Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear David,

Your review of the contents of my dissertation is fairly good. I just want
to make a few points regarding two of your comments, one of those that
Harold also asked 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.

Here you have failed to grasp one of the most important principles of my
study. The reason is that our linguistic views are diametrically opposite: I
try to use simple definitions and the smallest linguistic units in order to
have controls and in order to give
others the ability to test my results. If I understand your approach
correctly, you use several lofty theories and a lot of technical concepts
for which I am not aware of a single control mechanism, e.g., how can we
test
a claim of a partial grammaticalisation of WAYYIQTOL.

Then to the issue, what you call "nonsense" in  my dissertation: Your basic
error, as I see it, is that you *assume* that tense is a part of the Hebrew
verbal system. On the basis of this assumption, a verb form which is
extensively used with past reference must have an intrinsic past tense. When
it is pointed out that many examples of this verb form has a non-past
reference, the explanation is that it is not fully grammaticalised or that
language is fuzzy. But as long as there are no controls, these are just
claims which are hard to distinguish from ad hoc hypotheses.

I object strongly to the claim that linguistic convention and  the
intrinsic meaning of a verb form are interchangeable. For example, in 50
verses in Ezekiel chapters 1and 10 we find a description of a heavenly
throne. Of the verbs with past reference I count 28 YIQTOLs, 2 QATALs, 7
participles, two infinitive absolutes, and 15 WAYYIQTOLs. In addition, there
are 3 QATALs with pre-past meaning. Why do we have all these YIQTOLs with
past reference  in this scenario? Interestingly, when I translated the
Ethiopic
Enoch into Norwegian some years ago, I found the same excess of imperfective
forms, with and without prefixed WAW in the heavenly visions in that book.
Logically, there is some linguistic convention behind this, but this
convention does not tell us anything about the intrinsic meaning of the
YIQTOLs or the Ethiopic prefix-forms. Similarly in Phoenician, in several
inscriptions the infinitive absolute is used as the narrative form. This
tells us about the linguistic convention in connection with these
inscriptions, but nothing about the intrinsic meaning of the infinitive
absolute. In the Ugaritic saga of Kirta (Keret) prefixed forms are used to
tell what will happen, and later exactly the same clauses with exactly the
same prefix forms are used to tell what happened. This is a linguistic
convention which tells us nothing about the meaning of the prefix form.

Then to the WAYYIQTOL issue: The WAY+YIQTOL is extensively used as a
narrative verb. This means that a set of consequtive actions are portrayed,
each action following the other. It is generally accepted that one action is
completed before the next has started. No one would deny that this use of
WAYYIQTOL is a lingusitic convention, but its past reference does not tell
us whether the WAYYIQTOL form is an independent preterit conjugation, an
independent perfective conjugation, or is an imperfective YIQTOL with
prefixed WAW. We cannot assume an answer, but we should demonstrate what is
the case. I can formulate my requirement in other words: I think that it was
natural for the old Hebrews to use imperfective prefix forms as their
narrative verbs, and they applied a WAW as a tool to move the narrative
forwards. This was a linguistic convention. In order to show that WAYYIQTOL
is a past tense, you cannot just assume that my possibility is wrong, you
must demonstrate it.

> 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; 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); 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.

The areas you mention were not neglected, but they were viewed of little
importance,
and in the study the more important issues were stressed.

> Hope this helps!
>
> Sincerely,
> David Kummerow.
> _______________________________________________


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




>