The fallacy of "prophetic perfect"

[Schubert]

Karl, what does "TAM" mean in your penultimate sentence?

[R.J. Furuli]

Karl W Randolph wrote:

You are the only one I’ve met (we’ve met on line, though not in person) who calls “aspect” = “event time”. Further, no one else I’ve met or read about talks about making part of event time visible while the whole may remain invisible.

No one else that I know of talks about objective and subjective aspect. Aspect has been defined by every other source that I know of as an objective measure of time.

Dear Karl,

You have misunderstod my position. I do not call “aspect” “event time.” But I say that aspect is the relationship between, or the function of event time (ET) and reference time (RT), while tense is the relationship between, or the function of, reference time (RT) and the deictic center (C).

With all respect for your long experience in Hebrew studies and having read the Tanakh several times, as far as the understanding of aspect in English and Hebrew, you have read much too little. And here you have much to learn. I do not speak about “objective and subjective aspect, but some do.” But I speak about objective and subjective properties in Hebrew and English. Lexical meaning, Aktionsart, and the stems (binyanim) are objective properties, and aspects (prefix groups (prefix conjugations) and suffix groups (suffix conjugations) of verbs are subjective properties.

The first one to use the parameters “Event time” (E, my ET) and reference time (R, my RT) and speech time (S, my deictic center, C) was Hans Reichenbach in his book Elements of Symbolic Logic (1947); http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Re ... y_of_tense)

If you make an Internet search with the words “reference time and event time” you will see that these parameters are in general us by linguists (for example, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tense-aspect/; https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesp/cla ... 130/TA.pdf)

In order to show that aspect represents the subjective viewpoint of the writer, I quote three sources.

Brinton, L.J. The Development of English Aspectual Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, 3:
“Aspect is a matter of the speaker’s viewpoint or perspective on a situation.”

D. M. dos Santos de Sousa Marques Pinto, Tense and Aspect in English and Portuguese—A Contrastive Semantical Study. Universitade Téchnica de Lisboa. Lisboa, 1996, 66: “Aspect, as seen above, is related to a point of view, or perspective.”

B. Comrie, Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems, 1976, 3: “Aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation.”

A book where tense and aspects consistently is analyzed on the basis of event time, refence time, and the deictic center is M. B. Olsen A Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1997. This book is a “must” for you in connection with learning what aspect is and what it is not.


Best regards,


Rolf J. Furuli
Stavern
Norway

[kwrandolph]

With all respect for your long experience in Hebrew studies and having read the Tanakh several times, as far as the understanding of aspect in English and Hebrew, you have read much too little.

I can plead guilty to that. I limited my studies to linguistics and grammar, I didn’t study philosophy. Aktionsart and Aspekt (correct spelling) are philosophical terms, not grammar strictly speaking.

The first one to use the parameters “Event time” (E, my ET) and reference time (R, my RT) and speech time (S, my deictic center, C) was Hans Reichenbach in his book Elements of Symbolic Logic (1947); http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Re ... %27s_(1947)_theory_of_tense)

The title of the book should put up a big, red flag. The title alone already indicates that the subject matter of the book is philosophy, not linguistics per se.

Grammar is the study of language forms. Does a language have different forms for tense? Aspect? Mood? If so, what are they? If not, how are those concepts conveyed in that language? The “Why?” a particular form that has a grammatical meaning may be used in a sentence is a philosophical question, not a linguistic one (strictly speaking).

I was taught linguistics. In linguistics, aspect (not Aspekt) was taught as a universal property of all languages, as an objective measure of events and duration of time. Some languages, like Russian, conjugate for aspect, i.e. have different forms to indicate aspect. Other languages, like English, indicate aspect through contextual clues. “Perfective” and “imperfective” are terms connected with linguistic aspect; “objective and subjective properties”, “Aktionsart”, “Aspekt” and “deictic center” are philosophical concepts.

A book where tense and aspects consistently is analyzed on the basis of event time, refence time, and the deictic center is M. B. Olsen A Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1997. This book is a “must” for you in connection with learning what aspect is and what it is not.

Notice, the spelling of “Aspekt” has been changed to “aspect”. Was that deliberate, or a process of laziness? That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that change of spelling causes confusion in the discussion of languages. I still use “aspect” in its linguistic meaning, as part of TAM (Tense, Aspect, Mood). You follow these other writers to use “aspect” as a misspelling for “Aspekt” as a philosophical term.

Have I correctly analyzed the different understandings of terms in our discussion so far? With this analysis can we communicate rather than just talking past each other? Do you have a new term for the traditional linguistic term “aspect”, and is it “event time”?

