Rolf, you were kind enough to send me a copy of your dissertation in 2005, and I read over several times in 2005-2006. Thank you. Have you read mine? I recognize that my previous post was not constructive; I mainly pointed out problems without suggesting possible resolutions. I hope to remedy that by a series of posts as I have time over the next month.
Cheers, Ken 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 Rolf Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 2:12 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect Dear Ken, "No scholar has accepted that view, so it must be wrong." Is that what a teacher should tell his students? Or, "the experts do not discuss this matter, so it is not worth discussing." Or, "no one has come to that conclusion, so it is not worth exploring." Or, "you cannot use this expression, because it is not a standard linguistic term." To use such arguments would prevent rather than promote scientific progress. In contrast, I have taught my students: When you learned Hebrew, you had to rely on the words of your teacher and on the grammars. When you now have acquired a knowledge of the language, you should question and test the words of your teachers and the words of the grammars. This is what science really is about: use your mind, explore things you are interested in, and do not rely on "authorities". We should not gag the inquiring mind, and we should respect other viewpoint; not calling a cordial discussion of Hebrew verbs "a mess." When you say that the expressions "make visible," "angle," "field of view" are far from clear in their meaning," I must ask: Have you read my dissertation where I define and explain these expressions? Below I give three English examples: If we look at an event, my analysis relates to which part of the event that is the focus, beginning, middle, end etc. This is the angle. Then I find how great a portion of the event that is the focus. This is the breadth of focus or the area made visible. In 1) a small sequence in the middle of the event is the focus (is made visible), and beginning and end are invisible. In 2) the focus is on the end (and by implication, on the resultant state): the beginning and middle part are invisible. In 3) the whole event from beginning to end is the focus (is visible). Is this difficult to understand? Comrie's definition of the imperfective aspect is: "the internal structure of a situation." This definition has been widely used in the linguistic literature. I find that this definition is not very clear, and therefore I have tried to describe more clearly what this "internal structure" is, by the use of the mentioned expressions and other expressions. There is no requirement for a linguist only to use expressions that have been used by others. If that was the case, linguistic progress would not occur. But a requirement is to clearly explain the expressions one are using. 1) Rita was walking in the garden. 2) Rita has walked to her garden. 3) Rita have been walking in the garden. Allow me a few more comments: One definition of "idiosyncrasy" is: " If a person has an idiosyncrasy, he or she has a little quirk, or a funny behavior, that makes him or her different. If you only say goodbye in French, never in English, that would be an idiosyncrasy. Idio seems like it means stupid, but really it is Latin for "one's own," as an idiosyncrasy is one's own particular, usually odd, behavior. Putting salt in your hot chocolate or needing the light on to sleep or tapping your head while you think are all idiosyncrasies." (https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/idiosyncrasy). To accuse me of being a little quirk and having a funny or odd behavior, and even strengthening the accusation by using the epithet "highly," is not very flattering. The same is true by your attempt to devalue the linguistic quality of my dissertation by claiming that "it does not interact with recent standard linguistic literature." Instead of resorting to namecalling, a scholar should prese nt linguistic arguments While I studied Semitic languages, I also studied linguistics, and I have a degree in applied linguistics (translation). One of the positive characteristics of the evaluation committee was that all the important literature that were relevant for the subject of the dissertation, including the linguistic literature, had been studied and dealt with in a scholarly way. You are welcome to point out which concepts or methods that are found in the standard linguistic literature, and which were relevant to my project, that were left out or not being considered. In order to show the opposite of what you claim, I give the headings of chapter 2, which is entitled: "Methodology, definitions and text." 2:1 "The meaning of "meaning" and its communication. 2.1.1 The concepts signaled by words. 2.1.2 The nature of mental concepts 2.1.3 Lexical and morphosyntactic words 2.1.4 Contextual meaning 2.1.5 To make meaning visible 2.2 Semantics versus pragmatics 2.2.1 Grammaticalization 2.2.2 "Semantic meaning" versus "conversational pragmatic implicature" 2.2.3 The search for semantic meaning 2.2.4 An equipollent model versus a privative one 2.2.5 The fundamental semantic nature of "procedural traits" 2.2.5.1 Durativity versus punctiliarity 2.2.5.2 Telicity versus non-telicity 2.2.5.3 Dynamicity versus stativity 2.3 Time, tense and aspect 2.3.1. Tense 2.3.2 Aspect 2.3.3 The model of tense and aspect that is used in this dissertation 2.3.4 The interplay of tense and aspect in the English verbal system 2.4 The meaning of the Hebrew conjugations 2.4.1 A statistical comparison of time and mood of Hebrew verbs 2.4.1.1 Tense and the Hebrew verbal system 2.4.1.2 Mood and the Hebrew verbal system 2.4.1.3 Aspect and the Hebrew verbal system 2.4.2 A new model for the analysis of aspect 2.4.2.1 The quality of focus 2.4.2.2 The angle of focus 2.4.2.3 The breadth of focus 2.4.3 The consequences of the differences between English and Hebrew aspects. 2.5 Methodology and disposition After a discussion of the verbal systems of the cognate languages, five chapters with a discussion of each finite and infinite verbal form follows. In these chapters, different linguistic issues are discussed, such as a synchronic versus a diachronic approach, whether verbs have the same meaning in poetic and prose texts, the use and misuse of discourse analysis etc. Most of the terms used in chapter 2 and in the other chapters are standard linguistic terms, and the terms used in 2.4.2., 2.4.2.1, 2.4.2.2, and 2.4.3 are based on the three fundamental linguistic parameters: deictic center, event time, and reference time. I proffer to say that your claim that my methodology and use of linguistic terms are out of touch with modern linguistic methodology (if that is what you say), definitely is wrong. Moreover, the dissertation has two valuable linguistic qualities which are rare, 1) the whole Hebrew corpus with 79,574 finite and infinite verbs has been studied and analyzed, and 2) the number of clauses that are analyzed are 4,261, which is an unusually high number for a linguistic thesis. You wrote: "Linguists are not constantly debating what aspect is: they do not claim that aspect is different in Hebrew...the discussion here is not representative of linguistic studies!" Does that mean that if we debate what aspect is, we do something silly that is not representative of linguistics? And if we question whether Hebrew aspects have the same meaning as the English ones, we are out of touch with linguistics? B-hebrew is a discussion list for all persons who are interested in Hebrew. And we cannot expect that each discussion will be of interest for trained linguists. In the linguistic literature you will one the one side find those who call for a strict distinction between semantics and pragmatics. On the other side you will find those who do not put any weight on this. The problem is that a language is a living medium, and a consistent distinction between the two in all cases is not possible. But I think that most linguists would not criticize an attempt to distinguish between semantic and pragmatic factors in as many cases as possible. For example, to ask the question whether the past reference of so many WAYYIQTOLs is an intrinsic part of the verb form or is caused by the context, is a legitimate linguistic question. Yet, it has almost never been asked, at least not written about in discussions of Hebrew verbs. Then back to what scholars should be occupied with, namely, language. I have posted an analysis of the YIQTOLs and WAYYIQTOLs in Psalm 18 (typical of the analyses in my dissertation), and I say that these verbs argue against the view that WAYYIQTOL has an intrinsic past tense, which is your view. I challenge you to show whether this analysis of mine is messy or idiosyncratic and whether the arguments against a past-tense interpretation are valid or not. Best regards, Rolf Furuli Stavern Norway Onsdag 29. Mai 2013 03:02 CEST skrev Ken Penner <[email protected]>: > 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] > > > > _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
