Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

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/