I hesitate to jump into this mess, but the comment from Ruth ("You would do
better to listen to Rolf") prompted me to make a couple of notes.
I don't have a linguistics degree, but I've read enough linguistic literature
for my PhD thesis (on Hebrew tense, aspect, and modality) to know that much of
the discussion on this list would appear quite silly to a linguist. Rolf's view
is highly idiosyncratic and does not interact with recent standard linguistic
literature. The expressions "make visible" "angle" "field of view" are not
standard and are far from clear in their meaning. Linguists are not constantly
debating what aspect is; they do not claim that aspect is different in Hebrew.
Linguists generally do not insist on a strict separation of semantics from
pragmatic implicature.
I'm sure more linguistically trained scholars are on this list, keeping their
distance. I thought I saw Randall Buth make an appearance. I'm sure others have
read Bybee, Perkins, Pagliuca, Bhat, Dahl, as well as Andrason, Cook.
Bottom line: the discussion here is not representative of linguistic studies!
Ken M. Penner, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Religious Studies
2329 Notre Dame Avenue, 409 Nicholson Tower
St. Francis Xavier University
Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5
Canada
(902)867-2265
[email protected]
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ruth Mathys
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 9:38 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect
The fact that I'm posting from an SIL address says nothing about my grasp of
linguistics. Yes, I have had some training; but I am far from being an expert.
You would do better to listen to Rolf.
The definition of aspect that Karl has been referring to
(http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsAVerbLing
uistics.htm):
"Aspect is a grammatical category associated with verbs that expresses a
temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb."
This is pretty useless as a definition because it says nothing about the nature
of the 'temporal view'. You need to reference the definitions of 'perfective'
and 'imperfective' as well to get any idea of what is being talked about.
perfective: "Perfective aspect is an aspect that expresses a temporal view of
an event or state as a simple whole, apart from the consideration of the
internal structure of the time in which it occurs."
imperfective: "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."
Note how these definitions talk about how the event is *expressed*, i.e. how it
is described by language, not some quality that it possesses intrinsically. So
one of the key things to realise about aspect is that it belongs more-or-less
entirely to the speaker's *conceptualisation* of the event. It has no
real-world solidity. Exactly the same event can be described using either a
perfective or an imperfective form. (Though it's true that certain events have
a preference for one or the other aspect, e.g.
events that have already taken place tend towards perfective aspect; events
like hiccupping that consist of a repeated micro-event tend to prefer
imperfective aspect.) In other words, I agree with George's definition.
Aktionsart, or actionality, is something that adheres to the real-world nature
of an event. Hiccupping is a repeated micro-event. Being old is a state.
Sleeping is something that starts and then stops, but while you're doing it,
one moment looks exactly the same as the next. Exploding is a punctual event
-- it doesn't have a start or an end, it just happens.
There are complex interactions between Aktionsart and aspect. Sleeping lends
itself to imperfective and exploding to perfective, but it's still possible to
say "The bomb was exploding everywhere" in order to focus on the multiplicity
of pieces flying around.
As for Rolf's list of other terms ("perfective punctual, aorist, resultative,
momentaneous, imperfective, progressive, imperfect, linear, continuative,
durative, cursive, inchoative, ingressive, inceptive, continuative, progressiv,
egressive, resukltative, terminative, iterative, effective, finitive,
frequentative"), a given language may specifically mark some of these things,
or they may just be implications deriving from the intersection of the verb's
intrinsic Aktionsart, the basic perfective/imperfective distinction as marked
on the verb, and the overall context.
To give a Hebrew example that you can all shoot down, a yiqtol that occurs in
past time context seems to imply habitual action ("he used to").
I am too much of a novice at Hebrew to have any idea what is going on with the
verbs. I just know that the approach taken by Longacre, Buth, Rocine etc. is
the one that has helped me to read with understanding. I am still very
perplexed by the fact that the yiqtol form is often modal.
Karl asked:
> what term is used to indicate whether a grammaticalization or
> syntactical construct refers to an action that definitely will, is,
> has happened as opposed to another indefinite action that should, might
> happen?
I would call that realis vs irrealis, but that is an area of verb meaning that
is very fuzzy for me. There does seem to be some of that happening as well
with Hebrew verbs...maybe?
Ruth Mathys
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