Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Use and Misuse of Waw in Verb Tenses
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:55:12 +0200
Dear Dale,
I studied Fanning thorougly fifteen years ago when I did some work on
Greek aspects, but I have not opened his book in the ten years I have
worked with my Hebrew dissertation. I do not think my Hebrew aspectual
model has much in common with Fanning's model.
My problem when I am asked for a definition of Hebrew aspects, is that I
can just give a sketch of my model, and that is likely to be
misunderstood, because so much data is lacking. In order to compare
Hebrew and English aspects I have invented three parameters based on the
intersection of ET by RT, and because there are two aspects, it is
possible to compare the aspects of the two languages in six different
areas. In my dissertation I use 11 pages to discuss the application of
these three parameters to the aspects, and even the main points cannot
be conveyed in a short E-mail.
I would like to stress that my model does not build on vague expressions
such as "internal" and "external," but I use the more specific
linguistic concepts "reference time," "event time," and the "deictic
center" as my tools. On the basis of these three tools my three
parameters are, 1) the quality of focus (the nature of what is made
visible -details, progression etc.), the angle of focus (where RT
intersects ET - this is the most important parameter), and 3) the
breadth of focus (how broad area of ET that is made visible by the
intersection of RT). This is a completely new approach to aspect study
and is very different from Fanning's approach.
As to Greek aspects, I have not compared all the finite and infinite
verbs of the NT, or a great portion of the verbs in classical Greek
texts - which I would set as a requirement to have a well reasoned view
of Greek aspects. But the work I have done so far, suggests that Greek
aspects are quite similar to Hebrew aspects and different from the
English ones. Complicating the matter is that tense is grammaticalized
in Greek but not in Hebrew. I take Greek present as the imperfective
aspect and aorist as the perfective aspect, and tense is not a part of
any of them. However, I take Greek imperfect as a combination of past
tense and the imperfective aspect. So far I am not sure what Greek
perfect really is. What is important in my view is that the angle of
focus (all the different options for the intersection of ET by RT) are
similar in Greek and Hebrew. And the same is true with the breadth of
the focus caused by the intersection of ET by RT. The fact that tense
is grammaticalized is an additional factor, which does not disturb the
picture mentioned, but it makes it harder to find examples that meet my
basic requirement for aspectual identification.
I attempt to make a scrupulous distinction between semantic meaning and
conversational pragmatic implicature, and this is a completely new
approach in Hebrew studies. To identify the semantic meaning of aspects
I must find verbs where I with a reasonable certainty can know that a
special characteristic is caused by the verb conjugation alone and not
by a combination by lexical meaning, Aktionsart, Vendlerian
characteristics and so on. This is my basic requirement, and less than
one percent of all Hebrew verbs meet this requirement.
I will send you an article off-list with more explanations regarding
aspects.
Best regards
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
Dr Dale M Wheeler wrote:
Rolf:
Did you interact with B. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, at all? What you seem
to be describing is his terminology of "internal" vs "external"
viewpoint, with the bounded vs unbounded having as much to do with the
lexis of the verb being used as the tense/aspect being chosen.
**************************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Prof of Biblical Languages/Bible Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street Portland, OR 97220
V: 503-251-6416 E: dalemw AT multnomah.edu
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Re: [b-hebrew] Use and Misuse of Waw in Verb Tenses
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