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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses; frequency
  • Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:40:39 +0100

Dear Peter,

In order to be polite, I use to answer questions that are posed to me. You asked a question. I answered it, and I see no purpose in any further discussion.

Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
To: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 11:40 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses; frequency


On 10/08/2005 06:39, Rolf Furuli wrote:

Dear Peter

A very good example of my claim that when you start with four (presume four), you end up
with four, is the study of W. Th van Peursen (2004) "The Verbal system of the Hebrew Text of Ben Sira". On p. 7 he writes:

In the French edition Joüon had already indicated the importance of viewing the Hebrew conjugations together as a system. This means that 'the value of a verbal form is brought out by its contrast with the other forms. In Hebrew, as in any other language, verbal forms limit each other reciprocally'. Once we have acknowledged that the conjugations, like any other element of the language, are interrelated terms of a system, we should not search for the meaning of, for example, the perfect, but ask ourselves what in a given context where we find a perf. the meaning of the impf. or the ptcp. would be. (Italics his.)


The words above close the case: There are four conjugations! ...


Sorry, but I don't see it. Instead there is a very reasonable assumption that different forms are likely to have different meanings. In fact he doesn't even say this, because he doesn't rule out that two forms will be discovered to be synonymous. He mentions only what we would call QATAL, YIQTOL and the participle, and I think we all agree that these are semantically distinct. There is no mention here of prefixed vav changing the meaning.

... Particularly was I sceptical to the claim that an element which seemed to be the conjunction WAW could turn the meaning of a verb form to the very opposite, because a parallel to this is lacking in any other language, including the Semitic ones.


I understand that you would want to examine such a claim critically; on the other hand, in natural sciences very many things which seem much odder than this turn out to be true. In fact other Semitic languages do in a roundabout way support the idea that WAYYIQTOL is semantically very different from YIQTOL, because they indicate that the shortened form of YIQTOL, which is the basis of WAYYIQTOL in the great majority of cases in which the distinction survives, is an originally distinct verb form from the regular long YIQTOL, although the two came to coincide in form in most verbs in Hebrew. Thus we would expect WAYYIQTOL (short) to be semantically quite different from YIQTOL (long).

The mentioned scepticism was one reason why I started the work with the dissertation, and the working hypothesis was that the traditional view is wrong. However, to have a working hypothesis does not close the case. To the contrary, a working hypothesis should be modified or even changed on the basis of data. ...


The problem here comes when the data is insufficient to decide between the working hypothesis and another hypothesis, which for the sake of argument can be the four or five verb form system. Am I right in understanding that you started with a working hypothesis, analysed a lot of data, found nothing to disprove your working hypothesis, and so concluded that your working hypothesis is correct? Unfortunately this method is logically incorrect. For it is equally possible that I might start with a different working hypothesis, analyse the same data, and find nothing to contradict my working hypothesis. So we have no way of choosing between the two hypotheses, and can conclude only that, unless more data or new methods of analysis can be found, it is not possible to decide which of these two hypotheses is correct.

Your method sounds rather like the method of induction for which you rightly criticised Vadim yesterday. You start with a working hypothesis that all swans are white. You then examine a limited corpus of data and find nothing to contradict that hypothesis, and then proclaim that it is proved, and that my alternative hypothesis that swans may be either black or white is disproved. Well, the difference is that you claim to have examined all of the verb forms in a corpus. But a corpus is not the whole of a language, it is simply a large body of sample data. And in fact the more serious problem with using a corpus from a dead language is that you have no way to determine which alternative sentences would in fact be ungrammatical or have a distinct meaning. That is, you have no access to native speaker insight. I would suggest that because of this your method is incapable in principle of distinguishing real semantic distinctions from pragmatic ones, and so incapable in principle of falsifying your working hypothesis.

In other words, my suggestion is that you started with a working hypothesis, tested against a body of data which although large is in principle incapable of falsifying your hypothesis, failed, of course, to falsify your hypothesis, and then claimed that your hypothesis had been proved. Do you have an answer to this suggestion?

...

Any researcher will be influenced by his or her beliefs, philosophy, and biases, A balanced scholar tries to curtail these as much as possible, but objective research is non-existent. However, to be sceptical to traditional explanations and to use a working hypothesis indicating that they probably are wrong does not close the case in favor of two conjugations. This is so because the existence of just two conjugations are not used as an axiom.


Fair enough. I accept that your working hypothesis has not been disproved either, and so that no one should assume that it is incorrect. But I think you might have done better to work from the traditional model as a working hypothesis, as then you could have attempted to falsify that. I think you would have failed, not because the traditional model is correct but because your method is incapable of falsification.

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







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