Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear David,

Please see my comments below.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Kummerow" <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2007 8:45 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)


> 
> Hi Rolf,
> 
> My answers will be numbered in response to your questions:
> 
> 1. Sorry, a typo. I meant Gen 18:10: 'ashub "I will return." This verb, 
> I take it, refers not to an incomplete or differentiated action, but to 
> a whole, complete one in the future. It does not refer to an iterative 
> action, nor to some sort of incomplete action ("will begin to return", etc).

RF
I think you confuse aspect and Aktionsart/procedural traits here /I define 
"Aktionsart" as lexical properties, such as durativity, punctiliarity, 
dynamicity etc; "procedural traits" are properties that arise from the 
interplay of Aktionsart and other factors, for example the Vendlerian 
categories "activity, accomplishment,and achievement"/. What is the nature of 
$WB? It can be viewed as an "achievement" comparable to "reach the peak". If 
we use the English imperfective aspect (the participle) together with an 
"achievement", the result is often iterative or habitual, which are 
"procedural traits". In Hebrew there is another property which is very much 
used, namely resultativity. It can be expressed by the used of the Piel stem 
in Hebrew (and the D stem in Akkadian and Ugaritic), and it can be expressed 
by the imperfective aspect. So the explanation of the YIQTOL  of $WB in Gen 
18:10 can be simple: the imperfective aspect indicates resutaltativity.  
Thus, the force is, "I will return and be there," and the resultant state of 
being is open. 

A way to test the notion of resultativity is to look at the verb NPL.  In the 
lexicons we also find the definition "be prostrate, lying down, fallen down". 
On the basis of having looked at all the occurrences of the verb in the 
Tanakh I challenge this definition. This is not a lexical mening of the verb, 
but the definition is based on the interplay of two factors, lexical meaning 
(punctiliar Aktionsart) and the imperfective aspect. One example used in the 
lexicons is Joshua 7:6. One Hebrew verb (the imperfective WAYYIQTOL) is used 
to convey the force (an action + a resultant state) which only can be 
expressed in English by the use of two verbs.  In Joshua 7:10 resultativity 
is expressed by the participle. 

There is also another way of viewing the YIQTOL in Gen 18:10. If you look at 
the use of verbs with states, you will find that QATALs and YIQTOLs often are 
used without any discernable difference in meaning. The reason is that a 
state is something that holds and continues to hold without any input of 
energy, and every part of a state is similar to any other part, or to the 
state as a whole. So there simply is no difference to make visible or signal 
(the ingressive force is sometimes marked  though). Future references may in 
some ways be similar, since they are open and unfulfilled. In some instances, 
but rather few, future perfect is expressed. But apart from that, in many 
instances it is not easy to see any difference between QATALs with future 
reference (there are about one thousand examples) and YIQTOLs with future 
reference  (The socalled "prophetic perfect" is an ad hoc explanation made in 
the 19th century, and proofs for it have never been given).


> 
> 2. With "complete" vis-a-vis "completed" I'm simply trying to get away 
> from tying aspect to time - "completed" to me implied just that, a 
> completed action and hence one performed in the past.

RF
It is very fine to skip "completed," which entails time. But you have not 
answered my question: What is a "complete" action?

> 
> 3. Only in the sense that they are grammatical categories that other 
> languages have grammaticalised and so may well be applicable to BH. I 
> think it is fairly clear from Andersen's and Cook's work that these are 
> useful categories for pre-BH/Canaanite. The difficult question is BH. I 
> position it a little further on the grammaticalisation path to tense 
> than what they do due to the points I raised in my earlier post to 
> George. BH has not fully moved from its aspectual heritage, however - 
> cf, eg, the prefix verb in Gen 2:6 used to express iterative action in 
> the past, etc.

RF
The point that I am trying to convey is that aspectual definitions often are 
taken out of thin air and applied to the verbal systems of dead languages. 
These definitions are often vague or simply metaphorical. They may seem to be 
useful, but how do we know that they should be applied at all to Hebrew? 
Regarding "time" and "tense" the situation is rather simple: Actions 
occurring before the deictic center (the vantage point from which an action 
is seen) represent past time, and those occurring after the deictic center 
represent future time. When a verb form *only* refers to past action and 
another (or periphrastic forms) *only* refer to the future, time is 
grammaticalized and we can speak of tenses.  What I find missing in studies  
of Hebrew verbs, are criteria by which aspect can be defined. Such criteria 
exist, but they are not used

> 
> 4. My impression is that aspect is the same, but the interaction of 
> individual lexical items, verbal complements, aspect, and Aktionsart 
> will vary cross-linguistically. But we've been over this ground before...

