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  • From: "Rolf" <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] to rolf
  • Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 11:58:21 +0200

Dear George,

Thank you for your clarification. I agree with you that language is
"imperfect." And the last word regarding the verbal system of Classical
Hebrew is not said. My parameters can be applied to any language, but it s
true that when the parameters are applied to Hebrew, they exclude data from
cognate languages. My view is that cognate languages cannot be used to
ascertain the nature of Hebrew verbs; we should only study how verbs are
used in the Hebrew texts.

That does not mean that a study of the verbal systems of the cognate
languages is a vaste of time. To the contrary. A study of these languages
will give us a background that is important in connection with the study of
Hebrew verbs, at least if we are working on a thesis. A presentation of a new
view of the Hebrew verbal system would require that we know the state of the
art—the viewpoint of other scholars and the basis of these viewpoints. One of
the pioneers in the explanation of Hebrew verbs in the light of cognate
languages was Hans Bauer ("Die Tempora im semitischen ," Beiträge zur
Assyriologie und Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft 8, 1910 pp.1-53). He claimed
that the Hebrews had adopted the Akkadian tense system and had mixed it with
the Canananite system. Thus, Akkadian IPRUS (called preterit) became past
tense in Hebrew and was the basis of the WAYYIQTOL form. Other scholars have
claimed that a short Hebrew preterit came from the short Ugaritic YAQTUL form
(in contrast with the long YAQTULU). These, and other claims must be assessed
as a background to the study of Hebrew verbs. I have taught courses in
Hebrew, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Phoenician-Punic, Syriac, Ugaritic, and the Amarna
letters, and I have translated many documents from all these languages into
Norwegian, except from Syriac . You may guess that I during my teaching and
translation have scrutinized the verbal systems of each language. In all
these languages, except Syriac, there is a lack of tenses, and the verbs
express aspects. This is even the case in Ethiopic, which is the youngest of
the mentioned languages.

I have not found any evidence in favor of a Hebrew adoption of a verb form
from any of these languages. I have particularly done much work on Ugaritic
(A book with a Norwegian translation of most of the Ugaritic documents has
been published; I made the half of the translations and my students made the
other half). And I am stunned by all the claims by scholars in the 20th
century that the short YAQTUL form is the antecedent of the WAYYIQTOL form.
The Ugaritic verbal systeml clearly is aspectual, and the verbs can have
past, present, and future meaning. A fine discussion of this is found in
"Biblical Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic Setting; Typological and Historical
Perspectives," eds, E. Fassberg and A Hurvitz," 2006.

My parameters are only applied to the text of the Tanakh, but I have
carefully studied the different scholarly viewpoints of Hebrew verbs and the
verbal systems of cognate languages.


Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway


Tirsdag 28. Mai 2013 10:09 CEST skrev George Athas
<George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>:

> Thanks Rolf. I'm using data from cognate languages to see the wayyiqtol and
> jussive forms as connected, yet different to yiqtol. To put it another way,
> the jussive appears to be a bare wayyiqtol (ie. without waw + gemination).
> This means the waw + gemination adds something that would appear to turn
> the jussive (a desire for a particular action/state) into something seen as
> a reality, hence my 'live action' terminology. In other words, the
> wayyiqtol actualises the jussive.
>
> I find your research intriguing, but the difficulty I have is that its
> methodology is limited in scope. I can see how you're using an unpointed
> text to draw the conclusion that wayyiqtol and yiqtol are really the same
> basic form, but I think this excludes data from cognate languages that
> demonstrate a differentiation between the two verbs, such that they are
> genetically distinct. I think we need to take greater account of the
> organic nature of language, and I'm not sure your methodology leaves room
> for this.
>
> The other thing to say, which I mentioned to Karl, is that language is
> often imperfect (excuse the pun), and therefore we should expect a degree
> of inconsistency in usage. This is simply because language is a human
> product and gets used and abused. But it is an important point because
> function is the ultimate arbiter of language use. Morphology contributes a
> lot, and there needs to be an underlying consistency in forms, but function
> can allow for some odd usages.
>
> In any case, thanks for clarifying.
>
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Dean of Research,
> Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
> Sydney, Australia
>
>







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