From: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Alviero: tense and time
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 13:05:32 +0200
Title: Re: Alviero: tense and time
Dear Rolf,
Thank you for your valuable explanations. I am afraid, though, that I
do not easily follow your argument, but I promise to read the book
you mention by Mari Broman Olsen as soon as I have the
opportunity.
In my previous exchange, I mentioned stative verbs in BH simply
because the qatal of that root has the meaning of present--yada'tî,
as have oida, and novi. I also mentioned the verbs of motion in
Egyptian because they show specific grammatical constructions, e.g.
'H'.n.f pr.w, instead of 'H'.n sDm.n.f. This is the result of
analysis of texts, and has nothing to do with the semantic meaning of
the verbforms as such. I may need to stress that I do not intend to
prove anything concerning wayyiqtol. I simply try to understand its
functions by interpreting its textual connections.
I allow me some doubt about the principle that "one example of a
wayyiqtol with non-past meaning [could] falsify the view that
wayyiqtol is (+past)".
Further, the comparison with other Semitic languages is important but
each language needs to be analized in its own terms.
I am unable to "account for all the wayyiqtols in the whole
Bible at the same time". From the beginning I followed a
pragmatic, step-by-step approach from the more simple to the more
complicated.
In any case, it does seem rasonable to me to doubt of the evidence
that narrative wayyiqtol is a past tense--even the only past tense of
BH. Until a definite proof to the contrary, I stick to what I think
is solid deduction.
I would approach your "several hundreds passages [of wayyiqtol]
with non-past meaning" with the convictions I gained from the
analysis of clear texts and try first to interpret them in the light
of those convictions until this proves impossible. In the meantime, I
would keep an open mind to consider different syntactic settings and
functions if needed. In any case, I would not rush to quick
solutions. I think we do not know enough and we must learn more from
the texts. This may be the only way for our knowledge to make any
progress. Besides, however hard we try, we may not find a solution to
every problem--even if we analyzed a modern language.
Now I come to your five examples of wayyiqtol:
- Ex. 20:25 "(...) because if you have wielded your tool upon
it, you have profaned it". Instead of "you have
wielded" one could translate "you shall have wielded"
since in a future context qatal may indicate an event prior to the
future mainline.
- 1Sam. 2:6,7--Participles are connected to qatals in the previous
context (vv. 3-5), to yiqtols in the following context (vv. 7-8a),
again to qatal (v. 8b) and again to yiqtols (vv. 9-10). Indeed
participles can function in past as well as in future environments.
Besides, descriptions of customary behavior as here and, e.g., in the
sayings of Proverbs may follow special linguistic comventions
that still need clarification. In any case, the text is too difficult
in order to draw any conclusion.--Concerning linguistic conventions:
In Italian we use in proverbs, besides the present tense, also the
past tense as well as the future tense; however I suppose nobody
would conclude that these are not tenses.
- 1Chr. 23:25 " (...) and [He] made His dwelling in Jerusalem
forever" (JPS).
- Psa. 55:17 "To God I want to call, / that the Lord may deliver
me. / (18) Evening, morning, and noon I want to complain and moan. /
(In the past) He heard my voice, (19) He redeemed in peace my life
from the battle against me / (?) as though many were on my
side. (20) (Now) may God hear an answer/humiliate them..."
--Here, as not infrequently in the Psalms, we would better not
neutralize the tension between past experience and present prayer or
hope for future deliverance. Let us try and take the verbforms
seriously and not to do of them whatever we like.
- Jer. 38:9 "(...) (?) He has already died on the spot because
of hunger since there is no bread in the city".--The clause
"since there is no bread in the city" is hardly a fitting
reason for affirming that Jeremiah was going to die in the cistern.
The meaning may be that he would die anyway because in the city there
was no food. Thus Rashi, if I understand him correctly.
Note that in Psa. 55:18 as well as in Jer.
38:9 some scholars read a weyiqtol form instead of a wayyiqtol.
This reading would make good sense in both cases: "I want to
complain and moan IN ORDER THAT He may hear my voice" (Psa.
55:18); "... by casting him into the cistern IN ORDER TO let him
die" (Jer. 38:9).--BTW weyiqtol is a volitive form, differently
from weqatal which is non-volitive.-- However, this solution would
disregard the fact that the Masoretes read a wayyiqtol in both cases,
and I assume that they were much more conversant with BH than we are
today despite our larger knowledge of the Semitic languages.
Peace and all good.
Alviero Niccacci
On 02/24/99 (Re: Alviero: tense and time) Rolf Furuli
wrote:
> Dear Alviero,
>
> Thank you very much for your answer, both for your friendly tone
and for
> your attempt to answer every question thoroughly.
>
> Regarding the importance of semantics in the study of verbs, I
suggest that
> you read the doctoral work of Mari Broman Olsen: "A
Semantic and Pragmatic
> Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect", 1997, New York:
Garland
> Publishing Inc. On the basis of the work of H.P. Grice she
differentiates
> between "semantic meaning" and "conversational
pragmatic implicature" -
> "semantic meanings may not be cancalled without
contradiction or reinforced
> without redundancy.
>
> You mention stative and fientive verbs, and we can use
this as an example
> of the approach. Both stative verbs and fientive verbs are
(+durative), but
> only fientive verbs are (+dynamic) (dynamicity= change). If we
place verbs
> in groups of statives and fientives, we find a certain
assymetry. While
> verbs marked as fientive *allways* are fientive, this is not the
case with
> those which we view as stative. But "stative" verbs
can in different
> situations both be interpreted as stative (+durative) and as
fientive
> (+durative and +dynamic). This means that verbes marked for
> durative/dynamic action such as $ir can never be given a
stative
> interpretation while verbs unmarked for durative/dynamic action,
such as
> (md and ml', can either be interpreted as stative or fientive.