RF
I would say that the assumption that aspect is the same in all aspectual 
languages effectively prevents any fruitful analysis of Hebrew verbs. This is 
so because foreign elements are forced upon Hebrew, and these prevents the 
student from analysing Hebrew in its own right.

> 
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli Ph.D
University of Oslo
> 
>> Dear David,
>>
>> I have the following questions:
>>
>> 1) Which verb in Gen 18:11 do you have in mind?
>>
>> 2) What actually is a "complete" action? How is such an action different
>> from a "completed" action?
>>
>> 3) How can we know that the opposition "complete and undifferentiated"
>> versus "incomplete and differentiated" can be applied to Hebrew aspects?
>>
>> 4) Are aspects in all aspectual languages exactly the same, "complete and
>> undifferentiated versus incomplete and differentiated"? How can we 
>> know the
>> answer?
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Rolf Furuli Ph.D
>> University of Oslo
>From farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com  Sat Mar  3 15:47:04 2007
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Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2007 07:46:38 +1100
From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
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Gday Rolf,

See below:


> Dear David,
>
> Please see my comments below.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Kummerow" <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
> To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2007 8:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
>
>
>> Hi Rolf,
>>
>> My answers will be numbered in response to your questions:
>>
>> 1. Sorry, a typo. I meant Gen 18:10: 'ashub "I will return." This verb,
>> I take it, refers not to an incomplete or differentiated action, but to
>> a whole, complete one in the future. It does not refer to an iterative
>> action, nor to some sort of incomplete action ("will begin to return", 
>> etc).
>
> RF
> I think you confuse aspect and Aktionsart/procedural traits here /I define 
> "Aktionsart" as lexical properties, such as durativity, punctiliarity, 
> dynamicity etc; "procedural traits" are properties that arise from the 
> interplay of Aktionsart and other factors, for example the Vendlerian 
> categories "activity, accomplishment,and achievement"/. What is the nature 
> of $WB? It can be viewed as an "achievement" comparable to "reach the 
> peak". If we use the English imperfective aspect (the participle) together 
> with an "achievement", the result is often iterative or habitual, which are 
> "procedural traits". In Hebrew there is another property which is very much 
> used, namely resultativity. It can be expressed by the used of the Piel 
> stem in Hebrew (and the D stem in Akkadian and Ugaritic), and it can be 
> expressed by the imperfective aspect. So the explanation of the YIQTOL  of 
> $WB in Gen 18:10 can be simple: the imperfective aspect indicates 
> resutaltativity.  Thus, the force is, "I wi
ll return and be there," and the resultant state of being is open.
>
> A way to test the notion of resultativity is to look at the verb NPL.  In 
> the lexicons we also find the definition "be prostrate, lying down, fallen 
> down". On the basis of having looked at all the occurrences of the verb in 
> the Tanakh I challenge this definition. This is not a lexical mening of the 
> verb, but the definition is based on the interplay of two factors, lexical 
> meaning (punctiliar Aktionsart) and the imperfective aspect. One example 
> used in the lexicons is Joshua 7:6. One Hebrew verb (the imperfective 
> WAYYIQTOL) is used to convey the force (an action + a resultant state) 
> which only can be expressed in English by the use of two verbs.  In Joshua 
> 7:10 resultativity is expressed by the participle.
>
> There is also another way of viewing the YIQTOL in Gen 18:10. If you look 
> at the use of verbs with states, you will find that QATALs and YIQTOLs 
> often are used without any discernable difference in meaning. The reason is 
> that a state is something that holds and continues to hold without any 
> input of energy, and every part of a state is similar to any other part, or 
> to the state as a whole. So there simply is no difference to make visible 
> or signal (the ingressive force is sometimes marked  though). Future 
> references may in some ways be similar, since they are open and 
> unfulfilled. In some instances, but rather few, future perfect is 
> expressed. But apart from that, in many instances it is not easy to see any 
> difference between QATALs with future reference (there are about one 
> thousand examples) and YIQTOLs with future reference  (The socalled 
> "prophetic perfect" is an ad hoc explanation made in the 19th century, and 
> proofs for it have never been given).
>

I disagree that I have confused the categories (see my post where I also
defined Aktionsart lexically). But I agree that what you mention
combine. I agree that some of the function of the Piel is the expression
of resutaltativity, particularly for stative verbs. But I disagree that
this is part of imperfective aspect. The verb in Gen 18:10, I see, does
not refer explicitly to a resultative action, but to a future,
perfective aspect: the total return, not just the result of return. The
yiqtol verb is used, though, to express the future event. The force is
not "I will return and be there", but more simply "I will return". "I
will return and be there" would need to be lexically expressed. I feel
that by creating your own notions of (im)ferfective aspect you are able
to make it say what you want it to say and call it imperfective aspect.

As for the statement that "One Hebrew verb (the imperfective WAYYIQTOL)
is used to convey the force (an action + a resultant state) which only
can be expressed in English by the use of two verbs", the same applies.
It is only "imperfective" aspect because you have given a different
definition. Most wayyiqtols are prima facie perfective to most of the
rest of us. My feeling it is that you should move away from using the
aspectual terminology of "(im)perfective" aspect, because you operate
with you own definitions. You should create your own labels because your
definitions have moved considerably from agreed meanings. When you use
"imperfective" you mean something entirely different from most of the
rest of us. This is incredibly confusing, and I feel that you are no
longer describing aspect.

Because we operate from different methodologies to begin with, I feel we
will never agree.

>
>> 2. With "complete" vis-a-vis "completed" I'm simply trying to get away
>> from tying aspect to time - "completed" to me implied just that, a
>> completed action and hence one performed in the past.
>
> RF
> It is very fine to skip "completed," which entails time. But you have not 
> answered my question: What is a "complete" action?
>

Only that the action is conceptualised "completely": it has a beginning
and an end, without recourse to its internal makeup. This is the
conventionally agree definition, is it not? If (im)perfective does not
fit for BH, it does not mean that the definitions of aspect need to be
redefined to suit. It may just mean, as I would argue, that the picture
is complex, as tense is starting to figure within the verbal system as well.

>> 3. Only in the sense that they are grammatical categories that other
>> languages have grammaticalised and so may well be applicable to BH. I
>> think it is fairly clear from Andersen's and Cook's work that these are
>> useful categories for pre-BH/Canaanite. The difficult question is BH. I
>> position it a little further on the grammaticalisation path to tense
>> than what they do due to the points I raised in my earlier post to
>> George. BH has not fully moved from its aspectual heritage, however -
>> cf, eg, the prefix verb in Gen 2:6 used to express iterative action in
>> the past, etc.
>
> RF
> The point that I am trying to convey is that aspectual definitions often 
> are taken out of thin air and applied to the verbal systems of dead 
> languages. These definitions are often vague or simply metaphorical. They 
> may seem to be useful, but how do we know that they should be applied at 
> all to Hebrew? Regarding "time" and "tense" the situation is rather simple: 
> Actions occurring before the deictic center (the vantage point from which 
> an action is seen) represent past time, and those occurring after the 
> deictic center represent future time. When a verb form *only* refers to 
> past action and another (or periphrastic forms) *only* refer to the future, 
> time is grammaticalized and we can speak of tenses.  What I find missing in 
> studies  of Hebrew verbs, are criteria by which aspect can be defined. Such 
> criteria exist, but they are not used
>

That's the question: should aspect be applied to all Hebrew? My answer
is that a (partial?) move to tense is made even within biblical Hebrew,
again for the reasons outlined in my previous post to George.

>> 4. My impression is that aspect is the same, but the interaction of
>> individual lexical items, verbal complements, aspect, and Aktionsart
>> will vary cross-linguistically. But we've been over this ground before...
>
> RF
> I would say that the assumption that aspect is the same in all aspectual 
> languages effectively prevents any fruitful analysis of Hebrew verbs. This 
> is so because foreign elements are forced upon Hebrew, and these prevents 
> the student from analysing Hebrew in its own right.
>

I disagree. It's not aspect per se that changes, but, as I said, the
interaction of the lexicon, verbal complements, and Aktionsart with
aspect that will vary.

We can't even agree on the basics, so we will never agree in our
respective analyses of BH.

>> Regards,
>> David Kummerow.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli Ph.D
> University of Oslo


By the way, when is your article in ZDMG scheduled for publication? I
checked the latest issue last week and it still didn't appear.

Regards,
David Kummerow.