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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:21:37 -0000

Dear Yitzhak,

There are several interesting points in your post, and I am sorry that I
cannot
address them all

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)


> Dear Rolf,

snip

>
> Dealing with the MT consonantal as well as vocalization text, then,
> requires understanding of its place in history and so cannot be
> easily mixed with the DSS evidence as is suggested by your post
> ("I basically use the unpointed text of the Tanakh and the DSS").
> You seem to admit that the vocalization allows one to defend a
> "four-component model" (what happened to vatiqtol in these "four
> components"?). You then claim that a strong case can still be
> made for a two component model. In other words, you seem to
> say, "when I have unvocalized text, I can claim that one cannot
> differentiate vattiqtol from vatiqtol, but when I have vocalized text,
> the differentiation can still be defended but I can still make a
> strong case that there is no difference." The problem is that you
> are moving from less information to more information, yet your
> conclusions seem to imply that with less information you can
> somehow be more conclusive than with more information. This
> suggests that you were not as careful as you should have been
> when you had less information, and that in fact, something in
> your analysis of the texts with less information (the DSS, when
> Hebrew was still a living language!) is flawed. The bottom line
> appears to be that you admit that the vocalizations do not
> permit you to make a definite conclusion regarding the verbal
> system, only a strong case in your opinion but the main opinion
> of scholarship apparently "can still be defended."


RF
The paragraph above is important, so I will make several comments.
The goal of my study of the verbal system of classical Hebrew has been to
find the semantic meaning of the finite and infinite verbs. In practical
application it means that I have searched for clauses that are so restricted
that a particular characteristic only can be caused by the verb form itself
and not by any other linguistic factors. Of the thousands of clauses in the
Tanakh, about 500 fill this requirement. Please look at examples 1) and 2)
below. Which part of event time is made visible in the two examples? In 1) it
is clearly the beginning of ET and a small part of the action (reference time
intersects event time atthe beginning). Thus, I would translate BNH as "he
began to build". What is made visible of ET in 2) Nothing is said about the
time it took tobuild the throne, whether it was more or less than a year. So
we cannot know whether the beginning or end of ET is made visible or the
whole ET. This indicates that there is an extra-linguistic factor that helps
us see what is made visible in 1), namly a knowledge of the world: it took
more than one year to build the temple. Therefore, a WAYYIQTOL (as in 1 Kings
6:1) can make visible the beginning and a small part of the ET; and this must
be a property of the verb form itself, since it is not caused by a
combination of linguistic factors in the clause. I do not need the vowels to
reach this conclusion, but the vowels shows that the mentioned property
belong to a WAYYIQTOL verb.

1) In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out from
the land of Egypt....he BUILD the temple for YHWH. 1 Kings 6:1

2) In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out from
the land of Egypt....he BUILD built a throne of gold.

It is not correct that I draw conclusions on the basis of less information
and that I apply these to situations with more information. The point is that
I am not dependent on a particular theory of the Masoretic vowels, but in my
arguments I use the Masoretic vowels extensively. Below I address two
important points, 1) the cognate languages, and 2) the number of conjugations
in classical Hebrew.

.
HEBREW AND THE COGNATE LANGUAGES

The Masoretic text suggests 5 different verb groups and not just 4, given
that the prefixed WAW signals a new group. It is clearly inconsistent to
claim just 4 conjugtions; this is a result of picking what one likes from the
combination of morphology and function. The only scholar I recall who is
consistent here is A. Niccacci, who deals with 5 different conjugations.
Below is a comparison of 5 Semitic languages. I use the QTL in all cases,
with the traditional root in parantheses. It is often said that Hebrew has a
long and a short prefix-form, but this can be a fairly tale, as the
comparison indicates. Two languages have a distinction between a long and a
short prefix-form, namely Akkadian and Ge´ez, and the distinction is
vowel/lack of vowel after the first root consonant. A YEQATTAL form in not
found in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Ugaritic. In Ugaritic, however, a long and short
prefix-form of a different kind are postulated, one with an -U after the
third root consonant and another lacking this -U (This distinction is
questionable; one chapter in a book published in Jerusalem in 2007 denies
that there is such a distinction. I lost the reference to this book; do you
know it?)

