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  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Psa 107:19-21 (was WAYYIQTOL)
  • Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 18:56:04 +0100


Dear Bryan,

I am glad that you understand my position better, and I have some comments below.



Rolf, thanks for your reply. I really feel that I understand your model
better now than ever, mostly as a result of your comments about Psa
107:19-20 specifically.

You wrote:

<noted and snipped>

So to verses 19-20 that you ask about. I interpret the verbs like this:

19. the WAYYIQTOL- imperfective "they began calling",
19.

For years now--can you believe how time flies?-- this has been a difficult
feature of your model for me to swallow: that a wayyiqtol that you alledge
to be imperfective is used most often in a context that features the advance
of time. In my understanding of aspect, the advance of time would favor, if
not require, a perfective form. But I may be understanding you. Let me see
if I can explain, in your view, how an imperfective form can be used in a
passage where story time advances.


Wayyiqtol refers to a situation that obtains (essentially saying that it
begins) but the verb form doesn't by itself indicate anything about the
situation's completion. The verb form leaves, in and of itself, the
situation open on the anterior end, because it is imperfective. Then, in a
text, along comes the next wayyiqtol, a new beginning. A new beginning
usually (but not necessarily) *implies* the ending of the previous
situation. IOW, one situation is now usually *inferred* to be complete
simply because a new one has obtained or begun.

Given the traditional definition of perfectivity and imperfectivity I agree that we would expect perfective verbs in past narrative, as you describe it above. However, I neither accept "incomplete" as a definition of the imperfective aspect, nor "complete" or "completed" for the perfective one. These are vague generalizations which does not fit hundreds, or even thousands of verbs, and scholars are just using these definitions without systematically having studyied the very nature of aspect.

Mary Broman Olsen is an exception, and her work with the English verbal system is excellent; she accounts for the whole system by the interplay of three fundamental factors, the deictic centre, event time, and reference time. In other words, she accounts for the whole system by describing the interplay of tense and aspect, without seeking recourse in the so-called relative tenses. This is excellent, because she has used fundamental linguistic concepts to explain tense and aspect, and she has not just given vague definitions which is not linked to such concepts! She also shows how Comrie goes wrong, but she herself errs because she claims that her model is universal. What I have done is, on the basis of the mentioned fundamental concepts, which stems from Reichenbach (1949), and which Comrie and Olsen uses (though Olsen clarifies them), to develop a model for a deeper analysis of the mentioned concepts. In this way the vagueness of the traditional views of the concept "aspect" vanishes, and aspect can now be defined by help of the fundamental linguistic factors, though language specific.

In order to *illustrate* how imperfective verbs (imperfectivity defined by the intersection of ET by RT) can be used in narrative, without being strange at all, I give two examples below. I translate without trying to mark simultaneous action, and I note the Hebrew verb forms.

(1) and seven priests carrying (part) seven rams' horns walked (part+ inf. abs) before the ark; and they blew (WEQATAL) their horns. And the war-equipped men went (part) ahead of them, and the rear guard followed (part) the ark of YHWH, and they blew (part+inf. abs) on the horns. Josh 6:13

(2) And Moses got up (WAYYIQTOL) and went (WAYYIQTOL) to Datan and Abiram, and the older men of Israel went (WAYYIQTOL) with him. Numbers 16:25

Examples (1) and (2) are not typically narrative with one action following when the previous is completed. But the examples are quite similar in nature and can be used to illustrate my point.

All the finite and infinite verbs have past reference. The usual explanation of the WAYYIQTOLs of (2) is that each represent punctiliar (perfective) past events, and that his is signalled by each *form*. But what about the two participles and two participles/inf. abs. of (1), all having past reference, and the events being terminated at speech time (the deictic centre)? Why can we say that they have past reference and that their actions were terminated? On the basis of the form? No! But on the basis of the context! Where does reference time intersect event time in the infinite forms of (2)? In the two examples of part/inf. abs. I would say that a small part in the middle is intersected or made visible; they were walking and they were blowing, and given the nature of the participle, I would say that the same is the case with each of the single participles: a small part of the walking event is made visible by the form, but the end of each walking event is not made visible by each of the finite forms but simply by the context. Thus we have four examples of infinite forms which are not perfective, and which can portray events that objectively were past and terminated at speech time.

