Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 16/09/2004 15:36, Rolf Furuli wrote:

> ...
> I define the similarities between English and Hebrew aspects this way:
> "The imperfective aspect is a close-up view of a small section of the 
> event where the progressive action is made visible.  The perfective 
> aspect is a view, as if from some distance, of a great part of, or of 
> the whole the event, where the progressive action is not made visible."
>
> ...
>
> ...  This means, for example, that when the end is made visible for 
> the audience in each action expressed by WAYYIQTOLs in consecution, 
> other factors than the aspect are used to make these ends visible.
OK, Rolf, let's consider a typical series of WAYYIQTOL sentences forming 
a sequence in a narrative context. The individual events are typically 
passed over rather quickly with no interest in their internal structure. 
By your definitions, WAYYIQTOL is supposed to be imperfective. But how 
does this typical situation correspond with "a close-up view of a small 
section of the event where the progressive action is made visible"? It 
seems to me to correspond rather with the opposite, "a view, as if from 
some distance, of a great part of, or of the whole the event, where the 
progressive action is not made visible", i.e. perfective.

My view is that the very common WAYYIQTOL narrative sequence is the 
prototypical example of the perfective aspect. Any attempt to redefine 
"perfective" and "imperfective" to make this usage imperfective is like 
trying to redefine "black" and "white" so that snow is black. (And it 
doesn't help your argument that snow can sometimes be black, for that is 
clearly a rare situation.) If you want an adjective which describes both 
snow and soot, but not egrets' or crows' feathers, you should avoid 
"black" and "white" and invent some different terminology.

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