Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi James,

Here's how Rolf's thesis works as I understand it. It starts with the 
assumption that a concept of uncancellable meaning exists in language 
and that such a concept is necessary for understanding the verbal system 
of a language (p.33). That such such a concept actually exists is never 
defended in the thesis but is assumed on every page.

The aim of the thesis, then, to discover the "uncancellable meaning" of 
the BH verbal forms (pp.33-34). Rolf's work is an honest work: he 
follows his methodology scrupulously throughout the work. This leads him 
to deny tense as an appropriate meaning of the verbal forms as tense 
categories are not appropriate in every instance. Similarly, this leads 
him to deny aspectual categories as traditionally understood to be 
appropriate since they do not fit every occurrence. This then leads him 
to redefine the aspectual terminology of perfective and imperfective 
into something that works as he sees it for BH. As you can see, his 
assumption that uncancellable meaning must exist in the verbal system 
leads him directly down the path of even rejecting traditional aspectual 
categories. The end result is conclusions on the BH verbal system which 
he sees but I cannot see. I am unable to see how wayyomer in every 
occurrence represents imperfective aspect. Sorry, but I just can't. 
wayyomer typically refers to a perfective state of affairs.

If we abandon the need to have every occurrence of a verbal form 
instantiating the same meaning, then we are relieved from having to see 
in every occurrence of a verbal form the same intrinsic meaning. In this 
way, for people who view the BH verbal system as aspect-prominent, then 
some occurrences of of a verb form which do not instantiate the regular 
aspectual meaning can see an instance of the grammaticalization of the 
verbal system from aspect to tense (so Cook's dissertation). For people 
who view the BH verbal system as tense-prominant, then some occurrences 
of a verb form which do not instantiate the normal tense meaning can 
view such an occurrence as the aspectual heritage of the form still not 
completely grammaticalized away.

It is difficult for me to see how operating with the assumption of 
"uncancellable meaning" can operate in areas of language which face 
grammaticalization. I wrote in my review (pp.131-132):

"There is thus often futility in attempting to “box” a particular verbal 
form into either an aspectual category or a tense category. Rather, the 
linguistic reality is that most often multifunctionality is extant such 
that it is better to simply delineate prototypical meaning. Haspelmath 
goes on to outline how progressive/present meaning can be eroded over 
time to the extent that the verb form can be left expressing habitual 
and future meaning alone. As stated above, this process seems to be at 
play within BH; however, a methodology making a scrupulous distinction 
between uncancellable and cancellable meaning is unable to explain and 
adequately outline this. A problem, then, with Furuli’s methodology is 
the binary opposition between uncancellable and cancellable meaning, 
which admits to no fuzziness of meaning or continuums (despite Furuli’s 
claim that he accepts linguistic fuzziness) as a particular contextual 
meaning must be classified as either cancellable or uncancellable. 
Nothing by definition exists between these opposites. But the evidence 
of grammaticalisation is that meaning shifts, often slowly, such that 
incomplete grammaticalisation frequently exists. What this means is that 
meaning is extended or lost and that when a stage of incomplete 
grammaticalisation is present there will not necessarily be nice, neat 
uncancellable and cancellable meaning differentiation -- yet the basic 
premise of the monograph is that the meaning of a linguistic item must 
be one or the other! As such, I am unconvinced that the methodology, 
rigorously followed, is able to produce fruitful results in existent 
linguistic multifunctionality and if the area of investigation exhibits 
incomplete grammaticalization -- which verbal systems typically do."

Regards,
David Kummerow.

> Hi David,
>
> please don't bow out quite yet. I'm sure there is more you can give to 
> this thread. While I am attracted to Rolf's study I also don't like 
> discussing credentials. Logic should be the winning factor. So let's try 
> to stay on that track.
>
> What I would be interested in hearing from you is answers to the 
> following. You keep picking at the assumption of uncancellable meaning 
> as if the value of Rolf's study fell without this foundation. I don't 
> really see this to be the case. While I am not sure whether hebrew verbs 
> have or do not have uncancellable meaning what I am almost sure of is 
> this: Rolf's study indicates that we should all take a fresh look at the 
> hebrew verb system. I would like to invite you to challenge Rolf's study 
> without making a deal of his assumption of uncancellable meaning. Choose 
> a section of the tanakh and make a count of the unambigous temporal 
> senses of the verbs in a section and show us if there is any major 
> disagreement between your figures and Rolf's figures. Only then can we 
> have any basis for objective consideration of which way we to be convinced.
>
> James Christian
>
> P.S. Regards uncancellable meaning. Personally, I don't believe such a 
> concept exists in languages. Context can do anything. It is usage that 
> dominates meaning. However, this does not mean that generalisations can 
> not be made. Our brains learn by making generalisations. And it is this 
> mechanism we use to create a grammar of our first language. We take 
> examples as input, we generalise, we experiment with our generalisations 
> and we make conclusions based on limited feedback.