The convention of the use of finite forms does not allow them to generally be used in narrative contexts just as WAYYIQTOLs are used. But the examples above show that they *can* be used in quite similar contexts. This shows that non-perfective forms can be used in such contexts, and that is the way I explain the WAYYIQTOLs. The biggest obstacle for accepting the WAYYIQTOLs as imperfective is the traditional definition of imperfectivity and perfectivity. But if we accept that the Hebrew aspects are nothing more than peepholes through which a small or big part of the action, with or without details, in different angles and in different breadths are made visible, the use of imperfectivity in past contexts in no way is strange. My point, therefore, is that RT does not intersect ET at the coda in the WAYYIQTOLs, but at other places, such as a) before the beginning (conative), b) including the beginning and a small part of the action (ingressive), c) a small part of the action after the beginning and before the end, d) a small part imediately before the end (egressive), and e) the state after the end of the action (resultative). Example (3) below is conative, (4) is ingressive, (5) is egressive (or possibly future), and (6) is resultative.

(3) And the magicians tried to do (WAYYIQTOL) the same with their secret arts, in order to bring forth gnats, but they could not (Ex 8:14)

4) And in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel had come out of Egypt...Solomon... began to build (WAYYIQTOL) the temple of YHWH. 1 Kings 6:1

(5) They have thrown him into a cistern, and he is on the point of loosing his life because of the famine. Jer 38:9

(6) And he fell (WAYYIQTOL) on his face to the earth before the ark of YHWH until the evening. Joshua 7:6 (NB, the sense "fallen down" found in some lexicons is not a *lexical meaning* of the word but an aspectual one.)



This view of wayyiqtol seems rather like that of S.R. Driver, no?

No. S.R. Driver interpreted WAYYIQTOL as nascent, but that is just one of the possible alternatives I list.


.the use of a the YIQTOL: (1) "he saved them," or (1) "he caused them to be
saved," or (3) "he always saved them". the imperfective aspect is
used to expressed an action that was completed before the deictic
centre. But where does reference time intersect event time? In a
translation with ordinary people as the target group I would have
used (1 or (3)). It is a myth that YIQTOL with past reference
indicates the so-called "durative past" I would say that what is made
visible by the YIQTOL either is a small part of the saving event (RT
intersects ET at the nucleus (1)), or the habitual act of saving (2).

Rolf, You seem to be accepting a difference between wayyiqtol and weyiqtol
after all, if not a semantic difference, a pragmatic difference, that is, at
least most of the time, *rightly coded by Masoretic pointing*. I am
understanding you correctly?

I use WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL only in a graphic sense and neither in a semantic or even a pragmatic sense. In my view they represent exactly the same form, but the Masoretes pointed some WAW+YIQTOLs that were used in one way as WAYYIQTOL and others used in another way as WEYIQTOLs. In my view there are just two hebrew conjugations.


Thanks again, Bryan



Best regards

Rolf

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
From furuli AT online.no Sat Mar 13 13:02:41 2004
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Dear Peter,

Your post has many misunderstandings of my position, and I would need a very long post to answer them. But time is limited. I refer you to my answer to Bryan which covers some of your points. Just one comment: If you look at Broman Olsen's work, you will find a very fine discussion of how Comrie errs.


