Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>]

Dear List,

I ran across the article below several months ago. But, do to the recent 
threads
on this list regarding the Hebrew verb, etc., I thought you may want to read 
the
review of an article by Randall Buth. See Below. Considering the recent 
threads
it would probably be good to review the article with the other mentioned
recently by Bowling and Tsunamara.

http://alefandomega.blogspot.com/
"On the history of Hebrew YIQTOL and the Hebrew verb.

http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_138.pdf
“The Panchronic YIQTOL: Functionally Consistent and Cognitively Plausible.” 62
pages.

I should note that there was a post dated August 21, 2010 regarding this 
article
also. See https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2010-August/042959.html
between Karl W. Randolph and Uri Hurwitz.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III

On the history of Hebrew YIQTOL and the Hebrew verb
I read an interesting article this weekend by Alexander Andrason, “The
Panchronic YIQTOL: Functionally Consistent and Cognitively Plausible.” 62 
pages.

It is rather top-heavy with metalanguage from Cognitive Linguistics so I will
try to summarize and interact with the main points, plusses and minuses, in
language that gets halfway back to common English, including some comments for
Hebrew learners. Unfortunately, talking about a language is always more
complicated than using a language, so the reader needs to bear with me.

I like the flexibility in Andrason’s approach and his synchronic starting 
point
is a breath of fresh air. Cognitive Linguistics has room in its theory for
things in language that defy overly simplistic labels. The Hebrew verb is one 
of
these things. Some background comments of my own: as many scholars, maybe 
most,
are at least intuitively aware, the Hebrew verb fuses the parameters of
Tense/Aspect/Mood/Textual relationship [i.e. TAM + the ‘sequential’ system] 
into
the four and one-half categories of the indicative Hebrew verb. (qatal, 
yiqtol,
wayyiqtol, and we-qatal are four, qotel is the 'nominal' that was added to the
verbal system, making five.) Despite that, many studies spend a lot of ink
trying to fit one label on a Hebrew verb category, Tense or Aspect or Mood. As
is mentioned in our chapter “The Hebrew Verb: A Short Syntax” in Selected
Readings (Biblical Language Center, 2006), such ‘single label’ attempts
ultimately fail in a similar way that particle or wave interpretations of 
light
fail by themselves. Light can be a particle ‘when it needs to be’ and it can 
be
a wave ‘when it needs to be’. In fact, it is simultaneously/potentially both.
(Physicists are still sorting that out, though String Theory went a step in 
that
direction.) The Hebrew yiqtol conjugation can be a Tense and an Aspect and a
Mood as the situation demands. Such is reality and such explains how a person
would have learned Biblical Hebrew in antiquity. The formal categories of the
verb (qatal, yiqtol, wayyiqtol, we-qatal, qotel, plus the volitionals eqtela,
qtol, yaqtel) are mapped by the language users’ experience to the whole realm 
of
human communication and to any referential worlds. Derek Bickerton was one of
the linguists of the last generation who re-enunciated this by claiming that 
the
‘meaning’ of a verbal category in a language will be determined in part by how
many pieces ‘the cake’ is divided. He pointed out that many theoretical
linguists lose sight of this. Nevertheless, many try to postulate one 
semanatic
parameter for yiqtol and qatal that is mitigated by context. Instead, 
Hebraists
should have been calling a multi-dimensional spade, a multi-dimensional spade.
After adding the ‘sequential’ forms, the resulting four and one-half 
categories
(plus the volitionals eqtela, qtol, yaqtel) have a complex ‘mapping’ into 
their
various semantic usages and spaces in BH. Such is reality. Such was the 
reality
of the ancient user and this basic framework needs to be the reality of the
modern user.

Fortunately, Andrason develops and posits such a semantic mapping, which is 
why
I called this a breath of fresh air. He also avoids getting himself tangled up
by the names he is using for the tense-aspect-moods. Andrason, p. 17: "it is
thus not surprising that all attempts to reduce the yiqtol to one well-defined
and unambiguous semantic-functional verbal domain (i.e., to one taxis, one
aspect, one tense, or one mood) have failed and will always lead to
oversimplifications." More background comments from me: probably the majority 
of
materials written for beginner and scholar alike call the yiqtol an 
‘imperfect’
or an ‘imperfective’. Those labels have a potential to mislead a person in BH
future contexts. In future contexts the overwhelming majority of references 
are
to situations that are being conceived of perfectively [!] as 
‘complete/whole’,
howbeit in a future time. If someone says ‘maHar yavo ’ מחר יבוא “tomorrow he
will come”, the default reference is not to “he will be in the process of
 coming”, the default implication is that the person ‘will arrive tomorrow’. 
In
other words, in Hebrew the yiqtol refers to future contexts without specifying
the aspect, least of all imperfective! As Andrason writes, future yiqtol “is 
an
aspectually neutral tense” (Andrason, p. 53). This is exactly the opposite to
what some students and too many scholars assume, based on the name 
‘imperfect’.
Many scholars have avoided this pitfall. The Jouon Muraoka reference grammar 
is
based on Jouon 1923 where he intuitively called the yiqtol a ‘future’. The
problem, though, is that the yiqtol is also a past imperfective. Hence, we
encounter the need to recognize a fusion taking place with the parameters of
time and aspect in the Hebrew yiqtol. Mood interacts with yiqtol too, but it 
is
more complicated to define and will not be highlighted in this brief 
discussion
and review. See “The Hebrew Verb: A Short Syntax” for further integration of
yiqtol with mood and the Hebrew volitional system.

