Dear Frank, I will read your book, and you should read my dissertation, because it is good for a lecturer to be aware of the different scholarly approaches to the Hebrew verbal system that exists. Many list members do not read German, so I will make some comments before I have read your book. Now I understand a little more of your model, but not all of it. It reminds me somewhat of the "Textlinguistik" of Harald Weinrich (Tempus: Besprochende und Erzälte Welt (1964), but there are differences as well. It also reminds me of the discourse linguistics of different other auhors. Both of these systems are unassailable (admitted by Weinrich); there are no controls, because the focus is on chunks of texts and not on words or word forms.
You have indirectly answered my question regarding aspect, that the conjugations are not aspectual, but that aspect is connected with one or more clauses. But you have not defined "tense." You say: "In this text it is very hard to believe that the finite verbal form וַיָּבֵא֙ is not tense." RF: If you expect the readers to understand what you write, in this case you must define "tense." I agree that the reference is past, and why can we say that? Because 2:19 is a part of a piece of narrative. And the verbs that carry the action forward in narratives have by definition past reference. But these verbs need not have past tense or have the perfective aspect; In Phoenician, infinitive absolutes are used as narrative verbs, and they neither are tenses nor aspects. I analyze the verse in the following way: The setting is the creation of animals and birds, bringing them to Adam, and the naming of these. All this must have taken some time, as you observe. My translation of 2:19 is as follows: "YHWH God continued to form (WAYYIQTOL, Qal) from the ground every animal and every flying creature of the heavens; and he continued to bring (WAYYIQTOL Hifil) them to the man to see (infinitive copnstruct) what he would call (YIQTOL, Qal) each one. And whatever the man called (YIQTOL, Qal) it, each living soul, that was its name." In the first WAYYIQTOL, reference time (RT) intersects event time (ET) in the middle; a part of ET whith continuing or iterative action is made visible. Exactly the same intersection is seen in the second WAYYIQTOL. The first YIQTOL is modal, and therefore does not have any intersection. The second YIQTOL has a singular subject and object and the verb is semelfactive. So, RT intersects ET after its end, which means that it has a resultative force; a part of the resultant state is visible. The verse contains 4 imperfective verbs, three having past reference (but not past tense), and one i modal. The imperfective force of the WAYYIQTOL FORM is clearly seen in 2:21 where one WAYYIQTOL intersects another WAYYIQTOL: "Then YHWH God caused a deep sleep to fall (WAYYIQTOL) upon the man. And while he was sleeping (WAYYIQTOL), he took (WAYYIQTOL) one of his ribs, and closed up (WAYYIQTOL) the flesh over its place." The third WAYYIQTOL expresses a state "while he was sleeping" and this state is intersected by the next WAYYIQTOL "he took one of the man's ribs." A parallel clause is: While John was reading the paper, Kate entered the room." Such a sentence is used by Comrie and others to demonstrate that the English participle FORM is imperfective. I do not understand how we can know the nuances of a dead language if its conjugations cannot be semantically distinguished. This is illustrated by 1), 2) and 3) below. 1) Jill reached the peak. 2) Jill had reached the peak. 3) Jill was reaching the peak. If English was a dead language that we tried to understand, and we did not which verb FORMS expressed aspect and which tense, we could neither distinguish the time reference of the three clauses, neither their nuances. If there was a context, we could possibly know whether the reference was past or future; but not if a clause lacked a temporal context. (This is the case in many poetic texts in the Tanakh). If semantic meaning was expressed by the verb form, each single sentence could be understood: The verb of 1) is simple past and therefore is a tense; the verb of 2) is pre-past, and is a combination of past tense and the perfective aspect. The verb of 3) is a participle, and because we know the the verb FORM participle is imperfective, and the verb is semelfactive, the meaning is that Jill was on the point of reaching the peak, but had not yet reached it. So, RT intersects ET immediately before the reaching event. Even if we had a context, it would have been impossible to know the nuances of 3) if we did not know that the participle had a particular semantic meaning, that it was imperfective. Best regards, Rolf Furuli Stavern Norway Lørdag 8. Desember 2012 12:42 CET skrev "Dr. Frank Matheus" <[email protected]>: > Dear Rolf & Karl & all, > > > > quote Karl: I’m not a great scholar in linguistics, but this doesn’t sound > like anything that I learned in class, nor read up on line such as at > <http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/> > http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/ . In those sources, > aspect has specific references to time, and tense a different set of > references to time. I’m having trouble understanding what you are saying. > > > > FM: The definition of SIL is not bad; they define aspect as follows: “ Aspect > is a grammatical category associated with > <http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAVerbLinguistics.htm> > verbs that expresses a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the > verb.” > > > > Note that this definition says that the verb expresses a state or an event > and that the aspect is associated with the verb. But it doesn’t say that the > verbal form expresses the aspect, or refers to a specific time. I just would > complement the definition: Aspects regulate the temporal relations within > texts; they are independent from speaker and recipient (and, Rolf, therefore > do not have communicational functions) – whereas tenses regulate the triangle > of speaker-text-recipient (they are communicational). > > > > To understand the problem better, we can refer back to the British > philosopher John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart (yes, that’s his name), a > colleague of Bertrand Russell, who wrote a famous article in which he wanted > to prove that time does not exist. He might have failed in this regard, but > he has elaborated a very prudential system to describe time, which is widely > acknowledged. He assumes three series. In the A-series we meet the well-known > time-line, from the dark foretime to a bright future. As my present tense is > different from the present tense of, say, Ronald Reagan or of my present > tense yesterday, we always have to pinpoint “moments” (as McT calls them) on > the time line to make clear of what time we are talking. That means, the flow > of time is connected to the viewer. The B-series comprises of events, > processes, and situations. We can compare them and say that event E is > earlier than event F and that F is later than D. These relations never > change, they have always been and will ever be without any alteration. When I > say that Ronald Reagan died before my daughter was born, this temporal > relation will always be the same till the end of days. The relations of the > events are totally independent of the viewer: I just can take note of them. > In the C-series then we find simple rows which are not time-related, e.g. the > numbers 1 to 10. They can be reversed, but not changed (8 and 9 cannot switch > places). The Unreality of Time. In: Mind. A Quarterly Review of Psychology > and Philosophy 17,1908, pp 457-474. > > > > This view can easily be “grammaticalized”. Our awareness of time is reflected > in our languages. So language expresses our experience with time. In real > life, ergo in texts, the A- and B-series (occasionally the C-series too) > mingle. What I want to make clear is that though aspects and tenses are > likewise components of texts, they differ in their function, and I can > distinguish them functionally. Both, tense (which domain is in the A-series) > and aspect (which rules the B-series) are connected to the verb, and the > finite verb may or may not express one of them or both – that always depends > on the temporal structure of the text they get into. So only the text as a > whole makes clear aspectual and tense relations. A text must comprise of at > least one word, and it has to be uttered and received (here we have the > triangle). So, by this definition, I always use tense when I create a text > (cf. Comrie, Tense, 1985, p.122f), but the finite verbal form must not > necessarily refer to a specific point in time – as we have seen, it very > often does not. This is not deficient, as there are periphrastic signals. > > > > When we apply these differentiations to Biblical Hebrew, we can describe the > function of the verb, e.g.: Gen 2:19 > > וַיָּבֵא֙ אֶל־הָ֣אָדָ֔ם לִרְא֖וֹת מַה־יִּקְרָא־ל֑וֹ > > > > In this text it is very hard to believe that the finite verbal form > וַיָּבֵא֙ is not tense. Just by receiving the word I know that in the > A-series I am advised to look at the past. The second verb יִּקְרָא is in > the past too – but its form does not tell me that. Instead it describes the > future of the first verb. As it connects the two events („bring to see“ and > „call“) inextricably, it represents aspect. The “bringing to see” is earlier > than “call”, and this relation will never change. Besides the prospective > aspect there is iterativity too. As god brings along a lot of animals, Adam > has a hard job to carry out, which takes its time. But the verbal forms do > not provide us with information about durativity or frequentness; these we > sense by analyzing the temporal structure of the text as a whole. > > > > > > Rolf, regarding 1 Kgs 1:5 I might have used the wrong terms. What I meant > were the classes of the speech act theory, and in English I should have used > “declaration” instead of “declarative”. To my mind declarations are connected > to the suffix conjugations, but not to the prefix conjugation. There’s a > chapter in my book about declarations, so we can talk this over when you have > got hand on it. > > > > Best regards, > > Frank Matheus, University of Münster > > > _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
