Dear Rolf,
Thank you for your feedback, and especially for phrasing your concerns in a
friendly way.
Note 4. "used differently". What is the meaning of "differently"?
Because you mention the basic TAM factors in your introduction, the
reader may think that "differently" refers to one or more of these.
If you for instance are saying that the *meaning* of a verb, say a
WAYYIQTOL is different in different genre situations, I disagree with
your assumption. A verb form has the same meaning in any context, but
it can be used differently.
I am puzzled by your last line (above) stating that that a verb form can be
"used differently," yet it was my own use of this phrase that you object to.
Does this mean that we agree?
I am not ready to agree that "a verb form has the same meaning in any
context." My research may ANSWER the question of whether "a verb form has
the same meaning in any context," but I will not assume an answer at the
outset. The question reminds me of the recent B-Hebrew discussion of "core
meanings" for vocabulary words. Would you also say the word "strike" has the
same meaning in every context?
I am not _ASSUMING_ the meaning of a wayyiqtol is different in different
genre situations, but I want to ANSWER the question of whether a wayyiqtol
conveys something different in different situations.
snip
p 9. WAW. I am not sure what the terms "T" and "F" refer to. If> I see no problem here. Because then the database only give data as to
the application of these letters is based on the Masoretic pointing,
Masoretic pointing. But if the letters are based on the judgement of> is to give a basis for the interpretation of Hebrew verbs, so the
the compiler, then their use is circular. The purpose of the database
> compiler should not assume *before* everything is compiled that WAWs
have a converting (or some other) power and that there are four
rather than two conjugations in Classical Hebrew. Conclusions
regarding this should be drawn when everything is compiled.
You are right. I intend the tag to be entirely objective, with no judgement
on the part of the compiler. I originally designed the tags for use on
unpointed texts, so I could not distinguish between waw with shewa and waw
with patach and doubling. To make the tags more intuitive, I will change my
proposed tags: "W" for a prefixed waw with shewa, "Wa" for a prefixed waw
with patach/doubling, and "-" for no waw prefix. For unpointed texts, if
there is a waw prefix, the tag will be "W", and "-" for no waw prefix.
I do not assume there ARE four conjugations, but I want to be able to TEST
whether there are four conjugations.
pp 17, 23. ASPECT. "temporal constituency (complete /progressive
recurring/ event)". This is the most problematic part.
You make some perceptive comments about tagging aspect, especially:
How can you by observation know
that a verb is what you call "durative" and that others are not? I am
afraid that both terms at the outset entail circularity. If the terms
are not circular (it has already been decided that the perfective
aspect is complete and the imperfective is durative), there must be a
clear observational distinction between "complete" and "completed"
and between "durative" and "non-durative" events.
You're right that observation is the key. What aspect-related features CAN
we observe? To tag tense, we can observe the time at which the event
referenced occurs (relative to the speech time, for example).
To tag gender,
we would observe the sex of the referent (if biological). To tag grammatical
number, we would observe how many of the referent there were. So by analogy,
what can we tag for aspect? It seems to me the most helpful question to ask
is whether there was some focus on the progression of the event or not,
i.e., whether the reference time is between the beginning and end of the
event, or at or after the end of the event. Do you have a better suggestion?
Ken Penner, McMaster/DSS
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PennerThesis
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