIQTOL verbs occur as telic verb phrases, and 3) most WAYYIQTOLs
seem
> to have the same function as QATAL..

(1) yes, (2) depends on what you mean, but I think probably yes, (3) I could
not agree with this. What do you mean by function?

 The use of theories that are prone to
> induce their theoretical load upon the data, would probably lead to the
> conclusion that WAYYIQTOL do represent the perfective aspect as does
QATAL,
> Thus the conclusion is that WAYYIQTOL is *semantically* perfective (the
> perfectivity cannotbe cancelled).
>
> However, consider the following data: I have lists of about 900 YIQTOLs
and
> 1.750 participles (most of them being active participles) with *past*
> reference. These are the same roots that are used as WAYYIQTOL ( for
> instance, )FMAR is used 2.600 times as WAYYIQTOL , tventy times as a
> participle,and ten times as YIQTOL, all  with past reference), and several
> hundreds occur in telic verb phrases. Most of the 8,000 participles occur
> in direct speech contexts, but 90 per cent of the participles occurring in
> "narrative" contexts have past reference.

But this is an argument about the function of YIQTOL, not WAYYIQTOL. The
question is what is the role of wayyiqtol.

>
> So the three argumnts presented above in favor of WAYYIQTOLs being
> perfective hold good in in the case of the mentioned YIQTOLs and
> participles as well.
> So the qustion arises: Is there a semantic reason (the
> form is inherrently perfective) for the past reference of WAYYIQTOL but a
> pragmatic reason (the context is the reason for the past reference) of the
> YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL? Or can it be that the past reference of the
WAYYIQTOL
> is pragmatic as well, and that most textbooks are wrong?

> Generative grammar
> or Optimality theory or the like cannot answer these questions,

Why not? Perhaps those working in these theories think they have answered
these questions. Optimality theory as applied to syntax is still rather
underdeveloped, and highly controversial in the views of many.

 but we need
> a simple and clearcut theory which can help us distinguish between
> pragmatic and semantic factors in a text.

If there was such a theory someone would have found it by now. I would think
that the pragmatic, semantic, and other factors in any text are highly
interwoven. Imagine the text as a cake. Teasing out the pragmatics and
semantics is like trying to extract the initial ingredients, like eggs and
flour, from the baked cake. Texts are products of language, and whatever
contributes to the production line influences the final product. Reverse
engineering of language texts is thus never clean-cut.

One final thought: Perhaps the criteria of cancellable/uncancellable is too
severe on the data. Perhaps the use of prototype theory would be better.
Thus we could suggest that wayyiqtol is prototypically past and perfective,
etc.  Prototype theory is a very helpful way of analysing data, since it
reflects very much how humans categorise the world around them.

Regards
Matthew


Matthew Anstey
------------------------------------------
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid
"Werkgroep Informatica"
anstey AT raketnet.nl

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