Wish you well,

Karl W. Randolph

[Saro Fedele]

Dear Rolf,

first of all, I’m very happy to have the possibility to speak with you about these important topics.

At your request “Are there list-members who really are interested in Hebrew grammar?” I feel like answering nearly like Isaiah, ‘Here I am!’ (by the way, I am also a friend of Oscar, your Italian publisher of The Role of Theology).

Since away back in 1970, I’ve found Hebrew grammar very fascinating. But, also, through my studies I arrived to the conviction that if we search for a comprehensive understanding of the (so-called) ancient Hebrew language we don’t avoid to accept the fact that a phenomenological (inductive) approach isn’t enough, to compile a Hebrew grammar. Like you say in another post (I’m quoting by heart/concept not by exact words), the vast majority of the ancient Hebrew grammars are only reconstructions of grammar rules, made on the basis of some repeated linguistic phenomena (patterns). This leads – inevitably - to a restrictive view of the Hebrew grammar, since there’s another powerful method which is able to help us to compile an ancient Hebrew grammar, the deductive approach. But on this particular ramification of the problem we may speak another time, in another thread, or by email, if you like…

You’re right when you say that (bold is mine) ‘the perfects really were past/completed, but that was in the mind of the prophet […]’.

I suppose that this is the key of the whole argument.

Any label we may fasten to these Hebrew grammar phenomena (I’m including also the ‘imperfect’ in the discussion) it is clear that they are linked with the duality between completed action/condition (expressed by a verbal form) versus uncompleted action/condition.
It is clear - in the same way - that starting from this linchpin we cannot deduce that a completed action/condition (expressed by a verbal form) triggers (even just in our mind, without any performed translation) a concept of a temporal factor linked with past.

In an analogous way, we cannot deduce that a uncompleted action/condition (expressed by a verbal form) triggers (even just in our mind, without any performed translation) a concept of a temporal factor linked with future.
Like you demonstrated in your The Role of Theology (with the help of a fine explanatory table, based on the confrontation between Psalm 107 text and an amount of Bible versions), we may infer the tenses (temporal factors) of a Hebrew verbal form only by the context (in a pragmatical way), and not deducing it from the verbal form itself.

Anyway, the vast majority of Bible versions translate the Hebrew texts without taking in account the difference between ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ (I use these terms only for practical purpose, not for a claimed precise meaning of them). This fact demonstrates that these two grammatical phenomena aren’t linked with a semantic factor (an objective one), but with a mental factor (a subjective one).
However, these phenomena must possess a linguistic valency. If no, I don’t understand why the ancient Hebrew writers waste time and efforts to conjugate thousands of verbal forms to indicate one or another of the two phenomena (‘perfect’ or ‘imperfect’).

Then, ‘perfect’/’imperfect’ must have a valency, actually. It has no relation with semantics, but with something in the speaker/writer mind (and consequentially, in hearer/reader mind).

But, what kind of valency could possess the pair ‘perfect’/’imperfect’?
I think this is linked with the hearer/reader capacity of identification, that is, living one’s part.
Let me explain this concept with an example.

Suppose – on a morning, by a riverside - you’ve catched a big fish. Now, your intent was to prepare it, then roast it, and, then… eat it, of course (I hope you like eating fishes). And this sequence of events was exactly what happened.
Now, imagine yourself devoting to relate this happening to an your friend.
Let we focus, now, on your past action of roasting the fish on a barbecue.
This action is obviously to be placed in the past (your narration to your friend makes this temporal factor clear). But you want that your friend could identify himself inside your story, like he were present there.
So, if you want he (your friend) may imagine a time point inside the process of roasting the fish (maybe waiting impatiently it reaches the cooking point), you are trying now to use the ‘imperfect’ aspect (I’m using this adjective in a very generic way, not in a technical one)
If you, instead, want he (your friend) may imagine a time point outside the process of roasting the fish, but before the action of eating it (maybe forestasting the oncoming enjoyment of it), you are trying now to use the ‘perfect’ aspect.

According my viewpoint, in other words, ‘perfect/imperfect’ aspects are related with a prompting meditative purpose (not coactive, obviously). This explains why we are able to produce Bible versions without insert in them any valency of these ‘aspects’, even though, doing so, we are removing this gentle incitement to ‘living one’s part’.

Let me illustrate this concept with a Bible passage: Genesis 1:27.

