Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 21/03/2007 16:20, Rolf Furuli wrote:

> ... And, a hypothesis should be formed in a way as
> to be falsifyable.
>
> ... For example, one application of the 
> falsification principle can be the following prediction: If the WAYYIQTOL is 
> an independent conjugation coding for past tense, we will expect that the 
> reference time of the actions of the clauses with WAYYIQTOL in the Tanakh 
> occur before the deictic center; in a non-technical language: we will expect 
> the WAYYIQTOLs to have past reference. If we can find a reasonable number of 
> WAYYIQTOLs with non-past reference, the prediction is falsified.  I will quickly 
> add that in the examples with non-past tense we must be open for textual 
> corruption, exceptions, special contexts, special conventions in different 
> genres, diachronic questions, and that a language is a living medium etc. But these issues should be studied in a 
> scientific way, and the examples should not be brushed away by the argument 
> that languge is fuzzy, or the WAYYIQTOL is not yet fully grammaticalized as 
> apast tense. ...

I accept that if you define "past tense" according to the strict 
definition which you are working on, that it must be 100% 
grammaticalised and uncancellable with no fuzziness at all, then 
WAYYIQTOL is not a past tense. But I would suggest that in that case 
nothing is a past tense. In fact my observation is partially confirmed 
by the point which someone else mentioned recently, that what most 
scholars would consider as a prototypical past tense, the Greek aorist, 
when analysed by the same method is found not to be a past tense. Yes, 
you are right that apparent exceptions should be studied in a scientific 
way. But the results of this scientific study might be that one should 
modify one's definition of "tense", that is that WAYYIQTOL is something 
similar to a past tense but does not quite meet your definition. Now you 
yourself have done just this with "aspect", putting forward a new 
definition of "aspect" for your analysis of Hebrew which is different 
from the established definitions of aspect. And you have rightly argued 
that we should allow Hebrew to be itself without forcing it into the 
straitjacket of definitions developed on the basis of other unrelated 
languages. So we need to allow for the possibility that WAYYIQTOL is a 
tense, or pseudo-tense, according to a definition a little different 
from the one which you have put forward. This way we avoid the fallacy 
of the excluded middle which you seem to be working on, that if a verb 
form is not a tense according to your strict definition it must be a 
"linguistic convention" with no semantic meaning.

> ...
>
> "The relation between RT /reference time/ and C /the deictic center/ is part 
> of a truth conditional or semantic meaning  and is therefore not cancelable, hence 
> the oddity of the temporal phrases of (6a-c), which attempt to cancel past, 
> present,and future reference, respectively.
>
> (6) (a) #Jeanette was old tomorrow.
>
>   
OK then, if WAYYIQTOL is NOT a tense you would expect to find sentences 
of this kind with WAYYIQTOL and a temporal modifier like "tomorrow". Can 
you give us some examples like this in the Hebrew Bible?

> ... The NWT is a translation for Bible students, since the translators tried to 
> convey the nuances of the verbs much more detailed than other versions. Thus, we 
> find hundreds of examples of  WAYYIQTOLs rendered as "He began to..., he 
> proceeded to..., he continued to..., he was xxxing..., renderings that for 
> themostpart  are lacking in other versions. ...

More precisely, they tried to convey nuances of these verbs which they 
read into these verbs on the basis of their unproven (and probably 
unproveable as well as not falsifiable) theory of the Hebrew verb 
system. Other translations do not convey these nuances not because they 
are less suitable for Bible students, but because their translators were 
following well established, although not necessarily correct, 
interpretations of the Hebrew verb system.

> ... There are also many other nuances that are conveyed, such as differences in meaning 
> when a  QATAL and a YIQTOL are used with future reference. The advantage of this for 
> the reader is the possibility to find details which are not found in other versions; 
> the disadvantage of a literal translation is the tendency to use many words and 
> sometimes the clauses become wooden.  I can think of no better modern version for those 
> who are interested in the details of the original text than the NWT. I say this, 
> particularly because my study has shown that the translators were extremely (I mean 
> "extremely") careful to be consistent in the rendering of the Hebrew text; 
> infinitive constructs rendered in one way, e.g.,  infinitive avsolutes in another, and 
> participles still in another way whenever possible. This is not the case with other 
> versions
>
>   
As a Bible translator, I would say that these are not the kinds of 
things which should be rendered in a translation, because these are 
distinctions which are meaningful only to those who know the original 
language rather well and so have no need of a translation.

> As for grammatical theory, the translation was made in the late 40s and early 
> 50s, and the translators had to use the extant grammatical literature. In 
> addition, and this is clearly seen by a word-for-word comparison of the 
> Hebrew text and their renderings, in the comittee there  were very competent 
> hebraists who worked independently with the Hebrew grammar. ...

Can you give us their names? Or do you in fact know no more about them 
that what you can deduce from the text of the translation?

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