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  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Paper uploaded: Tagging Hebrew Tense, Aspect, Mood
  • Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 09:52:44 +0100

Dear Ken,


Dear Rolf,

Thank you for your feedback, and especially for phrasing your concerns in a
friendly way.

Note 4. "used differently". What is the meaning of "differently"?
Because you mention the basic TAM factors in your introduction, the
reader may think that "differently" refers to one or more of these.
If you for instance are saying that the *meaning* of a verb, say a
WAYYIQTOL is different in different genre situations, I disagree with
your assumption. A verb form has the same meaning in any context, but
it can be used differently.

I am puzzled by your last line (above) stating that that a verb form can be
"used differently," yet it was my own use of this phrase that you object to.
Does this mean that we agree?

I understand that you are puzzled, because my last phrase should not have been phrased in this way. My intention was to make a suggestion for a clarification of your note, and now I make the same suggestion to myself. What I tried to say was that a YIQTOL or another verb form signalled a concept in the minds of native Hebrews. If the concept signalled by YIQTOL is identical with the imperfective aspect, a YIQTOL will be imperfective in any context, and can only function inside the constraints of the concept of imperfectivity that it signals. For instance, a YIQTOL will in no context be perfective. The consequence of this is that a YIQTOL in any context can be used to find the meaning of all YIQTOLs.


I am not ready to agree that "a verb form has the same meaning in any
context." My research may ANSWER the question of whether "a verb form has
the same meaning in any context," but I will not assume an answer at the
outset. The question reminds me of the recent B-Hebrew discussion of "core
meanings" for vocabulary words. Would you also say the word "strike" has the
same meaning in every context?

We cannot start from scratch as did Descartes and say "Cogito ergo sum," but we all need to use particular assumptions. However, the point is that we always keep our assumptions in mind in order to see whether any of them can disturb the interpretation of our data. One basic assumption in my study is that a difference in morphology signals a difference in meaning. Exceptions must be demonstrated by the context (e.g. the conflation of Qatal and Hiphil in Qumranic Hebrew). I cannot see how a profitable study of a Hebrew corpus is possible if this assumption is not made. Would you for instance say that the meaning of an English preterit is different in different genres or contexts? My assumption is that a preterit has the same meaning (reference time comes before the deictic center) in any context, even in hypothetical conditional sentences, but the *use* of the preterit can be different.


I am not _ASSUMING_ the meaning of a wayyiqtol is different in different
genre situations, but I want to ANSWER the question of whether a wayyiqtol
conveys something different in different situations.

snip

p 9. WAW. I am not sure what the terms "T" and "F" refer to. If
the application of these letters is based on the Masoretic pointing,
> I see no problem here. Because then the database only give data as to
Masoretic pointing. But if the letters are based on the judgement of
the compiler, then their use is circular. The purpose of the database
> is to give a basis for the interpretation of Hebrew verbs, so the
> compiler should not assume *before* everything is compiled that WAWs
have a converting (or some other) power and that there are four
rather than two conjugations in Classical Hebrew. Conclusions
regarding this should be drawn when everything is compiled.

You are right. I intend the tag to be entirely objective, with no judgement
on the part of the compiler. I originally designed the tags for use on
unpointed texts, so I could not distinguish between waw with shewa and waw
with patach and doubling. To make the tags more intuitive, I will change my
proposed tags: "W" for a prefixed waw with shewa, "Wa" for a prefixed waw
with patach/doubling, and "-" for no waw prefix. For unpointed texts, if
there is a waw prefix, the tag will be "W", and "-" for no waw prefix.

I do not assume there ARE four conjugations, but I want to be able to TEST
whether there are four conjugations.

Very fine, I have exactly the same approach.


pp 17, 23. ASPECT. "temporal constituency (complete /progressive
recurring/ event)". This is the most problematic part.

You make some perceptive comments about tagging aspect, especially:

How can you by observation know
that a verb is what you call "durative" and that others are not? I am
afraid that both terms at the outset entail circularity. If the terms
are not circular (it has already been decided that the perfective
aspect is complete and the imperfective is durative), there must be a
clear observational distinction between "complete" and "completed"
and between "durative" and "non-durative" events.

You're right that observation is the key. What aspect-related features CAN
we observe? To tag tense, we can observe the time at which the event
referenced occurs (relative to the speech time, for example).

