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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Use and Misuse of Waw in Verb Tenses

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: "C. Stirling Bartholomew" <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Use and Misuse of Waw in Verb Tenses
  • Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 19:28:15 +0100

On 18/09/2004 16:49, C. Stirling Bartholomew wrote:

On 9/17/04 3:52 PM, "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org> wrote:


I am reminded of the lecturer in
semantics who claimed that in some languages two negatives make a
positive, and in some two negatives make a negative, but there are no
languages in which two positives make a negative. To which a student
replied "Yeah, right".


Peter,

This is a great illustration. It proves an important point that wasn't
particularly on my mind. I though we were talking about the semantic
significance of aspectual marking. I wasn't arguing that the semantic value
of a lexeme is *vacuous. ...


OK. My point was that even with lexemes the notion of uncancellable semantic meaning is, well I wouldn't say vacuous but misguided, that there is very little if anything which is strictly uncancellable. And if this is true of lexemes, surely it is a fortiori of verb forms.

... But when it comes to things like imperfect and
perfect aspectual marking I wonder if we should not be looking for discourse
structural function rather than meaning. Again, the division here is between
syntax and semantics. Defining syntax as anything that determines structural
relationships within a discourse.


I agree that we should be looking at this from a different angle, but I'm not sure what.

All attempts I have seen to fix an invariant meaning on the hebrew aspectual
markings seem to end up ship wrecked. Could these folks be barking up the
wrong tree?

Yes, but which is the right tree? Well, it seems to me that a start would be to abandon the notion of "invariant" or "uncancellable". Perhaps (rather off the top of my head) we should see the different verb forms, in Relevance Theory terms, as helping to select between various interpretations which might be relevant in the context, to find which is the most relevant. Does that sound like a promising approach?

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






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