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Re: (To Niccacci) about your review of G. Hatav's book

From: Alviero Niccacci <alviero.niccacci AT studiumbiblicum.org>
To: "Moon-Ryul Jung" <moon AT sogang.ac.kr>
Cc: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (To Niccacci) about your review of G. Hatav's book
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 10:10:08 +0200

Title: Re: (To Niccacci) about your review of G. Hatav's book

Dear Prof. Niccacci,
I read your review on G.Hatav, The Semantics of Aspect and Modality in
_Liber Annuus_49 (1999) 525-546 in pdf format at the following address:
http://www.custodia.org/sbf/edit/LA1999.html

This review was very helpful to me. Let me ask some questions,
though.

Q1: p. 543, you said:
1) In historical narrative, in reference to the past: x-qatal
(or other non-wayyqtol forms = setting, or antecedent information)
-> wayyiqtol ( main line or foreground) -> x-qatal (or other non-
wayyqtol forms = off line, or background).

The traditional reading of Gen 1.1-3, which you do not seem to support,
seems to match the pattern above. Here Gen 1.1 provides the setting,
and 1.2 provides off-line explanation for the setting. Gen 1.3 starts
the main line narrative. If the "setting" refers only to the
antecedent information that can be retrieved or inferred from the text,
then Gen 1.1 is not qualified. But should the setting be always
inferrable from the text? It is so typically. But under special
situation, wouldn't the reader simply accept the setting provided
in the situation where the reader would not expect to infer it, e.g.

in the beginning of a story?

<...>

I am not sure what you mean by *traditional reading of Gen 1.1.-3* and I do not intend to get involved in the *BR)$YT, the continuing saga*. If I remember correctly, a long discussion on this text took place in 1999 & 2000 in this forum. Please see my analysis of Gen 1:1-3 in _Syntax of the Verb_ #18.

I do not know when antecedent information or setting is expected or not. I only try to understand the way the ancient writers composed their narratives.

Q2: p. 533, you said:

Contrary to common opinion, WAYHI and WHAYA are not particles but full
verbs, whose subject is the two following sentences taken together
as a noun equivalent: "It happened THE FACT THAT while-they-were-burying-
a-man, they-saw-the-band"...... The function of these WAYHI and WHAYA is
to place the two-sentence complex on the main line of communication.....

Without WAYHI and WHAYA, the double sentence would be placed on the off
line of communication.
-----------------------------------------------

It is the case with the pattern of Temporal _expression_ + W+X+QATAL
(e.g. 2 Kgs 13:21, which you quote in p. 533). But is it also true
of the pattern Temporal _expression_ + WAYYQTOL. e.g. Gen 22:4? It seems
that Gen 22:4 is a main line statement.

For the analysis of Gen 22:4 you can see my _Syntax of the Verb_ #103: *bayyôm ha$$elî$î* is a circumtance with function of protasis + the main sentence with function of apodosis. Together they constitute a double sentence. Wayehî could head the whole construction as, e.g., in Gen 34:25. The difference is discontinuity (Gen 22:4) vs. continuity (Gen 34:25) in the main-line of communication.

Q3: pp. 543-4, you said:

<...>
Let me try to understand your point, Prof. Niccacci.
If weqatal and yiqtol can describe future single situations and past
repeated and habitual situations, we cannot say that
weqatal and yiqtol forms are the future tense. These forms are not

committed with respect to tense.

Weqatal and indicative x-yiqtol are TENSES in DIRECT SPEECH and indicate simple future. Because of the poverty of verb forms and construction in Biblical Hebrew, both weqatal and x-yiqtol are also used in HISTORICAL NARRATIVE and then they indicate not a location in the time axis, i.e. they are NOT TENSES, but rather ASPECT, i.e. repetition, custom, description. This principle also applies to other verb forms--to wayyiqtol itself and to the non-verbal sentence (see next).

Non-verbal sentences with or without

participles can describe both present and past situations. So, we cannot

say that they are the present tense as you do.

