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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] How does biblical Hebrew describe a present event? (Joseph Justiss)

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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] How does biblical Hebrew describe a present event? (Joseph Justiss)
  • Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:09:52 +0200

Dear Joseph,

The question of method relates to what we are looking for. Are we looking for the use of verbs in particular situations (e.g direct speech etc); are we looking for the function of verb forms in different contexts (e.g. foreground, background etc.); or are we looking for the meaning of the verb forms (e.g. tense/aspect etc.)

In the natural sciences, one is looking for the smallest possible units to study, because the more units you have to account for at the same time, the less certain are your conclusions. The ideal situation in linguistics is the minimal pair situation, because here there is only one difference to account for. The more differences to account for at the same time, the less certain are your conclusions.

I am well acquainted with the writings of Niccacci; many years ago we even had several discussions on b-hebrew. In my dissertation, four times I refer to Niccacci, and I show why his methods are not usable for my purpose. Harald Weinrich, who introduced the method, admitted that the very method was unassailable; it simply could not be tested! As a matter of fact, we cannot reach a point that is longer away from the ideal minimal pair situations than the discourse analysis of Weinrich and Niccacci. When discourse analysis is applied to Hebrew verbs, whole chunks of texts with dozens of different factors are studied at the same time. And the certainty of our conclusions, at least as far as meaning is concerned, decreases with the numbers of factors we have to account for. So, much circular reasoning is inherent in this method. A fine discussion of the problems with Weinrich's method is found in C. Backe (1985) "Verbal Aspect and its Application to Present Day English (particularly pp. 18-25).

Please note that I am not rejecting Niccacci's method. Many good results can be obtained by applying this method, because it is a fine tool to describe different *uses* of BH verbs. But it is completely inadequate for finding the meaning of the Hebrew verb forms. For example, the method cannot be used to answer the question: "Is the meaning of the WAYYIQTOL form different from the meaning of the YIQTOL form, or is the WAYYIQTOL simply a YIQTOL with a prefixed conjunction?" And, "Does BH have aspects, and in that case, how should we define a BH aspect?" So, Niccacci's method is good to use in some situations but not in others.

The objective of my method, which previously never have been applied to BH verbs, is to distinguish between semantics and pragmatics, and try to find the *meaning* of the BH verb forms. Three parameters are used, namely deictic center (C), reference time (RT) and event time (ET). These parameters were first defined in H. Reichenbach (1947) "Elements of symbolic Logic". They are further discussed in B. Comri (1976) "Aspect," and the clearest discussion of the parameters is found in M. Broman Olsen (1997) "A Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect".

The method builds on very few assumptions, except the one that dead languages are basically similar to living languages and can be studied by the same methods. The application of the method is very simple. First the dead language is tested for tense, which is defined as " grammaticalized location in time" (Comrie). This means that a verb may have past reference without expressing tense-this is pragmatics versus semantics. In order to test BH for tense, the relationship between C and RT in all the verbs were considered and mapped. (Syntactic questions were of course considered, but foregound/background or mainline/secondary line are simply irrelevant for the relationship between C and RT. And a scrupulous distinction between verb semantics and pragmatics can only be achieved on the sentence level!) If a language has tense (Burmese, for example, does not have tenses), we expect that one or more verb forms have uniform time patterns. We would expect that one form would only have past reference except in special cases. This is the case with simple past in English, but my mapping shows that no such form exists in BH, not even the WAYYIQTOL. BH expresses time, but not with one particular form.

When BH does not have tenses, do we find aspects? The same parameters can be used to answer that question, because aspect can be seen as the relationship between event time (ET) and reference time (RT). It is argued in my dissertation that this relationship has three different expressions, and because there are two aspects, the aspects in different languages can be compared and defined in six different ways. I found that the aspects in English and Hebrew were similar in three respects and different in three. Because the most important aspect was different, aspects in Hebrew and English are very different as far as their definition is concerned. My conclusion is that YIQTOL,WAYYIQTOL, and WEYIQTOL semantically represent the imperfective aspect, but they sometimes/often are functionally (pragmatically) different. And further, QATAL and WEQATAL semantically represent the perfective aspect, but sometimes/often they functionally (pragmatically) are different.

Different methods can serve different purposes. I do not dispute Randall's finds (and Niccacci's) that the participle often is used for present reference in direct speech. I just argue that this cannot be extrapolated to encompass all BH with the claim that the participle is THE present form; because all the other forms can be used with present reference as well. As mentioned, I do not dispute that Niccacci's method is a fine method to map the *use* of the verb forms in BH and to outline the linguistic conventions of the language. But I argue that much circularity is seen in the attempts to try to paint uniform patterns. And, the method cannot be used to find the semantic meaning of BH verbs. The best approach for this purpose, in my view, is to analyze all verbs from the point of view of tense ( deictic time=the relationship between the deictic center and reference time) and aspect (non-deictic time= the relationship between reference time and event time). Different methods must be used for different purposes, and each method must be evaluated in relation to its stated goals, whether or not they can be reached.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



Randall



I think you are absolutely right, and your contention seems to be exactly the same as that of Alviero Niccacci when he maintains that the simple nominal clause and the participial clause are used to represent the temporal axis of the present in direct speech. He has recently argued that this is also the case in poetry in a recent chapter. In this same chapter (to be found in Biblical Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic Setting) he challenges the notion that qatal or yiqtol ever refer to the present. He argues that qatal and yiqtol can both refer to the past, but when they do "they signal a shift from main-line, punctual information (qatal) to secondary-line, repeated/habitual/explanatory/descriptive information (yiqtol)". I think every serious Hebraist (including those on this list) needs to come to terms with his arguments and his unique starting point for the analysis of biblical Hebrew based on the linguistic model of Harald Weinrich even if he winds up disagreeing. If one analyses all 80,000 occurrences of the verb in Hebrew, but does it with reference to the sentence level only, or without making distinctions in linguistic attitude (namely narrative vs. comment) then one's beginning methodological foundation may be, I stress "may be" flawed and inadequate.



Rolf



I don't know if your analysis proceeded this way, but if it did, perhaps it would be appropriate to consider if this is the best way to procede with an analysis of BH syntax in light of the arguments of the Niccaccis and others who point out the inadequacies of such an approach.



Joseph Justiss

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