John's posts still aren't coming through... ________________________________ James Spinti E-mail marketing, Book Sales Division Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 35 years Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com Web: http://www.eisenbrauns.com Phone: 260-445-3118 Fax: 574-269-6788
Begin forwarded message: > > > ****************** > Hi Karl, > > No, I'm not talking about translation—though as George Steiner points out in > After Babel, all translation itself involves interpretation. I'm thinking in > the broadest possible terms, such as you trying to "interpret" what I > intended and my interpreting your response. ALL communication requires > interpretation, and that interpretation is somewhat ambiguous. I like Umberto > Eco's approach: there are many meanings a text could have (i.e., many ways we > could interpret it), but there are some meanings that would be ludicrous to > attribute to it. When I approach interpreting the text, therefore, I am > asking myself what the range of possible (permissible) meanings are. For the > Hebrew verb, not all meanings are equally likely in a given construction > (contra Andrason, who seems to presume they are all equally available!). The > process of narrowing down the options comes through the long, arduous, and > endless task of refining our understanding of the patterns (e.g., yiqtol > rarely expresses past habitual in direct speech—just to pick a random > example). > > I understand you when you describe Rolf's approach, but I don't find his > approach well reasoned. Given that wayyiqtol appears 90% in past narrative, > we have to ask several questions: Why is this verb form preferred for past > narrative if not because it grammaticalizes past tense or perfective aspect > (these are the most frequently used verb forms in past narrative in the > world's languages)? If the context only determines the past tense meaning, > then is wayyiqtol semantically vaccuus? How precisely do we know we are in a > PAST narrative context apart from some tense indicator—which generally > appears with the verb (to paraphrase Aristotle: the verb is that part of > speech which, in addition to its lexical meaning, involves some element of > TIME). > > In other words, behind this approach is viciously circular reasoning that has > been trenchantly criticized by linguists: how do we know that a verb form > indicates a certain discourse type except that we can independently determine > both verb meaning and discourse type, in which case what is the point in > having the verb form signal the discourse type if we already know what type > it is? > > So what happens if we follow the lead of the verb forms and assume that they > MEAN something apart from simply their context (i.e., that they contribute > something to the expressions in which they occur)? It leads us to question > the assumptions with which we approach the text. Your example of Proverbs > 31:10-31 is a great case in point. In 2005 I wrote an article on the sentence > literature of proverbs (i.e., excluding chap. 1-9 and the last few chapters) > and the verb forms used there (see here: > http://ancienthebrewgrammar.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/cook-2005-fox-fs_genericity.pdf). > One thing I learned from the vast study of generic (proverbial) sayings > among linguists was that there are no apparent limitations on verb tense in > such sayings. In English, however, we tend to assume proverbial expressions > are present tense, but what about Boys will be boys or Never did the course > of love run smooth? These are used proverbially but are not present tense. > Another thing I discovered was that past-tense anecdotes are a sort of > "narrative" proverb, as in Prov 21:22, which has a perfect and wayyiqtol > form. I translate it as follows: A wise man went up (QTL) to a city of > strong men, and brought down (WAYY) its strong fortification. It is only our > English proverbial style that leads us to interpret or translate this as > present tense. > > So, looking at Proverbs 31, where do the verb forms lead us? According to my > count, the passage (vv. 10-31) consists of 20 QTL forms, 9 WAYY forms, and > only 8 YQTL forms and 3 PTC forms. I won't bother translating the entire > passage to clarify my interpretation, but I see no compelling reason not to > interpret the description (vv. 11-31) as a past anecdotal description of the > woman: the QTl and WAYY forms express past temporality, while the YQTL and > PTC forms express past habitual (e.g., v. 14 'from afar she would bring her > food'; v. 18 'her lamp in the night would not be extinguished'). If we take > seriously that the verbs might contribute something to the context, we would > less often (it is always a temptation) assume we already know what the > passage is about—not simply in terms of content but grammar. > > John > http://ancienthebrewgrammar.wordpress.com/ > > > On Dec 12, 2012, at 4:48 PM, [email protected] wrote: > >> ------------------------------ >> >> Message: 6 >> Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:34:06 -0800 >> From: K Randolph <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re. More on verbs >> To: James Spinti <[email protected]> >> Cc: [email protected] >> Message-ID: >> <CAAEjU0sJDdb+7FdVNcqy27=TWt9H==-ftkjqdsptpap6ucu...@mail.gmail.com> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> >> John: >> >> Since I know you?ll read this directly, I?ll name you. >> >> I may have misunderstood you, but I was responding in particular to your >> response to a previous comment where you wrote, ?Third, and relatedly, when >> I approach the text, therefore, I ask myself: What is the possible range of >> specific meanings for this gram given the patterns of interaction we can >> identify between the general meaning and the various contextual factors?? >> It?s not just this sentence, but close to half your comment gave me the >> impression that I expressed. But as I said, I may have misunderstood you. >> >> Now I have a question concerning your use of the word ?interpret?, do you >> mean translating it from Hebrew to English, or repeating the idea in one?s >> own words? I think in Hebrew when I read Tanakh, so there?s no translating. >> But when asked to put into my own words what I?ve read, because the >> question is usually in English and my response also, I?ll give my response >> in English. Or do you have a different understanding of ?interpret?? >> >> As for people basing their actions on the text, all too often I see them >> using the text as pretext, that they want to do certain actions then look >> for a text to justify their pre-chosen actions. Often that text is taken >> out of context, or even worse a poor translation taken out of context, and >> cannot be reconciled to the original text in its context. In fact, there?s >> a famous theologian who became famous selling millions of books based on >> this practice. Is this to which you refer? >> >> A side issue: I think you misinterpret Rolf (or maybe I do). While I don?t >> have access to his dissertation, his comments on line give me the >> understanding that he thinks the Wayyiqtol is not by form a marker for the >> past tense. However, over 90% of the time found in Tanakh it has a past >> reference due to its context, namely a context of narrative of past events. >> Or another way of saying it, it doesn?t grammaticalize for past tense, but >> over 90% of the time it?s found in past tense contexts. If we don?t count >> the past tense historical narratives, then what percentage of verbs are >> Wayyiqtols and what percentage of them are past referent from their >> contexts? That?s a question I haven?t seen answered. >> >> As for the Wayyiqtol having a past tense grammaticalization, I look at >> Proverbs 31:10?31 where the feminine form of it is found in verse 13, >> 15?17, 24?25, and masculine in 28 & 31. This passage is present tense, >> imperfective aspect from its context. Therefore all the verbs have present >> tense, imperfective aspect meaning. None of these have past reference. How >> many other passages are like this? >> >> But I strongly disagree with Rolf that the conjugations are markers for >> aspect, and the definition that I?ve seen him use is the same as elsewhere. >> >> Yours, Karl W. Randolph. >
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