Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Rolf,

See below:



> 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.

I maintain that I have not misunderstood the principles or methodology 
of your study. I have merely explained your position and the problems I 
have with it. Rolf, disagreement does not entail failure to grasp!

Further, you attempt to get out from the critique by claiming I use 
"several lofty theories" and "a lot of technical concepts". The areas 
which I mention are clear and established linguistic areas, which have 
support from a wealth of research. However, I am unaware of much which 
supports the methodological assumption of the dissertation, viz. that of 
making a scrupulous distinction between cancellable and uncancellable 
meaning. Here the focus is on the "scrupulous" nature of the 
distinction, of which I find little support in linguistic literature. 
Now, I could be wrong and have "linguistic blinkers" on, and I would 
appreciate if you could point me to a body of research which 
collaborates your methodology. In any case, my overview and comments 
basically related to your OWN terminology and concepts! Besides, Rolf, 
the methodology which you follow in your dissertation is both "lofty" 
and "technical" and as such any review will necessarily be something of 
the same. If you are unaware of control mechanisms upon anything of 
which I write---all of which, by the way, appear in your dissertation 
(eg grammaticalisation, etc)---then it would seem to me that you have 
not come to grips with the linguistic research which impinges upon the 
chosen methodology advanced in the dissertation and how it is quite at odds.



> 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.

Rolf, I do not assume it but have become more convinced of it. Five 
years ago I held to an aspectual position. So it is not an assumption. 
You, however, assume the methodology of cancellable and uncancellable 
meaning, and, on the basis of this assumption, approach the BH verbal 
system and present it as you do, viz. no tense but having a 
(quasi-)aspectual distinction. I do not accept what you say is my 
position: "On the basis of this assumption, a verb form which is
extensively used with past reference must have an intrinsic past tense." 
I do not accept this position because I do not accept the "must" or 
"intrinsic" part of it, ie I do not accept your own assumption of 
uncancellability. Besides, I have repeatedly pointed out how, say, 
non-past uses of qatal may be understood, but you repeatedly ignore my 
comments. You do, however, mention below that you did not neglect them 
in your dissertation. However, they do not appear in the dissertation, 
so what am I to conclude? You say that they "were viewed of little 
importance", but you do not advance in the dissertation why this is so, 
when evidence and research points out that this may not be so.



> 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.

Again, as in your dissertation, you neglect interaction, so I am about 
to run out of puff...



>  >
>  > Hope this helps!
>  >
>  > Sincerely,
>  > David Kummerow.
>  > _______________________________________________
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo

Regards,
David Kummerow.