Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Rolf,

A few comments 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: Monday, March 05, 2007 12:51 AM
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
>
>
> > Hi Rolf,
> >
> > You assert that "an aspectual explanation on the basis of the
> > relationship between event time and reference time can solve everything".
>
> RF
> The general word "everything" was meant to signal that all the uses of 
> verbs
> in the Tanakh can be explained without a single exception by the
> two-component model presented in my dissertation. In the last chapter, I 
> discuss this from the point of view of the Philosophy of Science. When 
> definitions can explain every use, they either are too vague (thus 
> explaining nothing) or they are close to outlining the true nature of 
> the system.

There is actually a third possibility. Since we are dealing with 
language here and not science, the simple fact that you present your 
theory as one without "exceptions" is suspicious. We should expect 
exceptions in language. So a theory of this aspect of language without 
any exceptions could actually point to it being wrong - the third 
possibility.


> > An observation: You, Rogland, and Cook all provide analyses making use
> > of "speech time", "event time", and "reference time", yet you all arrive
> > at vastly different conclusions. So an "explanation on the basis of the
> > relationship between event time and reference time" may not necessarily
> > "solve everything". I feel that since you all differ that there may
> > still be some sort of (subjective?) interpretation of the data which
> > leads to your respective differing positions.
>
> RF
> I found Cook´s dissertation to be of a very high quality, while I have 
> more reservations regarding Rogland´s work, along the lines of Tropper´s 
> recent review of it (I do not remeber the periodical). It is for example 
> very interesting to compare their different view of QATAL/WEQATAL. While 
> we use some parameters with the same name, our approaches are very 
> different, so we should not expect to get the same results. Please note 
> that do not claim that my conclusions are the truth and nothing but the 
> truth. We never reach a final stage in the study of a dead language. The 
> advantage of my study is that it is the only one where all finite and 
> infinite verbs (save a few representing textual uncertainties of breaks) 
> of classical Hebrew (the Tanakh, the DSS, Ben Sira, and the 
> inscriptions) are analysed. It represents a new approach, since it does 
> not build on the usual assumptions, but instead uses 
> language-independent parameters in order to find what the text says, 
> instead of forcing obsolete definitions upon the text. It is also the 
> only study of Hebrew verbs which systematically has tried to distinguish 
> between semantic and pragmatic factors, i.e., which parts of the forms 
> have an intrinsic uncancellable meaning and which parts take their 
> meaning from the context.

Thanks for the pointer to Tropper's review; I'll chase it up.

But you reveal in your response to my questioning of your assertion that 
"an aspectual explanation on the basis of the relationship between event 
time and reference time can solve everything" that it is not JUST that 
one has to use the correct parameters, but is also the linguistic 
framework in which you approach the results of such an analysis. Part of 
your linguistic methodology is drawing an absolute rigid line between 
pragmatics and semantics and following the rule of "intrinsic 
uncancellable meaning". If one does not accept these basic issues of 
methodology, you cannot expect people to agree with your results - and 
especially so in this case because the results are intrinsically tied to 
methodological assumptions.


> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo

Regards,
David Kummerow.