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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:02:48 +0000

On 14/03/2007 09:26, Rolf Furuli wrote:
Dear David,

Please note that I do not appeal to any uncancellable principle when I claim
that it is impossible to distinguish between WAYYIQTOLs and WEYIQTOLs in
unpointed texts. And further, when someone appeals to semantics in this
connection, this person is arguing in a circle. Exactly the same is true
when the concept "jussive" is introduced. What you do when you assess an
unpointed text in the light of semantics, or when you use grammatical
concepts such as "jussive", you make an interpretation of the grammar of the
vocalised Masoretic text, and then you extrapolate this interpretation into
the unpointed text. You can hardly find a better example of circularity.

Rolf, thank you for addressing my arguments, but no thanks for attributing them to David. Yes, you have a point that there is some circularity in my method in that I rely on interpretations of certain verbs as jussive which probably partly depend on the Masoretic vocalisation. Nevertheless, if the unpointed text can be read at all it must be possible to distinguish modal and non-modal verb forms at least in most cases. So see below.

Let me repeat this for the third time: You can only answer the question
regarding how many conjugations we can distinguish in an unvocalised text by
morphology and morphology alone. In order to get rid of any circular
thoughts in our mind when we approach an unpointed text, we must forget
everything we think we know about Hebrew grammar and just look at the
consonants of this text. Is this elementary principle really so difficult to
understand?

Thank you for clarifying this principle. Let me address the issue again on the basis of this principle. But we will have to modify the principle because it is impossible to distinguish between phonologically and semantically conditioned distinctions of form "by morphology and morphology alone".

Let us again consider lamed-he verbs only. It is clear from consonantal morphology alone that there are two variants of the prefix conjugation of these verbs, at least in the third person singular, one with a final he and one without it. The statistics appear to be as follows, for lamed-he verbs in the prefix conjugation, third person singular. These are based on what I wrote a few days ago but neutralising the conjugation and jussive distinctions I made then. I admit that these figures may still include some distinctions made on the basis of the vocalisation, and you are welcome to provide alternative figures based on the consonantal text alone.

With final he: 987 (933 + 20 + 34)
Without final he: 1754 (20 + 150 + 1584)
With final he and prefixed vav: 91 (51 + 6 + 34)
Without final he but with prefixed vav: 1647 (8 + 55 + 1584)

An interesting point here is that 94% of the "apocopated" forms are prefixed with vav but only 9% of non-"apocopated" forms are. But, from the consonantal text only, the reason for this could be phonological. But what this does make clear is that there are two distinct verb forms. In principle it is possible that this is just free variation, but this is unlikely. Or it could have a phonological basis, but in that case it should be possible to find a phonological rule which explains the differences - although I don't demand that the rule be "uncancellable" - and I have never seen such a rule formalised. Alternatively, the difference could be related to the meaning in the context - which is not the same as saying that the distinction is actually semantic in your strictly defined sense. To distinguish between these possibilities we have to go beyond morphology.

So let's test this meaning-related hypothesis and consider a meaning component which is rather easily determined, modality (and here I don't include simple future as modal). If we look first at the forms without prefixed vav, we will I think find a significant (although not perfect) correlation, that forms without final he tend to be modal in meaning and forms with final he tend not to be modal. This study should be enough to convince anyone that there is a real distinction between modal and non-modal (jussive and non-jussive) YIQTOL, without prefixed vav. But if we then do a similar study of forms with prefixed vav, we find a very different picture. The great majority of forms with prefixed vav are not modal, irrespective of whether they have a final he. Instead we find two distinct verb forms, one with and one without final he, neither of which has a predominantly modal meaning. And the study of forms without the prefixed vav has shown that the final he distinction is not a purely phonological one but is related to meaning. This also provides a strong indication that the prefixed vav has a meaning more than just being a conjunction. We can also note that forms without final he are dominant in narrative genre but those with final he are mostly found outside narrative. This observation makes it very unlikely that the distinction is a phonological one, for there can be no direct link between phonology and genre.

It seems to me that this is enough evidence to make an a priori case, entirely from the consonantal text, that there are two separate verb forms here, which are candidates for having semantically distinct meanings. Of course this is only the start of a long argument to determine what the semantic distinction might be.

Note that my arguments are entirely from the Hebrew Bible. I will not address the DSS evidence, partly because this is not my field, but also because there may have been significant language changes between the classical period and the DSS period. This group is for discussion of biblical Hebrew, not DSS Hebrew.

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





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