Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Bryant:

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:44 PM, Bryant J. Williams III
<bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>wrote:

> 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


If everything explains the grammaticalizations, then nothing explains them.

Or is it more accurate to say that TAM+sequential is not the right
linguistic tool to study Biblical Hebrew, in the same way as a prism is not
the right tool in physics to study the kinetic energy of a falling body?


> … 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.)


This is typical philosophers’ misunderstandings of physics. My grandfather,
who was a physics professor, and other scientists told me that all of this
is mere mathematical modeling. They don’t tell what is the nature of light,
rather how light acts in certain circumstances. The nature of light is still
unknown.


> … The Hebrew yiqtol conjugation can be a Tense and an Aspect and a
> Mood as the situation demands.


In other words, the contexts and not the grammaticalizations define which of
the TAM+sequential we understand for each usage.

Therefore, if we want to learn what is the actual nature of why there are
the grammaticalizations differentiating qatal and yiqtol, we need to look
outside of TAM.

Karl W. Randolph.