Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Rolf:

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 12:59 AM, Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no> wrote:

> Dear Karl,
>
>
> I do not want to continue this discussion. But this is my last attempt to
> explain "aspect" as I understand the term.
>

Except for conation, the rest of your examples do match what I was taught
that “aspect” means. I still assert that I find no evidence that Biblical
Hebrew was an aspectual language.

>
>
> A clause expresses action(s) or state(s). The principal part of the clause
> is the verb, and a verb has a great meaning potential. When an author
> chooses a verb, he considers  its lexical meaning. The concept signaled by a
> verb has a potential of senses, and the author uses the context to make
> visible one sense of this potential; all the others are kept invisible. The
> author wants to show the reader when the action occurred, past, present, or
> future, and in Hebrew, it is the context that makes visible one temporal
> references and keeps the others invisible. If the action occurred in the
> past, objectively speaking, the action is completed. But the author may want
> to stress a certain part of the action in the eyes of the reader. For
> example, he may want to make visible for the reader that an action in the
> past started at a certain point and continued. Or he may want to make
> visible that an action was attempted, but not carried through. Which
> linguistic means did a Hebrew writer have to achieve this?  Please look at
> 1) and 2) below:
>
> 1) Exodus 33:4 NIV: "When the people heard (WAYYIQTOL) these distressing
> words, they began to mourn (WAYYIQTOL)."
>

This is the type of translation that I don’t like, the translators added to
the text. They translated as if the text were written as, “בשמעם העם את הדבר
הרע הזה ויחלו להתאבל” If Hebrew didn’t have a way to express those ideas,
that would be one thing, but Hebrew was able to express the ideas
“translated” by the NIV, but didn’t.

(That’s not the only issue I have with the “translation” above, but let’s
not get too involved.)

What this translation shows is that the translators started with a
presupposition that the yiqtol indicates aspect, therefore using it to prove
aspect makes a circular argument.

What you call “ingressive aspect”, sil.org calls “inchoative aspect”.

>
> …
> 2) " Kings 6:4 NIV: "And they went (WAYYIQTOL) with him. They went
> (WAYYIQTOL) to the Jordan, and began to cut down (WAYYIQTOL)  trees."
>

This “translation” has a few problems. As in the example above, the
translators added to the text in order to make their presupposition of
aspect visible. Without that presupposition, does the context indicate
aspect? I don’t see it from the text itself.

“And he went with them and they came to the Jordan and they chopped down
trees.”

>
> In 3) and 4) below, we see a typical imperfective situation: an event
> occurs inside a state.
>
> 3) "While Tim was sleeping, Ann arrived."
>
> 4) Genesis 2:21NIV: "and while he was sleeping (WAYYIQTOL), he took one of
> the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh."
>
> Example 3) is a typical English example of an imperfective situation. The
> present participle makes visible a part of the state of sleeping after the
> beginning and before the end, and neither beginning nor end is made visible.
> Example 4) is similar: A part of Adam's sleep is made visible, but not the
> beginning and end. An imperfective WWAYYIQTOL is used to make a part of a
> state visible, while keeping the beginning and end invisible.
>

“And YHWH God made a drowsiness fall upon the man that he slept and he took
one of his sides and shut up flesh in its place.” While the context
indicates that God took a side during sleep, the context can indicate that
even if the text used tense only, without aspect.

>
> The tools to make conative events visible, is the lexical meaning of the
> verb, the imperfective aspect, and our knowledge of the world (the context
> shows that the event was only attempted.
>

Is this an example of aspect? Or of mood?

First, my understanding of conation is that it refers to a modality, not a
time measurement. You have claimed previously, as well as all the examples
you give above support your claim, that aspect is a time measurement,
therefore conation cannot be an aspect.

Second, the subject of the verb MWT is Jeremiah, not the people who threw
him into the pit. That shows the intent of the previous action (throwing
into the pit) and again intent is a modality, not an aspect.

Therefore, my conclusion is that this wayiqtol in this verse encodes for
modality, not aspect.

>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
>
> I can understand why you would not want to continue this discussion, we
have reached an impasse. When an impasse is reached, it is best to agree to
disagree, shake hands as friends and continue on discussing other things.

Karl W. Randolph.