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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] Basic observations on WAYYIQTOL]
  • Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:25:54 +0100

On 18/08/2005 16:34, Rolf Furuli wrote:

[quoting James]

What is your view on the sequentiality of wayyiqtols? Is sequentiality the
uncancellable
semantic meaning of wayyiqtols or is this a pragamtic feature which is best
left to context?

RF:

The sequentiality of WAYYIQTOLs illustrates in an excellent way the fallacy
of stressing quantity rather than quality, or in other words, to fail to
distinguish between semantics and pragmatics. ...


I can accept what you have written here, that WAYYIQTOL does not have a necessary semantic meaning of sequence.

[again quoting James]

One thing I did not understand though is your view of the 998 wayiqtols that
do not
express past action. Are you saying these are exceptions to the norm? Are
you saying
they do or do not have an uncancellable semantic meaning?

RF:

Comrie suggested that to find the true properties of verbs used in narrative
contexts on has to look at the same verbs outside narratives. In my study I
have analysed all the WAYYIQTOLs in the Tanakh, and the 998 WAYYIQTOLs with
non-past reference occur outside narratives. Regarding the about 13,000
WAYYIQTOLs occurring in narrative contexts we can know nothing regarding
tense or aspect, because these are covered by the strict form of the
narratives. ...


No, Rolf, this is not true. Within narrative, as we have seen with Genesis 18, there is a rich interplay of different verb forms: WAYYIQTOL, QATAL, participles etc, each of which indicating or at least correlating with differences in the actual situation: mainline events, background or past events, background states etc. So there is certainly data there for examining what might be the semantic distinction between WAYYIQTOL and the other forms. Such a test might not be able to tell us exactly what WAYYIQTOL is. But it can tell us some things which WAYYIQTOL cannot be, and the most obvious of these is that it cannot be imperfective aspect, in any sense which has enough in common with the standard linguistic definition of "imperfective" that it is reasonable to redefine the same term to cover it.

I found this definition of "imperfective aspect" at http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsImperfectiveAspect.htm:

Imperfective aspect is an aspect that expresses an event or state, with respect to its internal structure, instead of expressing it as a simple whole.


But how can there be any expression with respect to the internal structure of events like "looked up" and many others expressed by WAYYIQTOL in Genesis 18 and elsewhere? And if your redefinition of "imperfective aspect" no longer has any reference to internal structure, why don't you clarify things for everyone by using a different word?

... In my view, all WAYYIQTOLs have the same meaning, including the 998 with
non-past reference, and they represent the impeerfective aspect (defined
differently compared with the usual definition). ...


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



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