In DIRECT SPEECH non-verbal sentences can convey main-line information. In this case, they are TENSES and express the present as, e.g., Gen 42:11 *Kullanû [casus pendens] -- benê 'î$ 'eXad [predicate] naXnû [subject]; kenîm [predicate] 'anaXnû [subject] "All of us--we are sons of one man, we are honest men". However the same non-verbal sentence can also convey off-line information, i.e. indicate a circumstance. In this case it indicates ASPECT, i.e. contemporaneity to the main verb, and also takes on the time value do the main verb;

e.g., PAST in 1 Sam 17:41 *wayyelek happeli$tî holek weqareb 'el-dawid [main-line wayyiqtol] weha'î$ no&e' kelayw lepanayw [circumstantial non-verbal sentence]* "And the Philistine came on and drew near to David, WHILE his shield-bearer WAS in front of him";

or FUTURE in Exod 7:17 *hinneh 'anokî makkeh bamma++eh 'a$er-beyadî `al-hammayim 'a$er baye'or [non-verbal sentence] wenehepkû ledam [weqatal introducing the future axis as the main line of the text = prediction] "Behold, I am about to strike the water that is in the Nile with the rod that is in my hand, and it shall be turned to blood".

If one accepts the approach adopted here (from H. Weinrich)--with direct speech vs. historical narrative, each having a distinctive set of verb forms and other constructions, and with main line (for foreground information) vs. off line (for background information)--one sees the coherence of the B-H verb system.

<...>

Hatav seems to think that only when verbs have particular means of
specifying the present, past, and future, the language has tense.
I think that both you and she are right, because it is a matter of
what "tense" means. Some language might have developed
specific verb forms only for past single nonrepeated events, while the
same forms are used to describe past and future situations, which have
some common feature. That language is partially tensed. If so, we can
say that the language is tensed with some caveat, or that the
language is not tensed with some caveat. I think Hatav's approach comes
down to the latter position. Is there more to your criticism other than
the different perception on what tensed language is?

Of course you are free to think that Hatav and I are both right or otherwise. In my book review of Hatav's book I tried to show that Biblical Hebrew is a language with both TENSES and ASPECT. In my view, a verb form or non-verbal construction is a TENSE when it indicates by itself a location in the time axes (past, present, future) and conveys main-line information. By ASPECT I understand repetition vs. punctuality, contemporaneity vs. anteriority vs. posteriority, and "emphasis" (i.e. when a non-verbal element becomes the syntactic predicate). Verb forms and constructions that do not indicate a location in time, i.e. are not TENSES, but indicate ASPECT are syntactically dependent of a main-line verb form or construction even when they are not grammatically dependent, i.e., when they are not governed by subordinating conjunction like *kî, lema`an, 'a$er* etc.

E.g., even if *bara'* is not in construct state after *bere'$ît* but *bere'$ît* is an adverb staying alone, still *bere'$ît bara' 'elohîm* is NOT a SYNTACTICALLY INDEPENDENT sentence but is dependent on the following main-line wayyiqtol in Gen 1:3.

Q4: You talked about the "resumptive repetion" use of wayyqtol.
    I found that such wayyqtol is translated as pluperfect in English.
    E.g. Gen 2.19. I do not see the difference between this use of wayyqtol
    and that of x-qatal, which is also often translated as pluperfect.

How would you compare them?

I do not see how one could translate *wayyiCer* in Gen 2:19 as pluperfect--unless one refers back to 1:21. However, it is not the interpreter who decides when a verb form should be translated as pluperfect or as simple past tense; it is the writer who indicates his perspective by using appropriate verb forms and non-verbal constructions.

The problem is that most translators have no definite idea about the functions of the verb forms, never did a serious syntactic research; sometimes they think that the text is not in order, simply because they are unable to see its order, or poorly arranged and allow theemselves to rearrange the information according to their own taste instead of trying to understand the way the writer has arranged his information.

Just to the opposite, we more and more realize how biblical texts are wonderfully formed and arranged. We only need to be approach them in a spirit of humility and openness. We are to adjust ourselves to them, not them to us.

Best wishes. Let us pray for peace in these terrible days.

--

Alviero Niccacci
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum
PO Box 19424, 91193 Jerusalem (Israel)
Tel. +972-2-6282936; 6264516/7 + extension 250; Fax +972-2-6264519
Home Page: http://www.custodia.org/sbf

Re: (To Niccacci) about your review of G. Hatav's book, Alviero Niccacci, 04/05/2002