I see some problems here. The first problem may only relate to a different use of terms. You define tense as "grammaticalized location in time, " in which I agree. But this means that tense cannot be tagged, because you cannot at the outset know whether any verb form is grammaticalized. What we can tag is past reference, present reference, and future reference". If we say we tag tense, then we must have decided beforehand that tense is a part of the Hebrew verbal system. The conclusion on the basis of my data base is that tense is non-existent in Classical Hebrew.

The same problem exists with the use of reference time as a basis for tagging. We cannot use reference time if we have not beforehand decided that a particular verb codes for a particular tense or aspect. But then we use circular reasoning if we first decide the nature of a verb form and then try to confirm this by comparing the examples of this form. An example: In a section of my dissertation I analyze all the examples of )MR ("say"). Most modern studies (e.g. G. Hatav) would say that the reference time of a WAYYIQTOL form of this verb either intersects its event time at the end or intersects its whole event time (the perfective aspect is viewed as a blob); thus we get the translation "and he said". R.S. Driver, however, claimed that the reference time intersected the event time at the beginning; thus he suggested the translation "and he proceeded to say". My research in this area corroborates Driver's suggestion. In order to use reference time as a tool for tagging, we must beforehand have decided whether the WAYYIQTOL is perfective or imperfective, and that is circular reasoning. In my database, therefore, I use event time for mapping rather than reference time. This gives results which are not as accurate as if reference time was used, but they are accurate enough, and I avoid circularity.


To tag gender,
we would observe the sex of the referent (if biological). To tag grammatical
number, we would observe how many of the referent there were. So by analogy,
what can we tag for aspect? It seems to me the most helpful question to ask
is whether there was some focus on the progression of the event or not,
i.e., whether the reference time is between the beginning and end of the
event, or at or after the end of the event. Do you have a better suggestion?


As shown above you cannot use reference time without being circular, and how in the world can you know that the focus of a clause is on its progression? Let us use a few English examples:

1) She was reaching the peak.
2) She has reached the peak.
3) She reach the peak. #

4) She was knocking at the door.
5) She has knocked at the door.
6) She knock at the door.#

Examples 1), 2), and 3) represent achievements. The reason why we give 1) a progressive interpretation ("she was on the point of reaching the peak.") is that we know that the English participle is imperfective. And similarly, the reason why we do not interpret 2) as progressive, is that we know that perfect is perfective. But what about 3) where the verb is not marked? How can we know whether the focus is on progression or not? The same is true with the semelfactive situations of 4), 5) and 6). As to 6), we cannot know whether progression is focused upon or not.

If we start our tagging of Hebrew verbs without any decision as to which verbs are imperfective and which are perfective, each verb we analyze is similar to those of 3) and 6). Therefore we cannot know anything about whether the focus of a clause is on progression or not and we cannot know where reference time intersects event time, except in a few instances - see below). The conclusion, therefore, is that *aspectual* properties for the most part cannot be tagged.

I say "for the most part," because there are clauses where we can know where reference time intersects event time. One such example is 1 Kings 6:1. In the WAYYIQTOL form of BNH in this verse, reference time intersects event time at the beginning (what is made visible is the beginning and a small section of progressive action). Thus this WAYYIQTOL is imperfective ( as I claim that all WAYYIQTOLs are). Two sets of information helps us pinpoint reference time in this case: the adverbial and the fact that many years was needed to complete the temple. Such clear-cut situations where we definitely can see that WAYYIQTOL is imperfective exists in between 5 and 10 percent of the 14. 000 clauses where WAYYIQTOL occur, and these situations are what we need to map.

Because the nature of narrative where most WAYYIQTOLs occur is that the event time of one verb is mentioned and then the event time of the next follows and then the next, and so forth, it gives very little new information to tag or map all these WAYYIQTOLs. These WAYYIQTOLs simply *must* have past reference, given the nature of narrative, but whether the stress is on the progressive or not we cannot, in most instances. know. So the least likely place to find the true meaning of the WAYYIQTOL form is in narrative.

When I claim that aspect cannot be tagged, I do not say that the situation is hopeless. I have developed three parameters for a systematic analysis of aspect, and because there are two aspects, aspectual properties can be analyzed and compared in six different areas. About 50 per cent of my dissertation outline the analysis of the hundreds of instances in the Tanakh where we can be quite certain where reference time intersects event time. The conclusion drawn is that YIQTOL, WEYIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL all represent the imperfective aspect and that QATAL and WEQATAL represent the perfective aspect. This holds for the late books of the Tanakh and for Qumranic Hebrew as well.



Ken Penner, McMaster/DSS
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PennerThesis



Best regards

Rolf Furuli















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