Hebrew: QATAL - YIQTOL

Aramaic: QETAL - YIQTUL

Ge´ez: QATALA (nagara) - YEQTOL (yenger) YEQATTEL
(yenagger)

Ugritic: QATALA YAQTUL? (YAQTULU?)

Akkadian: YIQTATAL (iptaras) - YIQTUL (iprus) - YIQATTAL (iparras)

In Hebrew, the imperatives are short and some modal forms (jussive) are short
( though hundreds of jussives that could have been shortened are long). That
modality (alternative worlds) are expressed by short forms does not prove
that there really are two prefix-forms in Hebrew (the YIQTOL-YEGATTAL
distinction is lacking). Some Hiphils, hollow verbs, and lamed he verbs are
apocopated, but this can be explained phonologically (by the retraction of
stress) and the tendency in Hebrew to loose the endings of words (e.g. proper
names with -YAHU versus YA at the end.) Therefore, I challenge any one on
the list who believe there is a long and a short prefix form in classical
Hebrew, in old or younger texts, to prove it; I do not accept conjecture,
only proofs. In order to be perfectly clear the problem is this: Show there
is one short prefix conjugation and one long prefix conjugation in classical
Hebrew, and that the morphologically short forms we find are not normal
prefix-forms that have been shortened on the basis of the context!

Then we come to the most important side of the comparison. The claim is that
in classical Hebrew the meaning of two forms has been turned upside-down, to
the very opposite of what it was. Some prefix-forms with present/future
meaning (or, being imperfective) have acquired a past (or perfective)
meaning, and some suffix-forms with past (or, perfective) meaning have
acquired a present/future (or imperfective) meaning. And the sign of this is
a prefixed WAW (WE- or WAY(Y)-). This sounds like a fairy tail, and
it is unprecedented among the cognate languages, yes, it is unprecedented
among the languages of the world. Thus, the cognate languages speak against
the four-compnent model. What I have outlined above is the reason why I find
no help in the cognate languages in finding the meaning of classical Hebrew
verbs.


FOUR CONJUGATIONS VERSUS TWO

My suggestion is that the Masoretes distinguished between 5 different groups
of verbs on a pragmatic basis, and that they did not view them as 5 different
conjugations in the modern semantic sense of the word. Later grammarians,
however, interpreted 4 of the groups in a semantic way, and given their lack
electronic tagged texts and modern linguistic tools, this is understandable.
In G.Kahn (2000) The Early Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought
there are many clues indicating a process from a pragmatic understanding to a
semantic one. The four-component model was created in the first part of the
second millennium C.E. and the distincion was that of tense. In the second
part of the nineteenth century when aspect was introduced, the four
conjugations were upheld, but they were now interpreted aspects - although
there is no one-to-one correspondence between tense and aspect (a
methodological fallacy). The real problem today is that the four-component
nature of Hebrew verbs is used as an idiom or assumption, and when you start
with four, you end up with four.
To comment on your words above, I would say that when the working hypothesis
says four components, and the student does not consider the whole text,
entertain the view that the narrative verbs must either be preterits or
perfective , and s/he uses one of the traditional definitions of aspect,
without researching it, I understand that the final conclusion will be "four
components". I do not say that the Hebrew text invites to a four-component
view; this is only superficial.

I started without the straightjacket of assumptions mentioned above
considering the possibilities:

1) Classical Hebrew can have 1, 2, 3, or 4 conjugations.
2) The narrative verb needs not be preterit or perfective.
3) We cannot use aspectual definitions that confuse Aktionsart and aspect or
are derived from the Indo-European languages. But if aspects are found in
Hebrew, they must be defined on the basis of Hebrew verbs themselves, since
they may be language-specific.

Just the acceptance of point 2 shows that WAYYIQTOL needs not be a
conjugation different from YIQTOL. If imperfective verbs or verbs without an
intrinsic past tense can be used as narrative verbs, there is no compelling
reason why WAYYIQTOL should be something different from a YIQTOL with a
prefixed conjunction.

