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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:47:37 -0000

Dear David,

I agree with Karl that the clauses that fit your criteria are too few to
tell us much. Moreover, several different verb forms are used with the adverbs.

For example, in Genesis 30:33, Exodus 19:10, 1 Samuel 11:10 and 20:18 a QATAL with prefixed WAW (WEQATAL) is used with MXR. I take these as perfective, but you do not accept this. Then we are back to the basics, we need to find out whether there are two or four conjugations before the clauses with the mentioned adverbs can tell us anything. In Exodus 5:8 a participle isused with TMWL and in 2 Samuel 15:20 an infinitive is used. There is no consistency in the use of verbs.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



----- Original Message ----- From: "David Kummerow" <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:47 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)


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

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