ויברא אלהים את־האדם בצלמו בצלם אלהים ברא אתו זכר ונקבה ברא אתם

The traditional translation is – roughly – “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

The same verb root (ברא) is mentioned three times in this passage, the first time to the ‘imperfect’ aspect (יברא) [a], the second and third time to the ‘perfect’ aspect (ברא).

Further, for logical purpose we may subdivide this passage in 3 stichs (in an interlinear wording mode):
(I) So created (A) God (B) man (C) in his own image (D),
(II) in the image (D) of God (B) he created (A) him (C);
(III) male and female he created them.

Putting aside the third stich that has an apposition purpose, let we focus ourselves on the I-II stichs. Clearly, the second include a conceptual repetition of the first stich.

We would have to ask to ourselves:
Are – the I-II stichs – forming a chiasmus (a poetry device)? No, because the sub-unities of a supposed chiasmus do not obey – in this case – to the expected structure ABCD-DCBA (instead, like we see, we found a ABCD-DBAC structure here). Moreover, a chiasmus utilizes different terms for each of the specular parts.
Are – the I-II stichs – forming a parallelism (a poetry device)? No, because – also in this case - a parallelism repeats the same concept with different terms. Here, instead we have the same terms.
Are – the I-II stichs – forming another poetry device? I do not spot any of them.
Are – the I-II stichs – forming an emphatic structure? Hardly it is so. In fact, in cases of this kind, the terms and their disposition (syntax) are the same.
So, have we no option but to consider this passage a redundant wording?
Not necessarily.

So, what?
Why we don’t try to apply – practically – the concepts included in the previous example of the ‘fisher’? As an experiment, we may apply to the verb root (ברא) - when it is conjugated (in this passage) in the perfective ‘aspect’ – the more corresponding English tense called Past Perfect.
Differently, we may apply to the same verb root - when it is conjugated (in this passage) in the imperfective ‘aspect’ – the more corresponding English tense called Past Continuous.

A warning: with this experiment, we don’t are confusing temporal factors and ‘meditative’ factors.
If we compose the following English sentence, ‘He had eaten the fruit’, we haven’t triggered here a confusion between the temporal factor (Past, objectively) and the mental completeness (subjectively) of the action.
In analogous manner, in ‘He was eating the fruit’, we haven’t triggered here a confusion between the temporal factor (Past, objectively) and the mental incompleteness (subjectively) of the action.
They are standing together, next to each other, harmoniously.

So, in what manner we may translate this passage, giving a sound valency to each of the two ‘aspects’?

“Then, God was creating (יברא) the Humans within a semblance of Him, within a semblance of God He had created (ברא) them. Male and female He had created (ברא) them.”

‘Yeah, maybe this is possible’ - somebody could say - ‘but, in actual fact, what ‘surplus value’ have you added to the traditional translation?’.

I imagine a superlative sculptor that chisels – out of a piece of wood/stone – a human figure having a human model near him. God - too - have a ‘model’ near Him while He chiselled man, not a human model, but – far better - the semblance of Himself.

So, the form יברא (‘imperfect’) try to gently incite the hearer/reader of this passage, from my viewpoint, to imagine that God, inside all the period of the creation of man, had before Him the ‘model’ of His own semblance.

The form ברא (‘perfect’), instead, try to gently incite the hearer/reader of the passage, from my viewpoint, to imagine that God, when He finished this creation’s masterpiece – comparing it with the constant ‘model’ He imposed to Himself (that is, His own semblance) - He saw (compare Gen 1:31) that He adhered to that ‘model’, perfectly.

With respect,
Saro Fedele.

Note:
a) I strongly disagree with the Waw Consecutive/Inversive/Narrative/et cetera Theory. From my viewpoint it is a mere invention.

P.S. I would like you email me to share more arguments like these, if you want. I suppose the points we agree one another outnumber those in which we disagree. My email address is sarofedele@gmail.com.

[Isaac Fried]

Here is Gen. 1:27 parsed

וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת הָאָדָם
בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים, בָּרָא אֹתוֹ
זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בָּרָא אֹתָם

וַיִּבְרָא = בא-היא-ברא

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

Something else. I am afraid you get unnecessarily entangled in this perplexing "perfect" and "imperfect" thing.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

My English translation to Gen. 1:27:
And he created (וַיִּבְרָא) the human race
in his image, in the image of God, (he) created it
male and female (he) created them

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[kwrandolph]

Dear Saro:

The first step in analyzing grammar is to recognize the semantic meanings of different forms. What do the different forms, different conjugations, actually mean?

