Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

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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