This shows
> that staticity and fienticity (if such a word exists) do not
carry equal
> semantic weight, because fienticity is semantic while stativity
is
> pragmatic.
>
> In the verbal system, (+past) and (+future) are semantic
features, while I
> am not aware of any language where we find (+present) forms
(verbs marked
> for present tense). The features (+past) and (+future) indicate
that there
> is a *semantic* relationship between the action/state expressed
by the
> verbs (RT= reference time) and a particular deictic point (C).
Past tense
> indicates that the event/state is prior to the deictic point
(RT>C).
> Present tense indicates that the event/state coincides with the
deictic
> point (RT=C). Future tense indicates that the state/event is
posterior to
> the deictic point (C>RT). While verbs unmarked for (+past) or
(+future) can
> have past, present and future meaning, verbs marked (+past) and
(+future)
> can *only* have past and future meaning respectively, because
their
> features represent uncancelable semantic meaning.
>
> In particular syntactic environments, such as irreal conditional
clauses
> (and others), (+past) verbs may be used in a present or future
setting, but
> still they are past tense (the English verbs "went"
and "thought" will for
> instance never change their past meaning). To prove that
wayyiqtol is
> preterite (+past), it is necessary to demonstrate that this form
*always*
> has a past meaning, and when this does not seem to be the case,
it must be
> demonstrated that the seemingly non-past meaning is due to the
particular
> construction in which it occurs (but also in this context *has*
it past
> meaning). In principle would just one example of a wayyiqtol
with non-past
> meaning falsify the view that wayyiqtol is (+past), but to be
sure, we of
> course would need a reasonable number of wayyiqtols with
non-past meaning.
>
> It appears that you have stricter requirements for what is
"past tense"
> than I, because you require that the next event in a chain
must represent
> the deictic point for the previous event and so on. Therefore
you have the
> category "continuation wayyiqtol" where this is not
the case. And you say
> that this form "does not have a definite time value of its
own". If this
> was the case, wayyiqtol would not represent (+past), because
such a feature
> cannot be cancelled. However, your "continual
wayyiqtols" fits my view of
> past meaning, because the deictic center in 1 Sam 28:3 can be
viewed as the
> time of writing, and then we get (RT>C). My problem is not
such cases, but
> all the examples where wayyiqtols have a true non-past meaning,
and there
> is nothing in the context which can defend a past meaning.
Because of this,
> I view the past meaning of almost all wayyiqtols in narratives
to be
> "conversational pragmatic implicature" rather than
"semantic meaning".
>
> All can see there is a fixed pattern in how narratives are
formed, and I
> find both your grammar and your comments regarding the meaning
of this
> structure very instructive. They betray an exceptional
deep knowledge of
> the Hebrew text. While your model and your approach are
excellent, the
> premises can be questioned. In Biblical Aramaic, for instance we
often find
> the words "and he answered and said" being expressed
by qatal/ participle
> or by two participles. I saw a couple of similar examples
in a Mari letter
> which we read in class last week, two examples of iparras
(supposed to be
> similar to yiqtol) in a past context with several statives and
iprus
> (supposed to be similar to wayyiqtol). So how can we know
that just as
> there is a linguistic convention in Aramaic of using participles
(which can
> be compared to imperfective verbs) about speaking and answering,
in past
> contexts, similarly was there a linguistic cenvention in Hebrew
about using
> imperfective verbs as those carrying the chain of events
forward? If there
> is no form marked for (+past) in Hebrew, this is exactly what we
would
> expect to see as a signal of past meaning: several verbs in a
chain
> connected with the simple conjunction waw.
>
> My point is that narratives alone can tell us little about the
*semantic
> meaning* of the verb forms because linguistic convention does
have such a
> strong influence on narratives. This is the reason why I suggest
that we
> must account for all the wayyiqtols in the whole Bible at the
same time to
> find their meaning, and that there is no difference in the
semantic meaning
> of verbs in any context, prose or poetry.
> True poetry is different from prose, but I have never seen it
demonstrated
> that *verb meaning* is different in poetry.
> Regarding your comments on 3) in connection with the different
patterns of
> verb forms used in narratives versus direct speech etc, I agree
that this
> is the most common pattern, but I am not prepared to draw any
conclusion
> about "tense", because such conclusions are based on
induction and need not
> be right. As I said above, the pattern may not show more
than linguistic
> convention which is pragmatic. However, if we find no examples
of
> wayyiqtols with non-past meaning in the whole corpus, then I am
prepared to
> conclude that the form is (+past).
>
> Lastly, five examples of wayyiqtol from my list of several
hundred passages
> with non-past meaning, for your comments:
>
>
> Ex. 20:25 And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not
build it of
> hewn stones; for if you wield your tool upon it you profane
(wayyiqtol) it.
> 1Sam. 2:6,7 The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to
Sheol and
> raises up.
> The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also
exalts (wayyiqtol).
> 1Chr. 23:25 For David said, "The LORD, the God of
Israel, has given peace
> to his people; and he dwells (wayyiqtol) in Jerusalem for
ever.
> Psa. 55:17 Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint
and moan,
> and he will hear (wayyiqtol) my voice.
> Jer. 38:9 "My lord the king, these men have done evil
in all that they did
> to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern; and he
will die
> (wayyiqtol) there of hunger, for there is no bread left in
the city."
>
> Regards
> Rolf
>
> Rolf Furuli
> Lecturer in Semitic languages
> University of Oslo
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