Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Rolf:

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no> wrote:

> Dear Karl,
>
> It is a pleasure to discuss the Hebrew language with you, because  you
> write in a civilized way (in contrast to some list members who attack
> persons and use a bad language, and to others who refuse to answer questions
> about the meaning of their parameters). You also write in a clear  and
> understandable way.
>
> Not everyone agrees with the nice words you say about me.

>
> You wrote:
>
>>
>>  As I read the above, I understand that you make the assumption that the
> qatal encodes for perfective aspect, while the yiqtol for imperfective
> aspect. I read first for context and meaning, and I understand both in this
> verse as referring to ongoing, incomplete action at the time the statement
> was made, therefore the context indicates imperfective aspect. Therefore my
> conclusion based on this as well as many other verses, is that qatal and
> yiqtol do not encode for aspect.
>
> You should try to distinguish between the lexical meaning and Aktionsart of
> the verb and which part of the action that the author wants the reader to
> see. English aspects are very different from Hebrew ones, and therefore it
> is correct that English examples do not always match Hebrew examples.


Which is why I will skip down to the Hebrew examples you have below.


>
> In addition to the use of aspect, there are also other tools that can be
> used to make something visible or make something invisible.


I prefer to think of it more like spotlights on a stage—each spotlight
illuminates only part of the stage. By illuminating its part of the stage,
it does not make the other parts invisible, it just does not illuminate
them. Context is where we add more spotlights shining on the stage, until
finally when we have enough context, enough spotlights, that the whole stage
is illuminated.


>
> I will give two more examples.  In  5) we see a conative event, and what is
> made visible, is an attempt and not the action itself. The author makes this
> conative situation visible for the reader by the combination of the
> imperfective WAYYIQTOL and our knowledge of the world-we know that Reuben
> did not deliver Joseph.
>

Actually Reuben did deliver Joseph, or it is more accurate to say that he
took Joseph away from their hands. When we look at the context, i.e. more
spotlights to illuminate more of the stage, the other brothers planned to
kill Joseph and throw his dead body down in one of the pits, but Reuben took
Joseph away from them and their plans, and put him down a pit alive instead,
from which he planned to take Joseph and send him back to his father. His
plan was foiled by his brothers selling Joseph instead.

The actual meaning of NCL is ‘to take away, often in order to protect’ and
Reuben succeeded in doing that. Only he wasn’t around to take Joseph away
from his brothers when they made alternate plans, namely to sell Joseph.

>
> Example 6) is ingressive, which means that what is made visible, is the
> beginning of the action and a small part of the following progressive
> action. Again, the author makes this visible by the help of the imperfective
> WAYYIQTOL and our knowledge of the world-we know that the temple was not
> finished in one year.
>

Again, let’s bring in more spotlights, more context, and we find that 1
Kings 6:1 is a continuation of chapter 5. The construction of the temple did
not start with the laying of the foundation, rather in the preparations to
build.

>
> 5) Genesis 37:21 "When Reuben heard (WAYYIQTOL) this, he tried to deliver
> (WAYYIQTOL) them out of their hands.
>
> 6)  1 Kings 6:1 "In the four hundred and eightieth after the Israelites
> came out of the land of Egypt... he began to build (WAYYIQTOL) the temple of
> YHWH,"
>

I read both of these examples with the wayiqtols indicating secondary
meaning, in these cases they are secondary in that they indicate continuing
action.

In the 1 Kings example, the first spotlight shines on the friendship between
Hiram and Solomon. The next few spotlights turn on to different aspects of
the preparations to build the temple. Then in 1 Kings 6:1 the spotlight
turns on to the actual start of the construction, what the preparations led
up to. Starting construction was a continuation of the total process of
building the temple.

>
> In my dissertation there are hundreds of examples of YIQTOLs and WAYYIQTOLs
>  where different parts of the action is made visible.
>
> To make something visible, and to keep the rest invisible is a subjective
> endeavor. The main factor here is the use of the perfective and imperfective
> aspect.
>

I am not sure of how aspect comes into play in these examples. According to
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAspect.htmone
might claim that 1 Kings 6:1 gives an example of inchoative
aspect<http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsInchoativeAspect.htm>
though
the context indicates that this was the next step in to process of building
the temple. But I fail to see how aspect has anything to do with intention.

>
> In Norwegian we have the saying: "What is obscurely expressed, is obscurely
> thought." When list-members use grammatical  terms, even rejecting some of
> them in Hebrew, and they refuse to define their  terms, the only conclusion
> I can draw, is that their terms cannot be defined in scientific terms, and
> that they simply do not know what they are talking about.
>

You have yet to see me use the term Aktionsart because the definitions I
have seen for it are rather fuzzy. As for my understanding of aspect, I
limit myself to the definitions found on the sil.org site so that I have an
objective standard to point to in understanding the terms.

>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
>
>
> Karl W. Randolph.