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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 16:02:03 -0500

Vadim,

I am sorry, but the point of this discussion escapes me. Are you saying that we do not know what wayiqtol is without the "demonstration" that it is a "deictic shift" from the "deictic center"?

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Mar 6, 2007, at 12:18 PM, Vadim Cherny wrote:

It's really odd how we keep returning to the same subject over and over
again.
I demonstrated some time ago that all "future tense" uses of qatal are
deictic shifts which are, incidentally, fully paralleled in Russian and to
an extent in English. Such deictic shifts are pretty expected in energized
narrative.
Likewise, wayiqtols are very clearly the past tense verbs, again allowing
for the situation, typical in recital, that some wayiqtols means, "and he
would say," a matter of deictic shift.
No other explanation passes the Occam's razor and, as Rolf correctly noted,
is not consistent with earlier grammatical theories. The notion of
"prophetic perfect" is just funny because it presumes that other
(non-prophetic) Jews spoke a different dialect. Rolf is also right in
demanding explanations for the purported exceptions.

Vadim Cherny
http://vadimcherny.org/hebrew/grammatical_function_hebrew_yiqtol.htm
http://vadimcherny.org/hebrew/hebrew_verb_paradigms_originated.htm


You paint a carricature of my position. In view of all the times we have
discussed Hebrew verbs, you should be able to do better. I do not deny
exceptions and a substandard use of language. What I challenge is ad hoc
explanations in order to save a hypothesis. Therefore I make a
linguistic
demand that exceptions must be explained. For example, In the 19th
century
QATAL was viewed as past tense, and at the end of the century, as past
tense
or the perfective aspect. It was discovered that several QATALs had
future
reference, and in order to save the theory, the "prophetic perfect" was
postulated, the action was completed in the mind of the prophet. (A. B.
Davidson (1894) "Hebrew syntax") is a good example. The view has later
been
parroted by different grammarians, but I have never seen anyone proving
the
claim.


Several quite reasonable explanations of this situation have been put
forward, mostly based on the idea (for which there is good phonological
evidence) that WAYYIQTOL comes from a quite different early Semitic verb
form from regular YIQTOL.
The principle of a property being uncancellable is very simple: Even a
shoolboy understands that the clauses "I will come yesterday" and "I
came
tomorrow" are ungrammatical. There is no purpose in trying to find a
special
situation where one of the clauses can be used.


"If I came tomorrow, I would be able to see him before he goes away the
next day". This perfectly grammatical sentence proves that past tense is
not uncancellable in English. Similarly there are perfectly grammatical
constructions in which the past verb form in Hebrew is used with future
reference, and vice versa. I don't see the difference in principle; if
one is semantic, the other is semantic, if one is pragmatic, the other
is pragmatic, or maybe this is not a meaningful distinction.

In fact the reason why "If I came tomorrow..." is grammatical is that
this is not really a past tense, but a subjunctive, but in English the
past and the subjunctive have acquired almost identical forms. But the
forms are distinct for the verb "to be", so "If I were in town
tomorrow..." is historically more correct, not "If I was in town
tomorrow..." Nevertheless, many speakers would say the latter because
this subjunctive distinction is fading away. This is very similar to the
evidence, not always consistent, from certain verb forms e.g. lamed-he
verbs that WAYYIQTOL is "apocopated" which, according to a very
plausible explanation, means that it comes from an originally separate
verb paradigm which has mostly merged with regular YIQTOL.

If QATAL represents past tense, ...

I am not arguing this, rather more like that QATAL is perfective aspect.
I think we agree on this one, although we might disagree on precise
definitions. My disagreement with you is largely on WAYYIQTOL, which I
see as also perfective and semantically as well as morphologically
distinct from imperfective YIQTOL.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/




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