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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues
  • Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:41:58 +0100

On 28/03/2007 11:10, Rolf Furuli wrote:
...
Karl's approach to lexicography may perhaps be seen as analogous to
Rolf's work on the verbal system. Their approach assumes that there is
something uncancellable between every occurrence of a lexical item in
Karl's case and every occurrence of a verb form in Rolf's.

You are wrong again! I cannot understand how you can write the above words
if you really have read my dissertation. I definitely do not believe "there
is something uncancellable...in...every occurence of a verb form". The very opposite is true!

Would the following statement be more accurate: "Their approach assumes that there is something uncancellable between ... every occurrence of a verb TENSE in Rolf's"? And since you find no evidence of anything uncancellable in the Hebrew verb system, you conclude that Hebrew verb forms are not tenses?
...
I supply two examples from C. Smith "A Parameter of Aspect" (1991:149) in
order to illustrate my view of semantic meaning:

1) John has arrived.

2) #John has arrived yesterday.

There are no problems with 1), but 2) is ungrammatical, since Perfect
sentences with specifying adverbials du not appear in English. From this I
draw the conclusion that there is an intrinsic property of the Perfect verb
that forbids it to be used with adverbials signifying the past, and that
this property cannot be cancelled by the context. This is "semantic meaning"
as I define it. This property is not found in preterit verbs.

Well, you have a point that there is a different distribution of adverbials with these different verb forms, in English as with comparable examples in Hebrew (at least as far as we can tell from the limited evidence which we have). But it is not true that "there is an intrinsic property of the Perfect verb that forbids it to be used with adverbials signifying the past, and that this property cannot be cancelled by the context". Consider the following sentence, which I am sure that the mother tongue English speakers on this list (certainly those of British English) will agree is natural:

3) John has arrived on time every day for the last month.

"For the last month" is clearly an adverbial "signifying the past", but when the context also includes "every day", making this into a repeated action, cancels the normal property that past adverbials are not used with the perfect. I note that the following is also grammatical:

4) John arrived on time every day for the last month.

but differs in that, unlike 3, it implies that this habit has been broken or is not expected to continue. Rolf, English is much more subtle than you seem to imagine! And so, probably, is Hebrew.

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





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