Now back to Andrason. On page 15 of his article Andrason presents a nice,
summary, semantic ‘map’ of the indicative yiqtol that includes its basic
functions. He also presents a modal map on page 16. As with all maps, the 
reader
should be aware that the graph will change slightly depending on how coarse or
refined one wants to make the boxes. But the point is that yiqtol does in fact
‘map’ onto all of these meaning areas. And linguistics does not have good 
names
for the specific ‘fusion’ of TAM that is found in a language like Hebrew. Any
single name based on one TAM characteristic may potentially mislead a student.
(So naming the form is often the best shortcut: yiqtol, the “yiqtol 
conjugation”
.) Yet the multivalent mapping system works. Andrason, p. 18, "It should be
emphasized that the prefix conjugation is not just an accidental amalgam of 
any
functions but, on the contrary, possesses a well established set of
time-aspect-taxis-mood and textual uses which are actualized in a particular
context." When Andrason summarizes his synchonic view of yiqtol at the end of
the article he concludes with an inclusive 'both-and' approach to previous
views: “all so far proposed frameworks are to some extent correct” (p. 57). 
This
is a good start.

One item needs correction, page 8. Andrason needs a different example for 2c
future imperfective “I will serve you seven years …” (Gen 29:18). Andrason
supports his imperfective interpretation based on a Polish possibility. 
However,
his Arabic example 13k on page 51 should have given him a more Semitic
perspective, “He spent [suffix conjugation] 40 days in the wilderness.” Since 
a
demarcated time period in the past is normally presented as perfective in
Hebrew, it is only consistent if future, demarcated time periods are also
considered to be perfective. Thus, Gen 29:18 is not an example of a future
imperfective but only provides an example of a durative Aktionsart within a
perfective aspect, within a future context. This item does not change 
Andrason’s
overall schema since he elsewhere says that the yiqtol future is neutral for
aspect. (The Arabic example 13g is not imperfective either: “Tonight his head
will be done away with.” [my translation--RB])

So far so good. Andrason is trying to formalize the Hebrew verb within the
theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics. As such, it gives theoretical
backing (even for those who may not want to venture into reading Cognitive
Linguistics) to what may be called a Tense-Aspect-Modal fusion.

The continuation of the paper gets into more speculative territory. It is for
theorists rather than language users. Andrason is trying to give a historical
linguistic account of how the yiqtol developed into the shape, semantics, and
functions in which it is found in Biblical Hebrew, and he is fitting the
discussion into Cognitive Linguistics. Persons who read this article will need
to be prepared for discussions of ‘trajectory’, Proto-Semitics, Akkadian,
Arabic, and Modern Hebrew. His conclusions about a split “imperfective-modal
diachrony” and a development from an Akkadian *yaqattal+u are interesting and
may be correct (see figure 7, page 55). At the same time, they may confuse the
non-linguist learner/user of Biblical Hebrew. Fortunately, Andrason is not
arguing that *yaqattal actually existed in Biblical Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew 
did
not have *yaqattal, and yiqtol would only be a metamorphicized, fused,
morphological remnant. Of course, one should be aware of not reading
etymological meanings into the semantics of the BH verb. In support of 
Andrason,
he avoids this in this article.

The article is a rewriting of part of a dissertation that Andrason has 
written.
When discussing the ‘imperfective-modal’ trajectories from a "Central Semitic"
to Biblical Hebrew in this article, he pointed out that any theory that 
projects
correctly into Biblical Hebrew needs to project correctly into other Central
Semitic languages, too. However, there is an oversight in the discussion on
Arabic, pp 50-51. Arabic includes a past imperfective as “kan ‘be [past]’ +
yiqtol [!]”. For comparison, the integration of the participle into the BH
verbal system [BH qotel] already by First Temple times needs to be included in
the overall framework. This is a major disjunct between Arabic and Biblical
Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew developed a past imperfective in “haya ‘be [past]’+
qotel [participle!]” while Arabic developed its past imperfective as “kan ‘be
[past]’ + yiqtol [!]”. Since this article focussed on yiqtol in BH, not 
Arabic,
I would hope that these diverging trajectories will be dealt with in any 
section
on BH qotel in future publications. In the meantime, it should be noted that
this may be evidence that the development of Hebrew peaked and included time 
in
one of the trajectories at an earlier stage than Arabic, though both Arabic 
and
BH already included a non-past yiqtol without aspect. Furthermore, because 
qotel
penetrated into the BH verb system, it appears that proto-BH *yiqtol-nonpast
became simply BH yiqtol-future. The so-called present-tense examples of yiqtol
appear to be instantations of a modal yiqtol and habitual/timeless yiqtol. See
Randall Buth, “The Hebrew Verb: A Short Syntax” in Buth Selected Readings 
(138,
142).

A person may access the original article at
Panchronic Yiqtol

For Biblical Hebrew learners, my advice is to keep working directly on the
internalization of BH itself. The BH system is the reality and the grid that
Hebrew readers need to use when using the language, however it developed
historically. It is also the grid that any historical explanation will need to
include. For those with interests in historical or theoretical linguistics, 
this
work of Andrason will provide some great reading and an excellent stimulus. It
is a remarkable contribution by a PhD student and will likely cause more than
one Semitist to wade into the waters of Cognitive Linguistics.