Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Stoney, what exactly do you believe of value a discussion of the meaning of
'narrative' brings to the bigger picture - that of analysing the Hebrew verb
system? To everyone, except you, it was quite clear what Rolf meant but this
definition was not fundamental to his position. His position comes from his
analysis of the verb forms not from his definition of narrative. The plain
and simple fact is that the majority of the Hebrew corpus we have relates,
almost exclusively, events in the past.

Do you have anything of value to offer to the discussion other than
continuing to debate the nature of the term 'narrative'? Continuing to
disagree with Rolf's usage of a term, which he has provided his working
definition of (according to good academic practice) just seems to highlight
that you have nothing else to contribute. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

James Christian

2010/2/1 Stoney Breyer <stoneyb AT touchwoodcreative.com>

> Well... it's a long way from "A narrative *is seen as* a recapitulation of
> past experience" to a "fundamental linguistic truth" - but if that's the
> useful fiction linguists employ to get to your results, and Comrie's, I
> can't quarrel with it. Me, I'd treat verb form as a matter of narrative
> convention and found my analysis on a virtual translation of the deictic
> center - to build on a conceit you employed some years ago, I understand
> narrative as a 'tracking' camera as opposed to a 'panning' camera. But I
> have a professional bias towards treating narrative as displaced drama.
>
> Stoney Breyer
> Writer / Touchwood Creative
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Rolf Furuli
> Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2010 11:06 AM
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] BH verbal system
>
> Dear Stoney,
>
> The Latin verb NARRO means "to tell something,2 and factual and
> fictious events can be told in many ways. The evangelist Mark, for
> example, often uses what is called historic present when he tells
> something. However, in a technical linguistic sense "narrative" has a
> more restricted meaning. In "Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics"
> a part of Davis Crystal's definition of the word is as follows: "A
> narrative is seen as a recapitulation of past experience in which
> language is used to structure a sequence of (real or fictious)
> events."
>
> David Comrie in his book "Tense" (1985:61) has the following comments
> regarding narrative:
>
> "In looking for examples of relative time reference, it is essential
> to ensure that the relative time reference interpretation is part of
> the meaning of the form in question, rather than an implicature
> derived from, in part, the context. One area which is particularly
> confusing in this respect is narrative, where one gains the
> impression of a sequence of events which are located temporally one
> almost immediately after the other, the chronological sequence
> mirrored in the linear order of clauses. Thus one might be tempted to
> think that this sequence is part of the meaning of the verb forms
> used, thus introducing the meaning of 'immediate past'' or 'immediate
> future' relative time reference (depending of whether one defined the
> time reference of the preceding verb in terms of the following verb,
> vice versa).  However, as was shown in section 1,8 the sequencing of
> events is a property of the narrative itself, quite independent of
> the verb forms used to encode narrative, so that the mere fact that
> the verb forms receive this interpretation in narrative is not
> sufficient evidence for assigning the meaning of these verb forms."
>
> The point I tried to convey, was that when the WAYYIQTOL form so
> often is used in Hebrew narrative, this does not mean that the form
> itself is grammaticalized past. Past reference is the very nature of
> narrative (in the technical linguistic sense), and therefore any form
> used in narrative sequences irrespective of the semantic meaning of
> the form, must have past reference. Please note that I speak of
> narrative sequences, and not of situations where a sequence is broken
> by direct speech or anything else.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
>
>
>
> >Rolf:
> >
> >My faith in the admirable clarity and rigor of your analysis is
> >profoundly shaken by this:
> >
> >>  It is a fundamental linguistic truth that verbs used in narratives
> >have past reference.
> >
> >On what basis do you make this assertion? It seems to me neither
> >self-evident nor borne out by linguistic fact, teste folktale and joke
> >on the one hand, and the practice of many eminent writers of fiction on
> >the other.
> >
> >Stoney Breyer
> >Writer / Touchwood Creative
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >b-hebrew mailing list
> >b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> >http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>
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