Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 08/03/2007 08:25, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> ...
> 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. ...

But by making any kind of differentiation between these factors you are 
already importing a theory, according to which there is a distinction 
between semantic and pragmatic factors, and allowing it to significantly 
disturb the material under study.

> ... 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. ...

Here you are importing a theory simply by assuming that there is a valid 
distinction to be made between what is intrinsic and what is caused by 
contextual factors.

> ... 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. ...

Is Comrie really saying what you are suggesting? Does he hold that any 
verb form, even for example one which usually has a clear semantic 
meaning as an imperfective future, can in fact be used in narrative, and 
when it is so used it signals past completed actions? If so, he is 
contradicting your position that semantic meaning is uncancellable, 
because in such a case it is cancelled by the narrative context. Or is 
Comrie's meaning in fact the more probable one, that verb forms which 
are used as narrative verbs must be ones which regardless of context 
signal past completed actions, or at least that such a use is a possible 
and normal one for that verb form? If the latter, this would imply at 
least that one part of the meaning of WAYYIQTOL is past completed action.

> ... Therefore, contrary 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."
>   

I accept that if you could find unambiguous cases of WAYYIQTOL used in 
this way, that would suggest that it is not an entirely perfective verb 
form - although a small number of cases might be explained as special 
idiomatic constructions, non-standard language or dialect, poetic 
"licence", or textual corruption - the last particularly involving 
confusion with the distinct but similar sounding WEYIQTOL form, in other 
words some WEYIQTOLs may have been mis-pointed as WAYYIQTOL.

> ...
>
> 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 one´s 
> theory, it is labelled as an exception), but it should be explained why a verb deserve 
> the label "exception".
>
>   
Well, scientists do not insist that an aberrant result which doesn't fit 
the theory has to be explained or else the theory is invalid. Instead, 
they accept that there will be experimental errors, and look for general 
patterns without worrying about trying to explain a small number of 
exceptions. Similarly in Hebrew, and in any real language text, there 
are a number of factors which may cause apparent exceptions, results 
which are far from fitting the theory; I listed some of these factors above.

Consider the physicist's "proof" that all odd numbers are prime: 1 
prime, 3 prime, 5 prime, 7 prime, 9 experimental error, 11 prime, 13 
prime... (as opposed to the bad mathematician's "proof": 1 prime, 3 
prime, other odd numbers are prime by induction; and the engineer's 
"proof": 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime, 7 prime, 9 prime, 11 prime, 13 
prime... ;-) ). The physicist's method is bad mathematics, but good 
physics, and no explanation is needed for 9 being experimental error 
except that an error of one out of seven is within acceptable limits. 
Now sometimes it seems as if you treat language as like mathematics and 
pure logic, but instead it is more like physics and measurement of the 
real world, which includes exceptions and experimental errors.


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