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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] VERBS. Was " masorete pointing v's LLX transliterations"

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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] VERBS. Was " masorete pointing v's LLX transliterations"
  • Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:54:16 +0100

On 25/07/2005 09:36, Rolf Furuli wrote:

RE: [b-hebrew] masorete pointing v's LLX transliterationsDear James,

In the archives you will find hundreds of posts discussing the verbal system
of classical Hebrew. So I will just give a few comments below.

There are three basic problems in published studies of the the Hebrew verbal
system:

1) It is *assumed* that Hebrew has four different conjugations
(YIQTOL/WEYIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, QATAL, and WEQATAL). This assumption prevents
any real test of the number of conjugations of the verbal system, because if
you start with four you end up with four.


Rolf, this is unfair. It is undeniable that in the pointed Masoretic text there are five (not counting imperative, infinitives, participles etc) verb paradigms which are distinct in FORM (I here count WEYIQTOL as a different form from YIQTOL) - a number reduced by two if initial vav pointed with sheva is *assumed* to be nothing more than a prefixed conjunction, but that still leaves three distinct FORMS. The issue is whether these various forms are distinct in MEANING. But your method, at least in its original form, was apparently to *assume* that underlying the various FORMS there are only two distinct MEANINGS - and that the formal distinctions were arbitrary inventions of the Masoretes, a suggestion which was rightly questioned by your external examiner. Of course if you start with two you end up with two, just as with four - or else you end up with an absurdity which demonstrates that your initial assumptions were incorrect. Well, the initial results of your investigation seemed to me to lead to such an absurdity. I hope that you have been able to modify your presentation either to give a coherent explanation of why your results are not an absurdity, or else to present your results as proving the invalidity of your original assumptions and so that there are at least three semantically distinct verb paradigms.

2) The basic distinction between semantic meaning (intrinsic or uncancelable
meaning) and conversational pragmatic implicature (meaning dependent on the
context) is ignored. ...


This distinction is part of just one recent and controversial approach to semantics. You really should accept that other scholars have the right to use their own models of semantics without complaining about it - especially when most of them were writing before your own model was even though of.

3) When aspect is applied to Hebrew verbs, it is assumed that Hebrew aspects
have the same nature as the aspects in other aspectual languages. I am not
aware of a single study where the nature of Hebrew aspect has been studied in
its own right, from the viewpoint that aspect can be language specific.


Well, the whole point of the linguistic concept of aspect is that it is intended to be a cross-linguistic category applicable to many languages. You can argue if you want that Hebrew does not have aspect as applied to other languages, but in that case it would be safer to avoid confusion by using a different word which will not confuse linguists.

I have studied the functions of the verbs, but my goal has been to find the
*meaning* of each verb form, i.e. to find the parts of the verbal system that
always will have the same meaning. Because any verb form can have past,
present, and future meaning, can express completed and uncompleted events (or
bounded and unbounded events), ...


I note that this is probably only true on your two form assumption, i.e. if you assume for example that WAYYIQTOL (most commonly past and completed) is the same verb form as YIQTOL (most commonly non-past and uncompleted). This is a bit like saying that if you presuppose that the words "chalk" and "cheese" have the same meaning there is no English word which distinguishes chalk and cheese.

... my conclusion is that neither tense (=grammaticalized location in time)
nor aspect as it is found in English are grammaticalized in classical Hebrew.
However, the Hebrew conjugations do express aspect, but with a nature very
different from the English aspects. This means that YIQTOL, WEYIQTOL, and
WAYYIQTOL represent the imperfective aspect and QATAL and WEQATAL represent
the perfective aspect.


Rolf, I have never understood your attempts to define "the imperfective aspect" and "the perfective aspect" as applied to Hebrew. But one thing is clear: your definitions of these aspects as applied to Hebrew are so totally different from the cross-linguistic definitions found in standard linguistics books that your use of the same terminology serves only to spread total confusion.

... My conclusions are radical indeed, because they in a way turn of Hebrew
verb grammar upside down. An acceptance of the conclusions would have a great
impact on Bible t
ranslation, because thousands of verbs in modern Bible translations are in
need of re-translation. This relates particularly to the temporal references
of verbs.


Rolf, what turns Hebrew grammar upside down is not your conclusions, but your initial *assumption*, that verb forms which are distinct in form and which in traditional grammar have very different meanings are in fact semantically identical. Since you started with this assumption, it is of course part of your conclusion, but it is not a meaningful result because it is clear that if you start with a different assumption you end up with different conclusions - indeed you said so yourself: "if you start with four you end up with four". So, unless you can demonstrate very clearly that your assumption (not your conclusions) must be correct and the alternative assumption must be incorrect, the best you can hope to prove by your method is that there is an alternative consistent interpretation of Hebrew verbs, and that we cannot be sure which of the two interpretations is the correct one. I don't think you have actually demonstrated that your assumption leads to an alternative consistent interpretation (although I haven't seen your final results on this), but that's a separate issue.

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



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