Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:47:50 +1100

Hi Rolf,

Here's what I'm saying: there are some formal tending differences between BH consonantal verbal forms which may point to the existence of separate verbs: as you know what is known as the long prefix verb and the short prefix verb. The differences that are apparent in a consonantal text are confirmed to a greater degree in a vocalised text. These formal differences are tied to different semantics, a further confirmation that we have in fact two verbal paradigms. Comparative Semitics then confirms this picture for me. You have to disagree on every aspect of this: consonantal differences are minimised and explained away; the vocalised text is seen to not represent semantic distinctions; comparative Semitic evidence is minimised or doubt cast upon it.

There are still other posts of mine that you haven't given answer to. But to raise one point from there that I'm particularly interested in. You said: "The principle of a property being uncancellable is very simple: Even a shoolboy understands that the clauses 'I will come yesterday' and 'I came tomorrow' are ungrammatical. There is no purpose in trying to find a special situation where one of the clauses can be used."

I raised the point that the same distributional situation applies in BH: 'ethmol and 'emesh are restricted to qatal and machar is restricted to yiqtol. My take is that these are tense restrictions: 'ethmol and 'emesh like English "yesterday" select the past tense while machar like English "tomorrow" selects the future tense. But given that you reject a tense-prominent analysis, what is your explanation of this distributional verbal restriction with temporal adverbs?

Regards,
David Kummerow.

ps. I don't know why we've suddenly moved to DSS Hebrew. I can't point to any paragogic nuns there, and the third-person pronominal suffixes augmented with nun have probably died out also. But for BH, there are many examples, with their use restricted to the long prefix verb.


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.

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?

In the consonant text of the DSS we can distinguish between verb forms with prefixes
and other verb forms with suffixes. Some of these forms have a prefixed WAW,
and others have no prefixed WAW. Two questions can be asked:

1) Do prefix-forms with and without WAW constitute two different
conjugations, and DO THE suffix-forms with and without WAW constitute two different
conjugations?

2) Do some perfix-forms with prefixed WAW constitute two different
conjugations? And do suffix-forms with prefixed WAW constitue two different
conjugations?

How in the world can you answer these questions on the basis of morphology
alone? You cannot do that, because the crucial point in order to demonstrate
that there are more than two conjugtions is to demonstrate that the prefixed
WAW is something different from the conjunction. That cannot be done on the
basis of morphology alone.

Now, if we allow some circularity and try to apply our grammatical
understanding of the pointed text to the unvoclised one, can we then make a
good case for a four-component model on the basis of unpointed texts.
Definitely not! Since neither vowels nor stress is seen in unvocalised
texts, and the plene writing is rather haphazard, neither hollow verbs, nor
Hiphils can be used as distinctive factors. The only possibility is to use
apocopated lamed he verbs. But this attempt also has ITS problems, since we do
not know whether the apocopation is caused by stress, thus being
pragmatic, or by some semantic factor.

It is interesting that the interpretation of which forms the in the DSS
would
have been vocalised by the Masoretes as WAYYIQTOLs vary. In 8 of the big
documents Mark
Smith found 55 WAYYIQTOLs, the Accordance text has 106, and Furuli has 152.
In order for you not to rely on my numbers, please do a search in a tagged
text. An Accordance search for apocopated WAYYIQTOLs in the DSS gave 204
examples, and
a search for apocopated YIQTOLs with prefixed WAW gave 74 examples. The
examples are interpretations made on the basis of function, thus presuming
the four-component interpretation of the Masoretic text, som they are not
necessarily reliable. However, these examples show that a distinction
between two prefix-conjugations is impossible. I count 32 apocopated lamed
he verbs in the WAYYIQTOL group and 22 apocopated lamed he verbs in the
YIQTOLs-with-prefixed-WAW group.Below are 10 examples of each. My challenge
to you is: Show how the examples of the two groups below can be
distinguished in the unvocalised text on the basis of morphology. That is necessary inorder to prove your point.

APOCOPATED YIQTOLS WITH PREFIXED WAW

1QS 4:21
1QS 6:22
1QM 11:9
1QHa 11:34
1QHa 16:8
4Q162 1:1
4Q162 2:9
4Q168 f 1:5
11QT 56:8
11QT 62:4

APOCOPATED WAYYIQTOLs

CD 1:21
10QpHab 5:12
1QHa 13:28
1QHa 13:31
1QHa 14:24
1QHa 17.24
1QHa 23.4
4Q252 1:16
4Q301f2b:3
4Q434 f 1i:2

One last question: One distinguishing criterion in your opinion is that paragogic NUN only is found with YIQTOLs. Can you give just a single example from the DSS of such a paragogic NUN?

----- Original Message ----- From: "David Kummerow" <farmerjoeblo at hotmail.com <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>>
To: <b-hebrew at lists.ibiblio.org
<http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>>
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)


>/
/>/
/>/ [snip]
/>>/ On the contrary, I have countered this by providing clear evidence that
/>>/ for lamed-he verbs there are in the unpointed text two different prefix
/>>/ forms, one apocopated and always preceded with vav and the other not
/>>/ apocopated, which are distinct (but occasionally confused) at least in
/>>/ the 3rd person singular. And that is quite apart from the jussive. I
/>>/ await your response to my evidence for this, posted here on 10th March.
/>>/
/>>/ -- />>/ Peter Kirk
/>>/ E-mail: peter at qaya.org
/>>/ <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>
/>>/ Blog: http://www.qaya.org/blog/
/>>/ Website: http://www.qaya.org/
/>/
/>/ I also raised the related evidence of a) Hiphil 3ms, 3fs, and 2ms of all
/>/ verbs except final-heh; b) Qal 3ms, 3fs, and 2ms of hollow verbs; c)
/>/ wayyiqtol and jussive do not take the the third-person pronominal
/>/ suffixes augmented with nun; and d) paragogic nun is found only with
/>/ yiqtol. The internal BH evidence points, therefore, to the possibility
/>/ of wayyiqtol and yiqtol being formally separate verbs. Taking semantics
/>/ into account confirms it for me, although not for Rolf due to his
/>/ "uncancellabity principle". And this is not even to take into account
/>/ the wide Semitic picture. Despite Rolf's attack at Rainey on certain
/>/ points, Rainey's analysis of the Armarna Canaanite verbal system stands
/>/ and will probably still be accepted by most apart from those operating
/>/ with an "uncancellabity principle".
/
RF
Rainey is an experienced scholar whose works on the Amarna letters have given us much insight. My criticism relates his confusion of Aktionsart and aspect and his untenable criteria for distinguishing between punctual and duartive actions. If the Aktionsart of a verb is durative, how can an aspect or tense make it durative? And how can we know that a past action is punctual if the Aktionsart of the verb is durative?
>/
/>/ I've also raised other evidence in at least three posts which Rolf
/>/ hasn't addressed.
/>/
/>/ Regards,
/>/ David Kummerow.
/>/ _______________________________________________
/
Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page