[quoting James]
What is your view on the sequentiality of wayyiqtols? Is sequentiality the
uncancellable
semantic meaning of wayyiqtols or is this a pragamtic feature which is best
left to context?
RF:
The sequentiality of WAYYIQTOLs illustrates in an excellent way the fallacy
of stressing quantity rather than quality, or in other words, to fail to
distinguish between semantics and pragmatics. ...
[again quoting James]
One thing I did not understand though is your view of the 998 wayiqtols that
do not
express past action. Are you saying these are exceptions to the norm? Are
you saying
they do or do not have an uncancellable semantic meaning?
RF:
Comrie suggested that to find the true properties of verbs used in narrative
contexts on has to look at the same verbs outside narratives. In my study I
have analysed all the WAYYIQTOLs in the Tanakh, and the 998 WAYYIQTOLs with
non-past reference occur outside narratives. Regarding the about 13,000
WAYYIQTOLs occurring in narrative contexts we can know nothing regarding
tense or aspect, because these are covered by the strict form of the
narratives. ...
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.
... In my view, all WAYYIQTOLs have the same meaning, including the 998 with
non-past reference, and they represent the impeerfective aspect (defined
differently compared with the usual definition). ...
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