You suggest that I may have not been as careful as I should have been in my
study, and you are certainly correct. In a study with a corpus of 80,000
verbs everything cannot be done as carefully as it should have been, and many
opportunities for detailed research are still available. But I think my basic
conclusions stand on a very solid foundation. With your good knowledge of
Hebrew and the cognate languages, you should read my dissertation and see for
yourself.



>
> Best,
> Yitzhak Sapir
> _______________________________________________


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
>From peter AT qaya.org Thu Mar 15 13:01:12 2007
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
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On 15/03/2007 15:21, Rolf Furuli wrote:

> ... It is often said that Hebrew has a long and a short prefix-form,
> but this can be a fairly tale, as the comparison indicates. ...

This is not a fairy tale, as I have convincingly proved even from the
unpointed text.

> ...
> In Hebrew, the imperatives are short and some modal forms (jussive) are
> short ( though hundreds of jussives that could have been shortened are
> long). ...

Not hundreds, I think. Of the lamed he verbs, only 20 jussive forms (out
of 170, as marked in the Westminster database) are not shortened,
according to the data I gave on 10th March. These are not all of the
forms which can be shortened, but they are I think the majority of them,
certainly of those where the shortening is clear in the unpointed text.

> ... That modality (alternative worlds) are expressed by short forms does
> not prove that there really are two prefix-forms in Hebrew (the
> YIQTOL-YEGATTAL distinction is lacking). Some Hiphils, hollow verbs, and
> lamed he verbs are apocopated, but this can be explained phonologically (by
> the retraction of stress) and the tendency in Hebrew to loose the endings
> of words (e.g. proper names with -YAHU versus YA at the end.) Therefore, I
> challenge any one on the list who believe there is a long and a short
> prefix form in classical Hebrew, in old or younger texts, to prove it; I do
> not accept conjecture, only proofs. In order to be perfectly clear the
> problem is this: Show there is one short prefix conjugation and one long
> prefix conjugation in classical Hebrew, and that the morphologically short
> forms we find are not normal prefix-forms that have been shortened on the
> basis of the context!
>
>
Well, it is clear that there are two forms, one shortened and one not
shortened. The question which we need to resolve is whether this
distinction is semantically or phonologically conditioned, or I suppose
some combination of these. I suppose that what you are looking for is
minimal pairs of shortened and non-shortened verbs in exactly the same
phonological environment. I'm sure I can find such cases, in both the
unpointed and the pointed text. But would you accept any such evidence?
Or would you claim that there is some phonological difference which is
not reflected in the text?

> Then we come to the most important side of the comparison. The claim is
> that in classical Hebrew the meaning of two forms has been turned
> upside-down, to the very opposite of what it was. ...

Just to clarify, that is not my claim, and I have not seen this claim
anywhere on this list. Rather, this is a crude way of describing how the
distinction may have been presented, over-simplistically, in some
introductory grammars, and perhaps by some older grammarians. I don't
think anyone is defending this crude understanding today.

The claim, at least my claim, is rather that the WAYYIQTOL is not a
combination of the conjunction plus YIQTOL, but is an originally
distinct verb form with distinct semantics which, as a result of regular
language changes, has come to have a similar but not identical form to
the conjunction plus YIQTOL.

Let me repeat, I AGREE WITH YOU that vav does not convert YIQTOL from
imperfective to perfective.

But it is not without precedent in languages for prefixes to convert
verbs from imperfective to perfective. Indeed in Russian this is what
any prefix does! - unless the change is cancelled by a suffix or infix
which makes the verb imperfective again. Example:

pis-at' "write" (imperfective)
za-pis-at' "write down" (perfective)
za-pis-yva-t' "write down" (imperfective)

...
> Just the acceptance of point 2 shows that WAYYIQTOL needs not be a
> conjugation different from YIQTOL. If imperfective verbs or verbs without
> an intrinsic past tense can be used as narrative verbs, there is no
> compelling reason why WAYYIQTOL should be something different from a YIQTOL
> with a prefixed conjunction.
>
>
But can they? Do you have any evidence of narrative verbs in any
language being neither perfective nor intrinsically past?

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





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