Hi Rolf,
Thank you for outlining your linguistic approach to the analysis of WAYYIQTOL. I have a question: Does your approach assume that if WAYYIQTOL is ever a past tense, then it must always be a past tense?
The reason I ask is because of something you asserted about the English form "went" (on 23/6 - yes, I'm a way behind):
<snip>
The form "went" has an intrinsic past reference that is not caused by the context. There may be exceptions, but again, they can be explained as exceptions.
...
3) Liz went home.
</snip>
This is not correct. In some contexts the form "went" is modal, for example:
1) If you went to Australia, you would find some of their English dialects very difficult to understand.
In this type of construction, the temporal reference that the "went" form definitely cannot have is past; if it has temporal reference, it is probably future. However, nobody would deny, on the basis of this, that "went" is past tense in your example, Liz went home.
Two conclusions: (1) the presence or absence of tense is not inextricably tied to a verb form, and (2) the "semantic value" of a verb form must take into account wider contextual considerations (or better, wider constructional considerations).
Does this fit with your methodology? The reason it seems important is that the "went" form in English would similarly have past reference the vast majority of the time, but with present and/or future exceptions. (I apologise that I cannot check myself whether this has any relevance to your dissertation, but I do not have access to it presently.)
Regards,
Stephen Shead
Centro de Estudios Pastorales
Santiago, Chile
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