To give an analogy from metallurgy, if we want to make certain tests on aluminum, the first step is to make sure that we have a piece of aluminum and not iron. If we are not careful to make that first step, then then we could end up with GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).

Similarly, in languages, does the language being studied have different forms? If so, where and how are those forms used?

To give an example from English: if we take an infinitive form, for example “catch”. If a suffix “-es” is found when it is used to refer to present actions in the third person singular and only that, then we recognize that that form refers to third person singular present action. The suffix itself has semantic meaning when added to a verb.

When analyzing English language, there’s no prefix nor suffix added for present action when used with first person, second person, not even for third person plural. After making the observations, we can make a rule concerning the forms used to indicate present actions.

Looking at English, we find that when most verbs are used to refer to past actions, they have a different form, namely by adding “-ed” to the verb. Again the rule follows the observation. There are a few verbs that don’t follow the pattern, one of those verbs is “catch”—when it’s used to refer to past action, its form is “caught” not “catched”. But the pattern indicating past action is so well known that if someone who doesn’t know English perfectly makes a mistake and says “catched” instead of “caught”, it’s still understood.

Because English has different forms to indicate when an action takes place, it is said to have tenses. “Tense” refers to the forms used in languages to indicate when an action takes place.

Does English have different forms to indicate the type of action, whether one-time or continuing, whether finished (perfective) or unfinished (imperfective)? These and more are the linguistic aspect. The answer is “no”, English language doesn’t have specific forms to indicate aspect. Rather, if aspect is important in a narrative, it’s indicated by context. Because there are no specific forms to indicate aspect, it is said that English doesn’t conjugate for aspect.

Now let’s get to Biblical Hebrew:

When I started learning Hebrew, it was assumed that Tiberian Hebrew was the same as Biblical Hebrew. Tiberian Hebrew’s verbal forms were used to denote time—past, present and future. Therefore people assumed that Biblical Hebrew was a tense-based language.

But when people tried to apply tense consistently, it didn’t work. Qatal verbs are used for past, present and future actions. Yiqtol verbs are used for past, present and future actions. Participles which Tiberian Hebrew takes as present tense, again are used for past, present and future. Hence Qatal, Yiqtol and participles are not tense markers in Biblical Hebrew

The next theory to come out is that Qatal and Yiqtol denote aspect: Qatal the perfective aspect, Yiqtol the imperfective. Again, Qatal verbs are found in contexts where they are used as imperfective verbs, while many Yiqtol verbs are used in perfective aspect. A good example is Proverbs 31:10–31 where all the verbs, a mixture of Qatal and Yiqtol conjugations, all refer to present action, continuous (imperfective) action.

Because both Qatal and Yiqtol are used to express both perfective and imperfective aspect, Biblical Hebrew doesn’t conjugate for aspect.

What I’ve described above are two cases where Hebrew scholars started with theories, then tried to match them to what is actually present in the language. They got it backwards. They should have started with observation, then built their understanding of Biblical Hebrew from that.

There are still people who claim that Biblical Hebrew is a language that conjugates for tense. Others claim that Biblical Hebrew conjugates for aspect. Observation supports neither theory. Linguists recognize that languages express three main ideas, shortened to TAM (Tense, Aspect, Mood). Are there more?

Moods include indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, and more. Can we find patterns of Biblical Hebrew that correspond to modality? If so, then we don’t need to resort to psychological interpretations and/or philosophical concepts like Aspekt, Aktionsart, objective and subjective properties and so forth in order to understand the language.

Based on observation, it can be recognized that the different conjugations correspond to different modalities. There are only two conjugations—Qatal and Yiqtol—so more than one mood are attached to each conjugation, the contexts indicate which moods, but the patterns are consistent. I’ve discussed previously the patterns that I found. Unlike the two other theories mentioned above—tense and aspect—I started with observation then tried to explain the patterns that I found.

I hope this helps.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Isaac Fried]

I am sorry , but I left out a word in the first line of my English translation to Gen. 1:27. Here it is again, repaired:

And he created (וַיִּבְרָא), God, the human race
in His image, in the image of God, (he) created it
male and female (he) created them

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[R.J. Furuli]

Dear Saro,

First of all I will complement you for your very good knowledge of Classical Hebrew. As you say: "the points we agree one another outnumber those in which we disagree," such as prophetic perfect and imperfect consecutive. You have given many good examples in your post—examples that need to be meditated on. It seems that we have some disagreements in connection with the meaning of Hebrew aspects, and disagreements may cause a sharpening of one's own arguments. Thank you very much for a fine post.


Best regards,

Rolf J. Furuli
Stavern
Norway