Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear list-members,

David Kummerow brought up the question about "uncancellable meaning" 
and indicated his strong feeling against the claim that such meaning 
exists. So I think it is fine to say something about it. The approach 
I have used in my study of Hebrew verbs is diametrically opposed to 
the discourse approach of Niccacci and others. Discourse analysis 
describes functions and patterns, but I have been looking for the 
*meaning* of each verb form. My question has been whether it is 
possible to speak of meaning, and if so, whether it is possible to 
describe this meaning. Therefore I have been looking for 
characteristics of verbs that remain the same regardless of the 
outward circumstances. I understand David to mean that such an 
approach is not possible, because meaning that always is the same and 
can never be cancelled does not exist. This is the issue, and I will 
now demonstrate that David is wrong.

Mari Broman Olsen wrote the dissertation "A Semantic and Pragmatic 
Model of lexical and Grammatical Aspect," and it was published in 
1997.  She discussed the English and New Testament Greek verbal 
systems, and her basic approach was to distinguish between 
"concersational pragmatic implicature" (meaning that is derived from 
the context and may change (be cancellable) and "semantic meaning" 
(meaning that always will be the same and never can be cancelled). 
She got her Ph.D in linguistics, and she would not have achieved that 
if "uncancellable meaning" is not a viable linguistic concept. I got 
my Ph.D with a similar approach to Hebrew verbs.

Broman Olsen gives the following example to illustrate the existence 
of uncancellable meaning:

This principle Broman Olsen takes from the linguist H. P. Grice, and 
it is that "semantic meanings may not be cancelled without 
contradiction or reinforced without redundancy".

We can ask: Are the concepts "tired" and "slow" a part of the 
semantic meaning of "plod"? Example 1) is contradictory, 2) is 
redundant, but 3) and 4) are normal. This means that "slow" is a part 
of the semantic meaning of "plod" (there are no situations when 
"slow" can be cancelled or separated from "plod". But "tired" is not 
a part of the semantic meaning; people who are plodding along may or 
may not be tired.

1) Elsie plodded along, #but not slowly.

2) Elsie plodded along, #slowly.

3) Margaret plodded along, although she was not tired.

4) Margaret plodded along; she was very tired.

These examples show clearly that "semantic meaning" do exist!  In 
connection with verbs, we may also distinguish between semantic 
meaning and conversational pragmatic implicature. A verb who is 
viewed as stative, may also be fientive ("The ship floats," versus 
"The ship was afloat."). So stativity cannot be classified as 
semantic meaning. The same is true with verbs that are viewed as 
punctiliar (some say, punctual); such verbs may have a durative 
interpretation in some situations. But in three groups of verbs we 
can speak of semantic meaning.

When a verb is marked for telicity, this property is uncancellable. I 
use the expression "marked for," because verbs, and phrases, and 
clauses can be made telic by addition of particular words. Thus, 4) 
is non-telic, and 5) is telic because of the adverbial. So telicity 
per se does not represent semantic meaning. But some verbs "are born" 
telic, so to speak, and they can never loose their telicity. Because 
of this we can say that they are marked for telicity (the end is 
conceptually a part of the Aktionsart of the verb).

4) Peter walked on the street.

5) Peter walked to his office.

In English, pharasal verbs are often marked for telicity, such as 
"break through; pass away; fall apart" etc. They can never loos thir 
telicity.

Other properties of verbs apart from telicity that are uncancellable 
are dynamicity (=change) and durativity (an action or state continues 
for some time).  To apply this to 2 Samuel 12:3, the verbs $TH and 
)KL are both marked for dynamicity (the actions of eating and 
drinking change through time) and for  durativity (the actions go on 
for a time). Regardless of whether these verbs are expressed as 
YIQTOLs, WAYYIQTOLs, QATALs, infinitives or participles, they will 
always remain durative and dynamic.

Those who deny the existence of "semantic meaning," must demonstrate 
that verbs that are marked for durativity, dynamicity, or telicity 
can loose these properties.

On the basis of the fact that semantic meaning do exist, in the work 
with the Hebrew verbal system, I systematically distinguished between 
pragmatics and semantics. And this has never systematically been done 
in in studies in BH or the other ancient Semitic language. This means 
particularly that I distinguish between temporal reference and 
tempus, which is an elementary linguistic distinction. So why no one 
has done this in Semitic studies is strange.

In practical application, this distinction between pragmatics and 
semantics means that when I analyze 93.1% of the WAYYIQTOLs as having 
past reference, I am not prepared to say that this means that they 
represent past tense. Neither would I say that this shows that they 
represent the perfective aspect, because this aspect normally is used 
with past reference in aspectual language. I did not exclude these 
possibilities when I started my study, but I took different steps to 
try to illuminate the situation.

First, I asked if we see a grammaticalization process that is almost 
completed. Grammaticalization means that a verb form with several 
uses or functions, gradually over time looses one function after the 
other, until it eventually has only one function. Such a process 
would be discernible in the books of the Tanakh; we would expect to 
see more different uses of WAYYIQTOL in the older books compared with 
the younger ones. But that is not the case, so I exclude any 
grammaticalization process.

Second, I asked whether past reference of so many WAYYIQTOLs was 
pragmatic rather than semantic, and after an analysis of thousands of 
examples, I concluded that this was the case.

The points above may illustrate the issue, and I stop with this. But 
the point is that uncancellable semantic meaning do exist, and 
because of this, it is profitable to study dead languages with this 
in mind.



Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo