Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>> (RB) For generic definition, I'm happy
>>with calling perfective "complete, presenting the whole event" and
>>calling imperfective "incomplete, looking at an event without
>>presenting its endpoints". Obviously, this is insufficient because the
>>most common use, but not exclusive use, of imperfective in the past is
>>to refer to iterative, habitual events. Cf. Gen 29:1-3. (Of course, I
>>put wayyiqtol in the "perfective" group along with most Semitists,
>>something that you do not do.) And in future contexts most yiqtol
>>seem to refer to events that are treated as complete 'perfective' events.
>
>
> (RF) Thank you for your definition.  I agree with you that your definition
> is insufficient.  If I understand you correctly, I see two basic
> problems, that are intertwined:
>
> 1) The definition is not connected with verb forms, that is, each of
> the four or five Hebrew conjugations listed by grammars cannot be
> said to be either perfective or imperfective.

Yes, I see yiqtol as primarily marking imperfective aspect when in a past
context, but as unmarked for aspect and primarily marking future when
in a context needing future marking.
Likewise, I read wayyiqtol as primarily marking past and generally
perfective
(though sometimes needing authorial change of perspective in
narrative where succesive wayyiqtol pick up a thread that was not
complete. Gen 37:28 'they passed by' ... followed by events where
they hadn't yet passed by. This is a minority function, but a recognized
part of the langauge. We could coin a new term, modeled on Greek
'historical present' and call these 'narrative perfectives', where in fact
they mismatch with prototypical perfectivity, to provide narrative ease and
rhetorical effect. PS: Targum Onkelos kept the 'perfective aspect' while
LXX decided to clarify with imperfectivity in Greek.)

Furthermore, one should question whether aspect would be capable
of adequately covering two categories of a binary indicative verb
system. Studies in infant and creole languages suggest that aspect
and tense will likely be intertwined in such a lmited morphological
categorization. This is what most every fluent reader of BH sees.
(This also assumes that the wayyiqtol and weqatal
represent basically the same indicative T-A-M distinctions as the
qatal and yiqtol and are not two additional, non-intersecting
aspect categories.)

> 2) The application of the terms "perfective" and "imperfective" is
> strictly subjective, and there are nothing that can be used as
> controls.

Surely you are aware that in general linguistic literature perfective and
imperfective are considered 'subjective' while "lexical aspect" AKA
'aktionsart' is considered 'objective' and part of the inherent semantics
of a verb? And yes, most of us are aware that there are complications
with these definitions in Slavic languages, none of which I know.

>
> I use one passage as an illustration, namely, Isaiah 9:5, 6.

I'll skip this as premature, only mentioning that I do not find it
problematic at all. Prophets may or may not look on events from
the future backwards, and if so, there is still the problem of how
far back they are looking, to something that has already begun
in the prophet's day, or not? That is a rather complex context for
determining the verb system references.

> Best regards,
> Rolf Furuli

braxot
Randall Buth


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
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