Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

David Kummerow wrote:
> Since Rolf's dissertation is figuring prominently in current discussions 
> on this forum, over the last two days I decided to actually read it. 
> Based on this reading, I offer some reflective comments for those who 
> don't currently have access.
>   

HH: Thank you, David. You get a gold star for this effort.
> 2. Further on grammaticalisation, the claim of the dissertation is that 
> after an exhaustive analysis of wayyiqtol that evidence supporting the 
> grammaticalisation of wayyiqtol is unable to be found. However, 
> crucially, the dissertation has failed to investigate avenues where such 
> grammaticalisation is possibly seen, viz. the inclusion of the suffix 
> verb in a paradigm originally dominated by prefix verbs.
>   

HH: Could you please explain or expand the last sentence above. I don't 
understand what you mean by "inclusion." I don't know what paradigm you 
are speaking about.

> 3. An interesting point is made that "[t]o demonstrate that wayyiqtol is 
> a semantically independent conjunction, one has to show ... that the 
> widespread use of wayyiqtol with past reference is due to the semantic 
> meaning of the form, and not just a linguistic convention" (p.48). To my 
> mind, this is nonsense: linguistic convention (i.e., the regular choice 
> of speakers to use similar linguistic tokens) defines meaning. In other 
> words, the entrenchment of meaning is related to linguistic frequency. 
> The prising apart here of "semantic meaning" and "linguistic convention" 
> means that much ink is spilled in the dissertation upon a fruitless 
> quest for contexts in which "uncancellable semantic meaning" may be 
> ascertained.
>   

HH: I will guess that Rolf is thinking of the past meaning associated 
with wayyiqtol due to its utilization to show consecutive action in past 
tense narrative settings.

> 4. Areas of research which quite potentially have much bearing on 
> aspects of discussion are neglected: a) the distribution of qatal and 
> yiqtol with temporal adverbs "yesterday" and "tomorrow"; b) in 
> conjunction with the present-tense uses of (we)qatal no investigation is 
> made of cosubordination, politeness, gnomics, and performatives; 

HH: I know you have talked about it recently, but could you please 
explain again the meaning of the term cosubordination. It makes me think 
of verbs linked by conjunctions in subordinate clauses. Is that what you 
mean?

> c) the 
> distribution of paragogic nun; d) the distribution of third-person 
> pronominal suffixes augmented with nun; e) the possibility of 
> exaggerated futures with qatal (presumably because this is in conflict 
> with the advanced methodology);

HH: What do you mean by an "exaggerated future"?


>  and f) default use of qatal in 
> non-paratactic constructions being anterior. Now in one sense it does 
> not matter what we label a verb so long as we accurately describe its 
> range of use. However, it is useful for labelling to reflect 
> prototypical function as some sort of mnemonic. The debate, then, is 
> over what is seen to be the prototypical use of the different BH verb 
> conjugations. The trouble as I see it with the dissertation is that 
> because of its methodology of finding uncancellable meaning, it is 
> unable to convincingly demonstrate prototypical meaning. The reason is 
> that the BH verbs, as indeed verbs, words, etc in other languages, are 
> multifunctional, i.e. they have more than one function. This is 
> particularly so with qatal, which may be seen as an extreme case of 
> multifunctionality. Multifunctionality basically implies incomplete 
> grammaticalisation and fuzziness. However, what if that multifunctional 
> fuzziness is essentially, as is the case with qatal, the multifunction 
> of a verbal conjugation that can be (construnctionally?) used for 
> anterior, performatives, gnomics, hypothetical/conditional, exaggerated 
> futures, etc? That is, there is a fuzziness to the range of uses which a 
> methodology that starts with the premise that meaning solely falls into 
> either (the non-fuzzy categories) "cancellable meaning" and 
> "uncancellable meaning" is unable to describe or relate to. And a 
> related fault, then, is that linguistic convention is seen to have no 
> bearing on semantics. (I guess I should point out that the debate 
> concerning the prototypical function of the BH verbal conjugations could 
> similarly be had over other fuzzy areas of language: function words 
> [esp. when not completely grammaticalised], the meaning of lexical 
> items, etc etc etc [the list is basically endless due to the fact that 
> speakers are unable to have an exhaustive inventory of semantic and 
> pragmatic meanings upon which to draw: generalisation, economy, 
> polysemy, and conceptual grouping are central aspects of language]. As 
> such, I am unconvinced that the methodology rigorously followed in the 
> dissertation is able to produce fruitful results in existent linguistic 
> multifunctionality and if the area of investigation exhibits incomplete 
> grammaticalisation.
>
>   
HH: The issue seems to have something to do with the paucity of forms in 
biblical Hebrew. If the language users made an unconscious choice not to 
multiply forms with functions, then they would need to assign an 
existent form to cover whatever new function came into view.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard