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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] How many bhebrew verbs are in an temporal unambiguous context?
  • Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:34:00 +0200

Dear James,

To speak of completely unambiguous contexts in a dead language is very difficult. This is so because in any analysis there is an element of subjective judgement. I will illustrate this with a German example which has a perfect counterpart in Norwegian, but not in English:

Someone says, "Heute (today) ist (is) strahlendes (sparkling) Wetter (weather)." How would people interpret this clause? Most people would say that it is an unambiguous statement indicating that the sun is shining, probably from a blue sky. Yet another person might say; "I think the meaning is that it is raining." Why? Because the one who uttered the statement could view each raindrop as a "Wasserstrahl" (sparkling water)." This interpretation is not completely impossible, but extremely forced and unnatural. And by which indicators could we completely exclude the second interpretation? The example is used to show that even extreme interpretations cannot be completely ruled out.

Now, we may take a look at one example where the analyses of Randall and me differs, namely 2 Samuel 18:27 (NIV)

The watchman said (WAYYIQTOL), "It seems to me that the first one runs (PARTICIPLE) like Ahimaaz son of Zadok." "He's a good man (NOMINAL CLAUSE)," the king said (WAYYIQTOL). "He comes (YIQTOL) with good news."

My analysis goes like this: A runner came with good or bad news. The watchman had identified the runner as Ahimaaz. The king accepts this identification and says (with a nominal clause) that he is a good man, and connects this with good news with which YBW. There is nothing in the construction of the clause that would indicate modality, and ten English translations that I consulted have the clause in the indicative, "he comes with good good news/tidings".

Randall's comments is as follows:

"And how do we know that the speaker is describing an actual present and not
referring to something probable, potential or future? The runner had not yet
arrived since it was a conversation between the lookout and the king when the
king made his comment."

Randall's comments are not extreme. We cannot rule out a modal, potential, or future force, but there is nothing in the context or in the syntax or grammar that would suggest that. So persons who have not decided that a YIQTOL cannot be used in a real ongoing present situation, take this clause as present indicative, as the Bible translations show.
Seeking recourse in modality is often a possibility, even if there is no contextual indication of that. To find completely unambiguous examples of present reference in BH is difficult, and I wonder how many examples Randall can refer to where a participle occurs with present reference where it is impossible to take it differently.

It is easier to have clear contexts in connection with verbs with past reference, and also to a great extent with verbs with future reference than in connection with verbs with present reference. But even in narratives there may be breaks with verbs with non-past reference. So in my view, it is not possible to make statistics of verbs in completely unambiguous contexts. When we analyze a verb, we should in each case carefully look at the context and see if the analysis has a strong foundation. For example, I do not think that anyone would deny that the three WAYYIQTOLs and three YIQTOLs in 2 Samuel 12:3 (the example I used previously) have past reference.

Moreover, statistics have clear limitations, because we cannot on the basis of the numbers of a particular form with a rather uniform but not perfect temporal reference learn what the meaning of the form is - except if all the occurrences (save a few that can be explained) have the same temporal meaning. More about this in the next post.

Best regrds,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



Hi Rolf and All,

I think recent discussions on temporal understanding of verb forms could be put in a better context if we had figures of how many verb forms are in a completely unambiguous context. Rolf, can you provide such statistics and what indicators you used to decide which are completely unambiguous?

James Christian

--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.




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