Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Daniel Lundsgaard Skovenborg <waldeinburg AT yahoo.com>]

Hi,

Jumping into a discussion in B-Hebrew and having an good overview of what have been said seems impossible, so if the following is totally irrelevant, I apologize:
Based on the examples you give (activities, achievements etc.) I think that the "situation aspects" or "procedural traits" is what is normally called "predicational aspect" or "lexical aspect" (or aktionsart, I thought, but Routledge Encyclopedia of Linguistics claims this is a mistake). This is a lexical-semantic category, so what is it doing in a discussion of verb forms?

Regards,
Daniel Lundsgaard Skovenborg

---

From: Rolf <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>
To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2013 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] verb form

Dear Nir,

You should have read my dissertation before you tell the list-members what I mean and what I have done.

> in order to show that BH does not consider time as verb form parameter, rolf
> defines time in a very narrow and non-compromising sense, imposed by some
> theories. this, of course, is the wrong direction: in an empirical science, it
> is fact which determines theory. BH indeed uses time in more
> ways than he envisages.

> of course, in spite of rolf's opinion, almost everybody
> agrees that BH uses time as an important determinant of
> the verb form. however, not in the same way english does, for example. or
> chinese. these diferences should be made precise.

I never "define time," but I define the concept "tense." Here I follow Comrie's definition, namely, that tense "is grammaticalized location in time." For example, this mens that if a language has tenses, we can see a uniform use of some verb forms: Some forms are uniformely used with past reference, and other forms are used with future reference.
When we find that all verb forms in a particular language can have past, present and future reference, that language does not have tenses. I have already mentioned that I have found 997 WAYYIQTOLs with non-past reference and 956 QATALs with future reference. The only way to nullify my conclusion that these examples show that Hebrew does not have tenses, is to show that the mentioned WAYYIQTOLs and QATALs occur in strange contexts. But that is not true; the examples occur both in poetic and prose texts.

I mentioned in my post to Kimmo that the best example of a uniform use of verb forms of which i know, is Greek imperfect. If anyone can give me an example of a non-past use of Greek imperfect, please do that off-list.

Here I have two important questions for you: Is there a language in the world where the semantic meaning of verb tenses is different in poetic and prose texts? What is your evidence that the semantic meaning of Hebrew verbs are different in poetic and prose texts?


> aspect, too, is divided under most theories into viewpoint aspect and
> situation aspect. for some reason, in the BH context the
> perfect(ive)/imperfect(ive) division is called by many "aspect", ignoring the
> other half, i.e. the distinction between (in first approximation, see wendler,
> smith etc) state and event.
>
> so, what rolf calls "aspect" is really only "half aspect".
> where is the other half?

Your statement above leads to confusion. You refer to Carlota Smith. She uses the terminology "viewpoint aspect" for perfectivity and imperfectivity, and what she calls "neutral viewpoints." She uses "situation aspects" with reference to the Vendlerian concepts states, activities, achievements, accomplishments, and semelfactives.  In my dissertation I use all the Vendlerian concepts, but I subsume them under the name "procedural traits" and not "situation aspect." The important thing is not the term used, but that each term is clearly defined. So I do not use "half aspect." 

I downloaded your manuscript. The basic weakness in my view is that you do not have clear definitions of your terms. For example, you use the term "gnomic" in a much wider sense than usual. Therefore, your interpretations including "gnomic" cannot be tested.  A few comments to your "all-propositions" in a) and b).

> a) wayiqtols and weqatals describe events and not states.
> unless the reason for the waw-prefix is SYNTACTIC (i.e. there was no
> alternative).

Your words  "there was no alternative" are very interesting, because they can be applied to the  WAYYIQTOLs used of events in narrative texts as well.  In a narrative text, the reference is past, and one event follows the other. So there is no alternative to the use of the WAW-prefix (expressed as WAY because of ohonological rules); thus, the WAY-prefix is syntactically conditioned. This means that the verb form in each case is YIQTOL, but because of syntactical requirements, the YIQTOL has a WAY-prefix.

>
> b) all wayiqtols and weqatals have the value "relative future",
> compared with their event predecessor verb form. with the same caveat.

All-propositions are notoriously dangerous. What is "relative future"? In Table 6.2 in my dissertation there are 26 examples where the time of the WAYYIQTOL is similar with the time before (there are more examples as well).

Examples:

1 Samuel 1:17 "answered and said."
2 Kings 18:28 "stood and called," "spoke and said."
1 chronicles 29:22 "ate and drank."

Some examples OF WAQATAL with the same time reference:

Jeremiah 50: 22 "will stumble" (WAQATAL)  and "will fall" (WEQATAL); "will kindle a fire" (WEQATAL) "will consume" (WEQATAL.
Jeremiah 51:8  "will fall (QATAL) and "will be broken" (WEQATAL)
Jeremiah 51:44 "will punish (WEQATAL) and "will spew out" (WEQATAL)


Why not apply your theories to Jeremiah, chapters 50 and 51.  In 50, there are 32 QATALs with future reference. There are also 17 WEQATALs, 50 YIQTOLs and 2 WAYYIQTOLs with future reference. In 51, there are 27 QATALs with future reference. There are also 38 WEQATALS, 32 YIQTOLs, 2 WEYIQTOLS,  and 4 WAYYIQYOLs with future reference. How shall we explain all these different forms with future reference? Does any of them represent tense?


Best regards,



Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway
 



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