Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Karl,

I am unable to see how wayyo'mer in Gen 12:1 is progressive, that is 
that the end of the action is not included. As far as I can tell, God 
said what he intended to say, nothing more nor less. It is pure 
conjecture to say that God was interrupted in what he was saying here, 
since there is nothing indicating this in the context (close up view 
means end point not included). Hence a perfective speech event. That's 
the same with the majority of speech acts, especially divine speech 
acts. (Alternatively, if we want to go with Rolf and have imperfective 
aspect as resultative, it is difficult to see the verb here as 
resultative, either.)

As per dialect, you consistently avoid the issue that a dialect is still 
a linguistic system. What's the speech community which makes up 
"international, standard English", by the way? They certainly must have 
one superior language, semantically speaking! We "dialect speakers" can 
be made out as if we don't have a system of language and communicate 
only with linguistic oddities having only comic value for those who look 
down on us with their wholly sense-making "mother tongue".

But since you were so hung up on an example from a specific dialect, I 
presented additional language examples that cannot be relegated to 
dialect. But here you just avoid them.

Regards,
David Kummerow.


> David:
>
> First the lesser important issue:
>
>  > Karl, I have not been "weird" on dialect as you claim. All I've asked is
>  > that you treat it as a linguistic system, nothing "weird" about that. I
>  > assume you're own dialect you treat as a system, so why not someone
>  > else's dialect? You make these snide comments without backing them up.
>  > It's not very nice at all.
>
> I don’t care about being nice, just accurate.
>
> My view of dialectal use comes from my international upbringing. Any
> regional usages that differ from or even contradict international use
> are to be treated in the same manner as cognate language use, not
> evidence for or against any particular use within standard,
> international English. For you to argue otherwise, per your argument
> concerning “plod”, is weird.
>
> Now to the main subject:
>
> I am coming to the view that the Qatal and Yiqtol were not only
> tenseless, but also aspectless conjugations. In other words, they did
> not have a time element. Any time element would be brought in by the
> context, not the conjugation.
>
> Now if your explanation of Rolf’s definition is accurate as per page
> 69, then it can be argued that the use of the Yiktol in Genesis 12:1
> deals with an action that has progressive action (speaking takes a
> span of time to be accomplished) and that this is a close up view.
> This is by definition. The proof of the definition is found elsewhere.
> That this is part of narrative describing what happened in the past
> does not change its progressive, close-up view.
>
> This particular example is not specific enough to contradict Rolf’s
> thesis. In order to disprove his thesis, you need to find examples
> where a Yiqtol is used in a context where a progressive, close-up view
> can’t be defended.
>
> What Rolf has done is not ignore your demands, rather brought out
> examples that he claims supports the “by definition” mentioned above.
> The example of Genesis 12:1 is not specific enough either to defend or
> detract from “by definition”.
>
> I happen not to agree with that definition, but while you argue that
> you disagree with it, you have not provided evidence to disprove it.
> Your argument from dialect has fallen flat. As far as I can tell,
> everyone on this list disagrees with you on that argument. What you
> need to do is to apply his definition in contexts where there is no
> question as the definition doesn’t fit. This you have not done.
>
> Karl W. Randolph