Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Title: Re: Hebrew Syntax., 2 Sam 15:37

Dear Dave,

Se my reply below,

> Rolf wrote: "The reason for the
> yiqtol rather than a wayyiqtol in [2 Kings
> 3:26], is the negation before it which even has a prefixed
> waw."
>
> DKS: I believe the last clause of 3:26 is X-QATAL.  The YIQTOL
> of *YKL*
> would be *YW.KAL*.  Thus this examples actually supports the
> traditional
> understanding that X-QATAL is the counterpart to WAYYIQTOL. 
> That is, when
> the writer needs to move an element to the front of a clause that
> would
> otherwise be WAYYIQTOL, the result is X-QATAL.  In my
> dissertation
> exploring whether negative clauses could be on-line, I observed
> hundreds if
> not thousands of cases where a negative X-QATAL clause is within a
> string
> of WAYYIQTOL clauses.  Your claim to the contrary simply doesn't
> account
> for the vast majority of the evidence.

You are correct that the form is QATAL rather than YIQTOL. I have recently rehearsed  my students several times regarding the difference in parsing between the form YKL in Aramaic and Hebrew; I should not have overlooked this, and I regret this error. Your observations of hundreds of X-QATAL in strings of YIQTOLs are correct, but it does not tell os anything about their meaning only about linguistic convention.

> Rolf wrote: "One can hardly argue that the plurality of the
> yiqtols
> indicates iterativity, habituality or progression, for the same
> argument
> could be used regarding the wayyiqtols since they are plural as
> well."
>
> DKS: It is not from the plurality of the forms that I would argue
> iterativity, but from the forms of the clauses themselves. 
> X-YIQTOL and
> WEQATAL are often used for the iterative or habitual sense.  The
> idea here
> is that as they went, the Israelites
> were continually destroying the land.

Regarding 1 Kings 3:24-26 you have a problem with your concept "continually". I think we agree regarding what did happen, the soldiers used some time to destroy this city and that city, they used some time to fill this water spring and that water spring, until everything was ruined. They could not do this destruction several times because there were a limited number of cities, trees and water springs. These actions are described with YIQTOLs ( and one WEQATAL)

Are the actions described by WAYYIQTOLs in verses 21-24 different? Hardly! The Moabites were gathered together, one after the other (v 21), and they stood there (not "had been standing" - focus on the continuing state). They marched one after the other to the camp of Israel (v 24), and the israelites rose, one after the other,and Israel struck the Moabites, one after the other. Then the Moabites fled and Israel again killed Moabites, one after the other. There were probably more Moabites that were killed than the number of cities and springs that were destroyed according to verse 25. If the actions described by the YIQTOLs are imperfective, the WAYYIQTOLs must be imperfective as well. I will illustrate this.

 2 Kings 3.21,23-26 "(21) And all Moab heard (QATAL) that the kings had come up (QATAL) to fight against them. So every man young and old were called up (WAYYIQTOL),and they stood (WAYYIQTOL) at the boundary... (24) When they came (WAYYIQTOL) into the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up (WAYYIQTOL) and struck (WAYYIQTOL) the Moabites, and they fled (WAYYIQTOL) before them. And they entered (WAYYIQTOL) the land and struck (WAYYIQTOL) the Moabites.  (25) And the cities they destroyed (YIQTOL), and on every good tract of land each man threw  (ŠYIQTOL) a stone  and it was filled (YIQTOL), and all water springs they stopped up (YIQTOL), and every good tree they felled (YIQTOL), until only Kir Hareset was left (QATAL) with its stones. But men armed with slings surrounded it (WAYYIQTOL)  and attacked it (WAYYIQTO) as well. (26) When the king of Moab saw (WAYYIQTO) that the battle was too strong (QATAL) for him, he took (WAYYIQTOL) with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through (infinitive) to the king of Edom, but they were not able to do so (YIQTOL).

First take a look at the verses above, and then on the clauses below. Many of the events are telic because the subjects or objects are singular/definite or definite (in number):

21 - all Moab heard (QATAL)

21 - every man were called up (WAYYIQTOL)

24 - the israelites struck the Moabites (WAYYIQTOL)

25 - the cities (of Moab) they destroyed (YIQTOL)

25 - every good tract of land ... was filled (WEQATAL)

25 - every good tree they felled (YIQTOL)

I have problems with your word about "they were continually..." in all these clauses. Please look at the English clauses below.

(1) She was/is eating three apples/all the apples

(2) She had/has eaten three apples/all the apples.

