Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Ruth:

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Ruth Mathys <ruth_mathys AT sil.org> wrote:

The fact that I'm posting from an SIL address says nothing about my grasp of linguistics.  Yes, I have had some training; but I am far from being an expert.  You would do better to listen to Rolf.

You disappoint! You came down on me so hard that I was looking to you as the oracle from above.

The definition of aspect that Karl has been referring to
(http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsAVerbLing
uistics.htm):

"Aspect is a grammatical category associated with verbs that expresses a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb."

The key word here is “temporal”, i.e. related to time. The question is, what sort of temporal view?

This is pretty useless as a definition because it says nothing about the
nature of the 'temporal view'.  You need to reference the definitions of
'perfective' and 'imperfective' as well to get any idea of what is being
talked about.

True. Because I already knew those definitions, this makes perfect sense. 

perfective: "Perfective aspect is an aspect that expresses a temporal view of an event or state as a simple whole, apart from the consideration of the internal structure of the time in which it occurs."

imperfective: "Imperfective aspect is an aspect that expresses an event or state, with respect to its internal structure, instead of expressing it as a simple whole."

Note how these definitions talk about how the event is *expressed*, i.e. how it is described by language, not some quality that it possesses
intrinsically.  So one of the key things to realise about aspect is that it
belongs more-or-less entirely to the speaker's *conceptualisation* of the
event.  It has no real-world solidity.  Exactly the same event can be
described using either a perfective or an imperfective form.  (Though it's
true that certain events have a preference for one or the other aspect, e.g. events that have already taken place tend towards perfective aspect; events like hiccupping that consist of a repeated micro-event tend to prefer imperfective aspect.)  In other words, I agree with George's definition.

In George’s definition I don’t see any indication of temporality, i.e. some consideration of time, which is central to the linguistic definition of “aspect”. 

Aktionsart, or actionality, is something that adheres to the real-world
nature of an event.

Huh? The definition I find is, “Lexical aspect

“The lexical aspect or aktionsart (German pronunciation: [ʔakˈtsi̯oːnsˌʔaɐ̯t], plural aktionsarten [ʔakˈtsi̯oːnsˌʔaɐ̯tn̩]) of a verb is a part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. Any event, state, process, or action which a verb expresses—collectively, any eventuality—may also be said to have the same lexical aspect. Lexical aspect is distinguished from grammatical aspect: lexical aspect is an inherent property of a (semantic) eventuality, whereas grammatical aspect is a property of a (syntactic or morphological) realization. Lexical aspect is invariant, while grammatical aspect can be changed according to the whims of the speaker.” (copied and pasted from the dictionary built into Macintosh OS)

In short, this is a time reference that’s part of the definition of a verb.

 

 Hiccupping is a repeated micro-event.  Being old is a state.  Sleeping is something that starts and then stops, but while you're doing it, one moment looks exactly the same as the next.  Exploding is a punctual event -- it doesn't have a start or an end, it just happens.

There are complex interactions between Aktionsart and aspect.  Sleeping lends itself to imperfective and exploding to perfective, but it's still possible to say "The bomb was exploding everywhere" in order to focus on the multiplicity of pieces flying around.

No matter how you cut and dice it, “explode” has a time reference which is a fraction of a second, a time reference that is intrinsic to its meaning. That time reference is its Aktionsart.

As for Rolf's list of other terms ("perfective punctual, aorist, resultative, momentaneous, imperfective, progressive, imperfect,  linear, continuative, durative, cursive, inchoative, ingressive, inceptive, continuative, progressiv, egressive, resukltative, terminative, iterative, effective, finitive, frequentative"), a given language may specifically mark some of these things, or they may just be implications deriving from the intersection of the verb's intrinsic Aktionsart, the basic perfective/imperfective distinction as marked on the verb, and the overall context.

Rolf’s list lists subcategories of aspect, most subcategories of imperfective aspect.

To give a Hebrew example that you can all shoot down, a yiqtol that occurs in past time context seems to imply habitual action ("he used to").

This example comes from the aspectual model of Hebrew grammar which I had to reject when reading Tanakh through. I tried for years to make the data fit the aspectual model, but the data won. This example is wrong.

I am too much of a novice at Hebrew to have any idea what is going on with the verbs.  I just know that the approach taken by Longacre, Buth, Rocine etc. is the one that has helped me to read with understanding.

I don’t know Longacre, nor Rocine’s model, but Buth demonstrated on this forum that he doesn’t know Biblical Hebrew very well, because he doesn’t know Hebrew Bible. He made grammatical and syntactical errors.

 

 I am still very perplexed by the fact that the yiqtol form is often modal.

When a language has a limited number of forms, sometimes a form is reused to indicate a different function than its primary function. An example in English is the plural “were” reused to indicate the optative mood, e.g. “If I were …” and “Were he …”.

I have found that the Yiqtol is reused often to indicate the subjunctive modal use, also to express intent, possibility, and other (modal?) uses.

Examples where the Yiqtol is used to signal other than simple action uses are Exodus 5:1–2—last clause of verse 1 “…that they may have a festival for me in the wilderness (Yiqtol used to indicate possibility).” (Verse 2, pharaoh’s response) And pharaoh said (Yiqtol, simple action, continuation of narrative), “Who is YHWH (verbless clause) that I should listen to his voice (Yiqtol indicating subjunctive mood) to send out Israel (infinitive clause)? I don’t know YHWH (Qatal simple action) and Israel I won’t send out (Yiqtol indicating intent also result of not knowing YHWH).”

Karl asked:

> what term is used to indicate whether a grammaticalization or syntactical
> construct refers to an action that definitely will, is, has happened as
> opposed to another indefinite action that should, might happen?

I would call that realis vs irrealis, but that is an area of verb meaning that is very fuzzy for me.  There does seem to be some of that happening as
well with Hebrew verbs...maybe?

Ruth Mathys

Thanks for your answer. It demonstrates that we probably should have more discussion on liguistic / grammatical subjects so that we can talk from the same page, and not talk past each other with mutually ununderstandable uses of linguistic terminology.

Karl W. Randolph.