Best regards

Rolf

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



On 12/03/2004 23:51, furuli AT online.no wrote:

Dear Bryan,

In order to give an adequate answer I need to point out some basic weaknesses in peoples' dealing with aspects. I have already claimed that a basic weakness in modern studies which argue that Semitic verbs represent tenses, is the lack of systematic distinction between past reference and past tense (and future as well). There is a similar basic weakness in studies which argue that Semitic verbs represent aspects, namely the lack of analysis of the concept "aspect". Very often, all that is done, is to use the vague and wrong definition of B. Comrie (He confuses Aktionsart and aspect), and this often leads to the view that the perfective and imperfective aspects are mutually exclusive.


Rolf, I find it methodologically very strange that you attack someone's definitions, especially when that someone is generally recognised as the leading scholar in the field and author of the definitive work on it. Comrie's definition of aspect is not the same as yours, but it does have the clear benefit that according to it "the perfective and imperfective aspects are mutually exclusive" whereas yours does not have this very convenient feature - which makes your definition seem to me "vague" i.e. lacking in descriptive and analytical power. Also, Comrie's definition is an excellent description of aspect in Russian and one which fits well also with observed features of English, Greek and many other languages. As such it is a very powerful tool for analysis and understanding of language.

Now I accept that a priori this definition is not necessarily going to be the most helpful one for analysis of Hebrew, and so we need to study Hebrew for what it is and not assume that it fits well with Comrie's categories. As a result we may come up with different distinctions which are more helpful for Hebrew, and this is what you claim to have done. But this is no reason for attacking Comrie as "vague and wrong". Just because his definition does not apply to Hebrew, that does not make it "vague and wrong". Also, because Comrie's definition of aspect is the one accepted and used by most linguists, you simply cause confusion by trying to redefine a commonly used term; better to drop the word "aspect" completely (having demonstrated that according to Comrie's definition it is not useful for Hebrew) and invent a new terminology.


...

The last sentence does not indicate that there is linguistic anarchy in Hebrew, but rather that the aspects are not mutually exclusive, and that there are several areas where both aspects can be used without any distinction in meaning. It is the linguistic conventions that give meaning to the use of verbs. We can illustrate the case with the active participle and infinitive construct. These two forms have different meanings and different uses, but they are not mutually exclusive. Occasionally, therefore, an infinitive is used where we expect a participle, vice versa. But normally linguistic convention causes an orderly use of both.


The problem here is that you have been locked by your linguistic theory into an unrealistic dichotomy. On your theory, if I understand it correctly, if a distinction between two forms is semantically significant, it is uncancellable and so must maintain this distinction in 100% of cases. If even in only 0.1% of cases one form is used where the other is expected, you take that as proof that there is no semantic distinction, and so that the difference between the two forms is merely "linguistic convention" with no semantic significance. (Please correct me if I have misunderstood your position.)

But this position is unrealistic for the study of real language. Firstly, even the strongest semantic distinctions are not maintained 100%, especially in poetic language. Normal rules may be broken for poetic and figurative effect, or just to fit the metre or rhyme. There may be dialect and diachronic variation. Authors may simply make mistakes (and so may copyists, in the case of an ancient text). Secondly, the semantic distinctions may be more subtle than we realise, so that there are real reasons why an unexpected form is encountered; and in an ancient language like Hebrew, with a limited corpus and no native speakers to work with, it may simply be impossible for us to recover the truly semantic reasons for an apparently anomalous form. Therefore we need to abandon this 100% rule and accept that a few counter-examples do not disprove a rule, and specifically that distinctions may be truly semantic even if they seem to be ignored in some cases.

The consequence of your approach to Hebrew is that, because there are almost no rules in Hebrew which are followed 100%, by your method of analysis there are no semantic distinctions in Hebrew, but only "linguistic convention". This is of course a nonsense, as the Hebrew speakers had to have some way to make semantic distinctions in what they said. It also leaves the door open for you to interpret the text in an entirely subjective way, because you accept no semantic distinctions which can be used to control or falsify your understanding. So, it seems, the predictions of your theory are unfalsifiable, which in my opinion makes them valueless.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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