Both (1) and (2) are dynamic and telic, and the lexical meaning and Aktionsart are the same. The difference is one of aspect (English aspect), because (1) is imperfective whereas (2) is perfective. Let us now introduce the "continually"-adverb into these clauses.

(3) She was continually eating three apples/all the apples

(4) She had/has continually eaten three apples/all the apples.

I am not a native speaker of English so I may be wrong, but my intuition tells me that whereas at least the part of (3) and (4) focusing on "three apples" are grammatically correct, their meanings are somewhat strange, and it is different from the meaning of (1) and (2). My interpretation of (3) and (4) is that she over and over again is/was eating three apples/all the apples, or that she over and over again has/had eaten three apples/all the apples. It seems to me that the word "continually" is grammatically incorrect if the object is "all the apples". I even doubt that the weaker _expression_ "continued to" will solve this problem, as in (5) and (6)

(5) She continues/continued to eat all the apples.

(6) She has/had continued to eat all the apples.

The real problem is the "all"-proposition of the telic clauses; the expressions "continued to" and "continually" simple do not collocate with telic "all"-propositions, as they do with non-telic propositions, as  in (7) and (8).

(7) She continues/continued to eat apples.

(8) She has/had continued to eat apples.

If we apply the examples (1) - (8) and their comments to the telic phrases of verses 21,24, and 25 above, we realize that to introduce "continually" ("the israelites were continually destroying the land") means that they destroyed alle the cities, filled every good tract of land, and felled every good tree over and over again, but that is of course impossible.

It is my experiance that even some of the best scholars of Semitics have not grasped the meaning of the concept "aspect" because they have never studied it in depth. Not seldom are Aktionsart terms used, it is believed that the aspect (particularly the imperfective one) gives a verb phrase a special force. What is important for the interpretation of verb phrases are the lexical meanings of the words and their Aktionsart; aspect never introduces anything new, it just makes visible a part of what already is there. Let us then apply the imperfective aspect to a telic "all"-proposition, as in (9).

(9) She is/was in the process of demolishing the whole house.

In (9) reference time intersects event time at the nucleus; the lady is focussed upon while she is demolishing and before the whole house is ruined. If the YIQTOLs of the telic verb phrases in vv 21,24,25 are imperfective, as we agree to, reference time MUST also intersect each of them at the nucleus. But the same must be true with the telic verb phrases of the WAYYIQTOLs of vv 21 and 24, because they are constructed in exactly the same way: Actions including many individuals/things and a measure of time is seen both in the YIQTOLs and the WAYYIQTOLs. The only place where there *could" be iteration is in connection with the YIQTOL describing "each man throwing a stone", but even here this notion is not necessary.

 

> Rolf wrote: "To argue on the basis of a special theory of
> discourse that
> the YIQTOL does not portray an avent of this world but rather of
> an
> imagined world is in my view very misleading. Something that is
> unfounded
> is read into the text."
>
> DKS: Do you not also have your own "special theory"? 
> The challenge is
> which theory best accounts for the majority of the evidence with the
> fewest
> unexplained cases.  If the
> X-YIQTOL's in Exod 19:19 are not iterative, they
> are admittedly anomalous in my theory of DA (Schneider treated
> them
> specially, calling them "actualizing" YIQTOL's).  But
> for every one case
> like this you have to explain the hundreds of X-QATAL's in the midst
> of
> WAYYIQTOL's -- e.g., in the vicinity of your examples, Exod 19:18;
> Judg
> 8:3; 2 Sam 15:11; 16:1.  As far as the "imagined
> world" is concerned, any
> theory of language has to account for irrealis, whether it be
> negation or
> modality.

I agree that the best theory accounts for most (or all) of the evidence. The difference in my approach and many others (including discourse analysts) is that  I work from the bottom and up, while discours analysis work from the top an down. My theory is very simple: A difference in morphology indicates a difference in meaning. In unpointed texts there are visible just two different finite forms, the prefix-forms and the suffix-forms. In order to substantiate that the prefix-forms and the suffix-forms with prefixed WAW have a different meaning from those without the WAW, *all* the forms must be analysed and semantic differences must be domonstrated on the basis of their time references and the intersection of event time by reference time. Verb meaning can never be established by a study of the foreground/background functions of a few thousand forms occurring in narrative contexts.

> Dave Stabnow
> Bible Translation Editor
> Broadman & Holman Publishers
> Nashville, Tennessee
> 615-251-5851
> david.stabnow AT lifeway.com
>
>     Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever
> you do,
> do everything for God's glory.  (1 Cor 10:31, HCSB)
> ---

Regards

Rolf

Rolf Furuli

University of Oslo