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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 08:25:13 -0500

David,

I am glad to see that you now agree with me that wayyiqtol contains a "short prefix verb". I will wait for you to agree with me that it also contains two personal pronouns.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Mar 8, 2007, at 4:04 AM, David Kummerow wrote:

Hi Rolf,

I'm sorry, but you seem to overstate things and then have to clarify
that you weren't ENTIRELY meaning what you had originally written.

I find it interesting that you say: "When I criticize theory-dependent
approaches of classical Hebrew, I think of approaches where the theories
are the basic contributors to the conclusions regarding the verbal
system rather than the Hebrew text itself". I can only see that your own
conclusions are derived from your theoretical assumptions, the very
problem you are criticising.

Regarding wayyiqtol, my opinion is that it is basically a
most-grammaticalised verb: a narrative past tense. To view the
grammaticalisation of the short prefix verb you will need to look
earlier than BH. The interesting thing to notice, though, is that qatal
is beginning to displace the functions of wayyiqtol such that in time it
dies out altogether. In BH, qatal is more often used in direct speech
for narration than wayyiqtol. Also, in LBH, wayyiqtol is less common
than it was in CBH, with qatal on the rise. Here is some
grammaticalisation in progress.

Regarding exceptions and the theory of tense and qatal, I have given
some indication of these and how they are to be resolved by the analysis
of constructions: rhetorical/exaggerated futures, cosubordination,
performatives, statives, politeness, etc.

And, further on exceptions, I have pointed in a number of posts to
exceptions for you to deal with, but you either haven't treated them, or
redefine things for yourself (eg "imperfective aspect" = "resultative").

Regards,
David Kummerow.




-------- Original Message --------
Subject: --
From: David Kummerow <kummerow AT exemail.com.au>
To: kummerow AT exemail.com.au
Date: 08/03/2007 7:38 PM
Dear David,

I do not think the readers will see the differences between our approaches on the basis of your post, since it is not a fair representation of my position. I do not believe we can approach a dead language without a linguistic theory and several assumptions, for example, that the dead language behaved in a way similar to living languages. In my dissertation I state my theory and my assumptions.

/ 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.
/
When I criticize theory-dependent approaches of classical Hebrew, I think of approaches where the theories are the basic contributors to the conclusions regarding the verbal system rather than the Hebrew text itself, and where these conclusions cannot be tested or controlled. Some scholars are of the opinion that all languages have tenses. If this is applied to Hebrew as a linguistic theory, aspect explanations are a priori excluded, and it is the theory which is the basis for the view of the verbal system. It seems to me that the same is the situation when the prototype theory and the grammaticalization theory are used in the context "from Proto-Hebrew to classical Hebrew" in order to find the *meaning* of the Hebrew verb conjugations. Please note the stress of *meaning*. The mentioned theories are fine linguistic tools for different purposes, but if they are used to pinpoint the *meaning* of YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL, the theories are the main contributors to the understanding
rather than the Hebrew text itself. Moreover, we know absolutely nothing about the theoretical construction called "Proto-Hebrew", so any use of it in order to demonstrate a grammaticalisation process is completely hypothetical.

As mentioned, grammatical theories are needed, but in order to let the theories disturb or influence the material under study (the text of the Tanakh ) as little as possible, I try to differentiate between semantic and pragmatic factors in the text. For example, when I observe (observation is basically theory-independent) that WAYYIQTOLs very often occur in narrative texts and describe past, completed situations, I do not conclude: "WAYYIQTOL represents past tense," or "WAYYIQTOL represents the perfective aspect". But I ask, "The past, completed reference, is it an intrinsic part of the WAYYIQTOL form itself, or is it caused by contextual factors?" This cannot be answered by the prototype theory or the grammaticalisation theory, but only by a careful study of all the WAYYIQTOLs. Interestingly, as Comrie observes, any verb form,regardlessof it ownmeaning, used as the narrative verb must signal past completed actions - this is the very nature of narratives. Therefore, contrar
y to the common opinion, the least likely place to find the real meaning of the WAYYIQTOL in Hebrew and the infinitive absolute in Phoenician is in narrative texts. In order to find out whether WAYYIQTOL represents past tense or the perfective or imperfective aspect we have to look for situations which are so restricted that the real nature of WAYYIQTOL is seen. There are particularly three situations where the imperfective nature of the form is visible, 1) conative situations (attempts that were not carriedout), 2) ingressive events (the event starts and continues without reaching the end, and 3) intersection of one event by another (similar to "when Rita was reading (WAYYIQTOL) the paper, John entered the room."

Then back to grammaticalisation, which means that the uses of one part of speach become fewer and fewer, until it has a single use. Examples are the use of QATAL as past tense and YIQTOL as a future tense in Mishnaic Hebrew. In connection with the Tanakh we have an ideal situation for the test of any claim that a grammaticalisation process has occurred or that one or more verb forms are grammaticalised, since we can make a prediction that can be tested. Regarding WAYYIQTOL we can make this prediction: If WAYYIQTOL were in the process of grammaticalisation from the first book was written until a certain time or until the last book was written, we expect to find the pattern that WAYYIQTOL has fewer and fewer functions/meanings until it has only a few, or even one funtion/meaning.
The test is to look at all WAYYIQTOLs in order to see if there is such a pattern. I assume most list-members agree that such a deductive approach is better than to point to grammaticalisation theory and on this basis claim that a grammaticalisation process occurred in the Tanakh.

One last point: Both you and Peter have said that my approach is not worable in natural language. That is wrong! I accept exceptions exactly as you do. But I demand that pointing to exceptions in Hebrew should not be ad hoc (when a verb contradicts oneĀ“s theory, it is labelled as an exception), but it should be explained why a verb deserve the label "exception".


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo

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