Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Basic observations on WAYYIQTOL

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Basic observations on WAYYIQTOL
  • Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:25:01 +0100

On 15/08/2005 20:10, Dave Washburn wrote:

...

3) For some scholars, such as Rolf and Dave as I understand their wordk,
this rather small number of exceptions is a problem. For they hold to
theoretical models according to which exceptions to semantic rules are
not possible. ...


I do not hold to such a theoretical model. ...


Thank you for the clarification. Well, it sounds as if you are saying that there are exceptions, but that you deprecate them as "bad grammar". That is I suppose a logical way out of the impasse. But, if you examine how people actually do use language, I wonder if in practice they do have a tendency to follow fixed rules which can be written down and reject everything else as "bad grammar". Or are you reading 19th century prescriptive English, or Latin and Greek, grammar conventions back into ancient Hebrew?

I do accept that there is such a thing as native speaker intuition as to which sentences are correct and which are "ungrammatical". But I don't accept that this intuition can necessarily be codified into fixed rules which follow any kind of a priori structure, even your very basic a priori of "some sort of unifying factor". The rules can in fact be entirely arbitrary. Also we have no access to the native speaker intuition of ancient Hebrews, so we can only guess at the rules they used.

...

At the same time, virtually all uses that said society considers "good grammar" will have some sort of unifying factor, something that suggests WHY it's acceptable to use form X in both Y way and Z way, even though on the surface they might seem somewhat contradictory. This is why the sequence idea won't work for the wayyiqtol: there's no way to find a unifying factor between sequence and non-sequence. By definition, they're polar opposites. Hence, the unifying factor between these two types of usage must lie elsewhere.


This does not follow logically or practically.

For one thing, there are well attested cases of words being used in polar opposite senses distinguished only by context, such as XESED in Hebrew and "wicked" in the dialect of English considered acceptable by most young people. There is no reason why the same verb form cannot be used for polar opposites - especially when one form is derived from two different forms in an earlier stage of the language coming together.

But the real point here is not that sequentiality and non-sequentiality are polar opposites, but rather that this is a binary feature of uses of the verb which is generally signalled [+sequence] by a WAYYIQTOL form but is not always so signalled. I am not claiming that WAYYIQTOL ever signals [-sequence], just that it may leave the issue open. It is rather like the historic present in English, which is quite common (I wrote in my last posting "it is while Eli is sitting ... and Hannah's soul is bitter ... that Hannah prays" although of course this event took place thousands of years ago); the present tense normally signals [-past] but in some cases, when the reference is past, this constraint is relaxed, although a present tense can never be [+past]. So, would you search elsewhere for a unifying factor between present and past in English? Or would you write off the historic present in English as "bad grammar"? In that case you might have a problem with the historic present in the Greek New Testament, especially in Mark.

My task is to locate that "elsewhere." A side track of this research that I haven't really pursued with any kind of vigor, is the question: given that we can come up with some clue about the unifying factors of the verb system in BH, are there any non-poetic examples of "bad grammar" in the Hebrew Bible? My answer: I have no idea. But it could turn out to be an interesting question for someone to explore.


I don't think we have any way of telling what was "bad grammar" in a dead language with no native speakers, unless we have actual contemporary statements that the grammar was bad.

But how would you react if someone suggested that all of the examples of non-sequential WAYYIQTOL in your paper are "bad grammar" because they break the rule that WAYYIQTOL must be sequential? I wouldn't go that far, for I know that there are special circumstances in which WAYYIQTOL is non-sequential by rule, but this is certainly a possible explanation of a few cases which cannot be covered by even adjusted rules. But we end up with the same uncertainty as with the historic present, in deciding when a marginal usage is an acceptable alternative and when it is prescribe to be "bad grammar".

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



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.9/72 - Release Date: 14/08/2005





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page