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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 11:09:15 -0000

Dear Peter,

Here you completely miss the mark! The point is as follows: All linguists know, and ordinary people know that some verbs can refer to the past because the verb forms themselves have an intrinsic past tense, and other verbs can in one context refer to the past and in other contexts to the future. This is absolutely not theory-dependent, since this is a fact that no one would dispute. ( I am here speaking about how languages work, and not about the theoretical psychological discussion of the relationship between time and tense.) When the term "preterit" or "past tense" is used, it implies that the form in question represents "grammaticalised past location in time", but when the expression "past reference" is used, it implies that the situation is past without deciding whether this is due to the form itself or to the context.

When David claims that WAYYIQTOL represents past tense, he should be able to demonstrate the basis for this and also show that other forms with past reference either represent past tense or only context-dependent past reference. Tenses can be used in different ways in different contexts (e.g. modal use, conditional use etc.). But to claim that a particular verb form in *most* cases represents past tense and in other cases represents future tense, the very opposite would be nonsensical. Either a language has tense forms or it has not.

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Kirk" <peter AT qaya.org>
To: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 9:53 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)


On 07/03/2007 07:59, Rolf Furuli wrote:
Dear David,

You have not really answered my basic question, "How do we distinguish between past reference and past tense?" Your comments show that your approach is completely theory-dependent. ...

But, Rolf, your own question here is "completely theory-dependent". You don't even ask the logically prior question whether there is a meaningful distinction to be made between past reference and past tense, or whether this distinction is part of David's theoretical framework. You simply assume that this is the most basic distinction which must and can be made, and then pressure David to make this distinction. But there are other possible and meaningful theoretical frameworks in which there is no such distinction, or in which this distinction is far less fundamental and less significant. And anyway it may well be that, even if the distinction is a valid one, the evidence from a dead language is insufficient for it to be made in this case - which would imply that your model of the Hebrew verb is a theoretically valid but practically unproductive one.

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









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