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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] b-hebrew Uncancellable meaning and Hebrew verbs
  • Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:47:53 +0100

Hi Rolf,

thanks for your summary of semantics versus pragmatics. I think you have adequately shown that you feel that tense is pragmatic. What do you feel to be semantic to a verb form?

Something I think ought to be considered is this. Should we not consider the semantics and pragmatics of each and every single word (that happens to be a verb) individually rather than clumping all verbs together on the assumption that they all behave in the same way?

James Christian

P.S. I appreciate, as a computational linguist, that data sparsity is a problem here

Quoting 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














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