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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)

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  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:08:32 +1100

Hi Rolf,

See below:

Dear David,

I start with a few questions: Do you agree with Comrie that some languages
do not have tenses (grammaticalized location in time), such as Burmese?
If you do, you agree that the narrative form in such a language does not
represent past tense. So I ask: Why should it be impossible that the
narrative form in such a language should be imperfective? To apply this to Hebrew I ask; Why canĀ“t WAYYIQTOL be in imperfective form? Is there anything in the texts we have which would forbid that?

I agree with you. I also agree with Dahl when he says that there are a minority of languages without tense OR aspect. I do not deny that it is theoretically possible for a language to use imperfective forms in narrative. BH does for the expression of repeated action in the past. But in narratives most actions are have already happen and so a viewed completely, thus the usual deployment of the perfective verb. So theoretically nothing hinders wayyiqtol from being an imperfective; it just when we approach the text I see it used repeatedly for perfective actions.



We may perhaps differ as to the definition of tense. We agree that grammaticalisation processes may occur in a language over time: A particular verb form becomes more and more restricted as to it use until it only is used in one way, for example having only past reference. At that point first the form represent "grammaticalised location in time". It seems that you do not accept this definition, since you speak of "the dominant use" as evidence for tense. For example, the English verbs "went" and "spoke" have an intrinsic past tense and the forms are grammaticalised location in time. Past reference is not "the dominant use" of "went" and "spoke," it IS their use. In hypothetical conditional clauses and some other special clauses the verbs can be used in a non-past context, but their past reference is non-cancellable.


Part of the difference between English and BH, I suggest, is that English is further down the grammaticalisation pathway of tense that BH is. In one sense it doesn't matter what we label a form: hence our formal labels of wayyiqtol, qatal, etc. But if we want to give a functional label, then usually the prototypical function of the verb in question is assigned. This label, though, should not be used to imply that the verb can be used for other, less prototypical, functions.

I take the prototypical function of qatal to be past tense, for these reasons (repeated from my post to George): a) declarative non-stative qatal default is absolute past; b)default anterior use of qatal in non-paratactic constructions; c) rhetorical/exaggerated "futures" with qatal (eg Isa 6:5); d) qatal for politeness (eg 1Kgs 15:19); e) qatal restricted in its use to the temporal modifiers 'ethmol/'emesh; f) yiqtol restricted in its use to the temporal modifiers `attah/machar.

However, besides the expression of past tense, qatal also is used for: a) proverbial/gnomic (as the past tense is used in some other languages, as Rogland points out); b) conditional/hypothetical (like English, as Peter points out); c) cosubordinate clauses; d) consequence/result clauses; e) present tense with statives; f) performative. Now in theory we could pick one of these other functions. Matthew Anstey at p.214 of his dissertation says:

"The constructional inventory [for qatal] ... suggests that Past is the basic meaning, particularly if we rank the constructions [involving qatal] in order of specificity---the most generic construction in both narrative and narration has a past tense meaning. Excluding narration, we could argue for a perfect tense (relative tense) basic meaning, because transition (and negatives and gnomics) in narratives do not advance the reference time. But the use of ... [qatal] chains in narration ... indicate that it is an absolute past tense which in particular contexts has a relative perfect tense meaning. Another way of stating this is that if a Biblical Hebrew speaker begins a narration with Declarative Nonstative ... [qatal], the addressee will construe the time of the event as past. It is in the other, more specific, CONSTRUCTION-DEPENDENT contexts, that other ... [qatal] functions occur" (emphasis original).


The "dominant use" of a verb does not tell much without a careful analysis. For example, it has often been argued that the basis for the WAYYIQTOL is a short prefix form, since apocopation is a characteristic of the WAYYIQTOL, as you also say. But what is the "dominant use"? My analysis of all WAYYIQTOLs of the Tanakh gave the result that only 27% were apocopated, so in most cases WAYYIQTOL is long. However, a careful analysis indicates that most of the long WAYYIQTOLs cannot be apocopated because of their consonants suffixes etc. So the "dominant use" tells us little as far as semantics is concerned. Therefore, I agree that the WAYYIQTOL tend to be short when possible. In my analysis of all the finite and infinite verbs of the Tanakh I obtained the following numbers regarding past reference:

QATAL: 7,446 53.5 %
WEQATAL 357 5,9 %
YIQTOL 1,027 7.5 %
WEYIQTOL 50 4.4 %
WAYYIQTOL 13,539 93.1 %
Part act 1,739 32.7 %
Part pass 364 33.1 %
Infin con. 760 57.2 %
Infin abs 86 29.8 %

What do these numbers tell us? Very little before they are carefully analysed. In my view the "dominant use"-arguments are fallacious, since they only relate to quantity (pragmatics) and not to quality (semantics). For example, according to my analysis there are 997 WAYYIQTOLs with non-past reference, and they cannot be ignored. If these (or a reasonable numberof them, to allow differences in interpretation) have non-past reference and occur in normal contexts, the WAYYIQTOL cannot represent past tense. And similarly with the 965 (6.9 %) QATALs with future reference, they show that the QATAL do not represent past tense.


You conclusions here do not have to follow. Verbs can be multifunctional, and our functional labels, as I've suggested, should not be used to imply that there are not other functions. Future reference qatals (and present tense qatals, for that matter) do not disqualify qatal from being a form which is grammaticalising more and more as a past tense. Due to its heritage where it wasn't part of the verbal paradigm per se, it is not surprising to see the form used in the array of constructions it is.


No interpretation of a dead language is final, there certainly are alternative interpretations. The good advice to the student is to look at the methodlologies behind the interpretations.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


Regards,
David Kummerow.




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