Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 07/03/2007 18:02, Ken Penner wrote:
> Dear Peter,
>
> I suspect you may be referring to my work when you say a significant change 
> had occurred in the Hebrew verb system by the end of the period in which the 
> Dead Sea Scrolls were written. (Or were you thinking of  Kutscher?)
> It is true that I demonstrated in my dissertation that the DSS Hebrew verbs 
> do not grammaticalize aspect (i.e., viewpoint aspect, as defined by Comrie or 
> Binnick). But I would not say that this is a change from Biblical Hebrew, 
> since I am not convinced that Biblical Hebrew grammaticalized aspect either 
> (despite the recent work by Cook and Furuli). Of the theories regarding 
> Biblical Hebrew, I am intrigued by those giving prominence to modality (e.g., 
> Joosten, Hatav), especially since modality is prominent in Mishnaic Hebrew 
> and the evidence from Qumran is consistent with a theory that the verb forms 
> grammaticalize modality.
>
>   
Yes, Ken, I was thinking of your work. Well, I guess Rolf would agree 
with me that the system you have found for DSS Hebrew is different from 
that of biblical Hebrew, even if you don't agree.

I suppose the test would be if you analysed BH by the same methods that 
you have used for DSS. Have you done anything like this?

But then I wonder if either BH or DSS actually grammaticalised anything 
in the verb system, in the kind of sense which you and Rolf have in 
mind. If what we have found is that there are no definite and 
uncancellable rules, what is the implication of that? It is surely not 
that all of the different verb forms are interchangeable, but rather 
that there are rules which are more complex than yet understood.

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