Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Haverim,

So Hebrew moved from aspect to tense. I know exactly the moment it  
happened. It was when our language teacher miss Shoshana Greenfeld  
first entered class and threw me, and the rest of the little  
participants-interpretants in the room, one of her famous dark looks.  
My light frisson of anticipation turned thereby immediately into a  
shudder of foreboding. From there on it was all tense, not even one  
itzy pitzy of aspect. Past became past, present was present, and  
future was future. In fact, all the little prophetic perfectists were  
at the corner shedding tears.  Still, I survived, and B"H my deictic  
center is still steadily and briskly shifting along the infinite time  
axis and in the right direction.

Isaac Fried, Boston University


On Mar 6, 2007, at 6:49 PM, David Kummerow wrote:

> Hi Rolf,
>
> Comments below:
>
>
> > Dear David,
> >
> > It takes much time to participate in discussions like this one,  
> > and I am
> > on the
> > point of finishing a book. So I cannot continue much longer. Just  
> > a few
> > short questions:
>
> I agree, I have work to continue, too. But your prompting helps to  
> think
> of things in different ways.
>
>
> > 1) What is the "prototypical funtion" of a verb? How can it be
> > identified? On the basis of texts? Or is the identification just
> > guesswork without any controlling parameters to check the  
> > conclusions?
>
> Prototype theory is now used within (functional?) linguistics for
> understanding conceptual categorisation of lexical stock,
> parts-of-speech, etc (see, eg, Croft 2001; Croft & Cruse 2004).  
> Central
> to this theory is that some members of a category are more  
> prototypical
> members, while others are more peripheral. Regarding the prototypical
> function of a verbal form, this is admittedly a difficult task for a
> dead language. This is where typology is helpful (see Miller 2004): it
> provides a framework in which the possibilities and functional
> constraints are shown. Added to this is the area of grammaticalisation
> theory. All of this helps to reveal what the options and non-options
> are, the identification of constructions, the primacy of certain
> constructions over others, etc.
>
> > 2) How can we distinguish between past tense (grammaticalised  
> > location
> > in time) and past reference (when the reference is based on the  
> > context
> > and not on the verb form)?
>
> For BH I suggest: though an analysis of paradigmatic verbal contrasts,
> diachronic change, constructional analysis, etc. What we do know is  
> that
> Hebrew moves from aspect to tense over time. At some point, then,  
> there
> will be a stage where the language is unstable with respect to  
> tense and
> aspect. It is not as if one week the language marked verbs for aspect
> and then the next marked tense. At some stage there will have been a
> state of flux and change. I think this is something of the case for  
> BH.
> As such, tense-only and aspect-only theories do not seem to work:  
> hence
> all the debate. So while my tense labels for the verb forms are  
> attempts
> at identifying prototypical functions, they are just that,  
> prototypical.
> The language has not absolutely moved to tense, so there are
> discrepancies, exceptions, whatever you want to call them. But this is
> only natural for language.
>
>
> > A few examples:
> >
> > 1a)  And I heard (WAYYIQTOL) a voice.  Isaiah 6:8
>
> This example shows that even though I assign the functional label of
> "narrative past tense" to wayyiqtol, it still can appear in narration.
> But qatal has basically displaced its use here. Thus I agree with  
> those
> who make a distinction between narrative and narration.
>
> > 1b)  I heard a voice (YIQTOL).  Job 4:16
>
> The language of Job is difficult, complicated by an uncertain date and
> poetry. Some even identify Arabian influences. I admit I haven't yet
> read Rata 2004. Interesting, though, is the interchange of verbal  
> forms
> throughout the speech. Is this like the tense-shifting of the  
> Psalms (a
> la Buth 1984, 1986)? Is this for dramatic reasons (historical  
> presents,
> etc)?
>
> > 1c)  And the Queen of Sheba heard (participle) the report, 1 Kings  
> > 10:1
>
> The participle is often used in narrative to express attendant
> circumstances of the main verb (cf Nash 1992). Functionally, the
> participle clause here is semantically dependent to the following
> wayyiqtol main clause. This is regular usage of the participle.
>
>
> > 1d) When Hiram heard (infinitive) the message of Solomon. 1 Kings  
> > 5:21
> > /5:7/
>
> The construction wayehi + ke + infinitive is an adverbial time clause
> semantically dependent to the following wayyiqtol main clause (cf van
> der Merwe 1997a, 1997b). This is regular usage of this construction.
>
>
> > 2a) And the messenger came (WAYYIQTOL).  2 Kings 10:8
>
> Narrative past tense, prototypical usage.
>
> > 2b) By de way he came (YIQTOL). 2 Kings 19:33
>
> This is future here, not past: By the way he will come, he will  
> return.
>
> > 2c) And look! Esau came (participle). Genesis 33:1
>
> hinneh regularly selects the participle.
>
> > 2d) When Abraham came (infinitive) to Egypt. Genesis 12:14
>
> Same as infinitive construction above. Regular usage.
>
> > In these examples with WAYYIQTOL, YIQTOL, participle, and infinitive
> > respectively, the event occurred before the deictic center (the  
> > vantage
> > point of the story teller). How can we distinguish past reference  
> > from
> > past tense in these examples?  Are there any criteria, or is it just
> > guesswork?
> > In my dissertation there are several hundred similar examples.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Rolf Furuli
> > University of Oslo
>
>
> Buth, Randall. 1984. “Hebrew Poetic Tenses and the Magnificat.”  
> Journal
> for the Study of the New Testament 21: 67-83.
> Buth, Randall. 1986. “The Taxonomy and Function of Hebrew Tense- 
> Shifting
> in the Psalms (qātal–yiqtol–yiqtol–qātal, Antithetical  
> Grammatical
> Parallelism).” Selected Technical Articles Related to Translation  
> 15: 26-32.
> Croft, William. 2002. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic  
> Theory in
> Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
> Croft, William and D. Alan Cruse. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics.  
> Cambridge
> Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
> Miller, Cynthia L. 2004. “Methodological Issues in Reconstructing
> Language Systems from Epigraphic Fragments.” Pages 281-305 in The  
> Future
> of Biblical Archaeology: Reassessing Methodologies and Assumptions.
> Edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Alan Millard. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
> Nash, Peter T. 1992. “The Hebrew Qal Active Participle: A Non- 
> Aspectual
> Backgrounding Element.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.
> Rata, Cristian G. 2004. “The Verbal System in the Book of Job.”  
> PhD
> diss., University of Toronto.
> van der Merwe, Christo H. J. 1997. “Reconsidering Biblical Hebrew
> Temporal Expressions.” Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 10: 42-61.
> van der Merwe, Christo H. J. 1997. “‘Reference Time’ in Some  
> Biblical
> Temporal Constructions.” Biblica 78: 503-524.
>
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
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