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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Use and Misuse of Waw in Verb Tenses
  • Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:46:33 +0100

On 17/09/2004 13:33, Rolf Furuli wrote:

Dear Peter,

I see I did not manage to get my message across. It does not seem that you ever have tried to make a scrupulous distinction between semantic meaning and conversational pragmatic implicature and understand the principles behind this.


Although I reject this distinction as an absolute one on theoretical grounds, I have tried hard to understand it, and to present my response to your theory within its terms. I am aware that one of your main points is that semantic meaning is uncancellable (and this is what I mainly object to), and that you consider aspect distinctions to be semantic.


I do not say that less than one per cent of the WAYYIQTOLs and other verbs argue for my conclusions and more than 99 per cent against. For example, I have a list of exactly 3,550 participles and infinitives functioning as finite verbs, signalling past events that were completed at speech time. By the same criteria you use to conclude that the WAYYIQTOLs are perfective, all these infinite forms must be perfective as well. But nobody would claim that. I have a list of 1,027 YIQTOLs that would be taken as perfective by the same criteria as well. There are also thousands of WAYYIQTOLs of different kinds that argue against their perfectivity. But all these werbs tell us what the WAYYIQTOLs are *not*, but they do not tell what the WAYYIQTOLs *are*.


I realise this. As I understand it, you are saying that 99% of verb forms tell us nothing positive, so you look at the 1% which can, and derive from them positive statements about semantic meanings. But you agree that the other 99% can tell us for example "what the WAYYIQTOLs are *not*". Well, there may be thousands of WAYYIQTOLs among this 99% which tell us that WAYYIQTOL is *not* always perfective. But my argument is that there are tens of thousands of WAYYIQTOLs which tell us that the form is *not* always imperfective, even on your definition of "imperfective". The implication of that is that WAYYIQTOL does not carry a semantic meaning of either perfective or imperfective, at least by your definitions of the term.


And here are my "less than one percent of the verbs" pertinent. In order to show the real nature of a conjugation, we need a verb occurring in a context where we can be certain that its imperfective characteristics are caused by its conjugation alone, and not by other linguistic factor alone, or by the interplay of such factors. Examples meeting such strict criteria are few indeed -- less than one percent.

I have lectured about my verbal model for groups of scholars, and I do not expect that the model immediately should be accepted, or necessarily accepted at all. But frankly speaking, I am surprised to find how difficult it is to be able to have a meaningful discussion regarding the linguistic principles at stake. It seems to me that very few professors of Semitic languages are able to fathom that there is a distinction between semantic ( uncancellable) factors inside a language and pragmatic factors. This seems to be something they never have thought of. So it is high time that linguistics are introduced into Semitic studies.


I could put it this way, that you seem to be trying to impose on to Semitic languages a theoretical innovation, not your innovation I realise but not a part of mainstream linguistics. You assert that "there is a distinction between semantic ( uncancellable) factors inside a language and pragmatic factors". But where is your evidence for this assertion? Where are the cross-linguistic studies which demonstrate that this is a language universal? Even the best attested supposed language universals often turn out not to be truly universal. Or is this intended as a definition rather than an assertion? If so, the Semitic scholars need a good reason to abandon their own definitions which have worked for centuries to embrace your contradictory ones.


BTW, the verb MWT was not viewed as punctiliar in the Hebrew mind. Because punctiliarity is not semantic meaning but conversational pragmatic implicature, I am not aware of a single method by the help of which you can point to a verb and say, "this Hebrew verb is punctiliar". Hebrew verbs can be marked for durativity, dynamicity (change), and telicity, properties that are taken as semantic meaning, but I have never seen proofs that the same is true for punctiliarity.

Well, maybe it has not been strictly proved that MWT or other Hebrew verbs are punctiliar, but how can a verb like this not be punctiliar? I know that in many languages one can say things like "I am dying", but this usage does not contradict essential punctiliarity. There are good methods of determining that verbs are punctiliar, at least when native speakers are available, it is just that your presupposition from your theoretical model, "punctiliarity is not semantic meaning but conversational pragmatic implicature", forces you to neglect these tests. Some of the tests are for example that with a truly punctiliar verb like "explode" you cannot say things like "the bomb exploded for an hour" or "the bomb exploded slowly". It would be interesting to see whether such adverbials ever occur with Hebrew MWT, to falsify my hypothesis that the verb is punctiliar.

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






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