Is this the way to study grammar?

Classical Hebrew morphology and syntax, aspect, linguistics, discourse analysis, and related topics
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Ken M. Penner
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Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Schubert wrote:First, the use of technical jargon (frequently big abstract nouns) makes any form of writing more difficult to follow and runs the risk of being obtuse. ...
A second problem that makes communication difficult is when a writer uses a word or term in a sense which will not be readily understood by the reader. That is a recipe for a failure of communicate.
I agree. I've been embedded in this topic so long I may have lost sight of which expressions are unfamiliar to non-specialists. Which of my terms are obscure?
Ken M. Penner, Ph.D.
St. Francis Xavier University
R.J. Furuli
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 10:51 am

Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by R.J. Furuli »

Dear Karl,

Because you view aspect as an objective property and I view it as a subjective one, from a linguistic viewpoint, we speak two different languages. So, we cannot have a meaningful discussion of aspect, because a meaningful discussion requires an agreement regarding the basics.


Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway

kwrandolph wrote:Dear Rolf:
R.J. Furuli wrote:Dear Ken,

There are different views as to what aspect is, but I think there is an universal agreement that aspect represents the subjective viewpoint of the author;
No. “Aspect” refers to an objective measure of time that is different from tense. At least, that’s what I was taught, and is also on the SIL website.

“Tense” refers to the position of an event on a time line in relation to the time the event is referenced, whether past, present or future.

“Aspect” refers to how the time is to be considered: whether as a whole, complete, one-time or completed event (perfective aspect) or whether the duration of the time is important to the reference of the event, whether continuous, repeated, and several other actions (imperfective aspect).

All events have duration, there’s no such thing as an instantaneous event. So for those languages that conjugate for aspect, they conjugate for that duration and whether or not to consider that duration.
.........

Yours,

Karl W. Randolph.
R.J. Furuli
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 10:51 am

Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by R.J. Furuli »

Dear Schubert,

You need not duck for cover. It is correct that it may be difficult to understand a discussion when two participants use the terms ET (Ken's E) and RT (Ken's R) in different ways. It is also true that the understanding is complicated when a word or term used is not readily understood by the readers. Because of this I have used much space to define my terms and to give examples. Regarding your comments about good communication, there are two issues. We cannot follow Rene Descartes and say "cogito ergo sum" and start with the absolute basis of everything. The first issue is that good communication requires that there is a common understanding of some basics between the writer and his audience; if everything must be explained, the details would overshadow the main points. The second issue is that all complicated matters cannot be explained in simple English. In mathematics and other disciplines, symbols are used to make communication easier, and these symbols are not readily understood be everyone. So the audience must be willing to do some work and learn the meaning of the symbols. This means that good communication requires something both from the writer and from his audience. If there is anything in my discussions of aspect that you want clarified, please let me know.


Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway
Schubert wrote:
kwrandolph wrote: ...
Part of the problem is that you and Ken are using RT and ET in different ways, which makes following this discussion very difficult for third parties.

Your “making visible” may be good psychology, or philosophy, but I don’t see how it fits in with linguistics.

Yours,

Karl W. Randolph.
I agree with these two points made by Karl.

I have no formal training in linguistics but will nonethless be daring and make a few comments on this and similar discussions. From an outside perspective, I see several difficulties with this discussion. First, the use of technical jargon (frequently big abstract nouns) makes any form of writing more difficult to follow and runs the risk of being obtuse. This problem is not unique to linguistics. It occurs in legal academic writing (an area I'm familiar with) as well as other areas of academic writing I've dipped into.

As an aside, in the legal world, the problem of legalese in formal legal documents was recognized probably back in the 1980's when a movement began to write legal documents in plain English. With effort, even complex matters can be expressed in simple English.

A second problem that makes communication difficult is when a writer uses a word or term in a sense which will not be readily understood by the reader. That is a recipe for a failure of communicate.

To use a legal expression, "Those are my submissions", and now perhaps I should duck for cover?
kwrandolph
Posts: 1531
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by kwrandolph »

Dear Rolf:
R.J. Furuli wrote:Dear Karl,

Because you view aspect as an objective property and I view it as a subjective one, from a linguistic viewpoint, we speak two different languages. So, we cannot have a meaningful discussion of aspect, because a meaningful discussion requires an agreement regarding the basics.
Exactly! That’s why we need to agree on terms before making conclusions, and that’s what I see is not being done.

You do agree that tense is an objective measure of time, at least I think you agree. It’s on that basis that you can claim that Biblical Hebrew doesn’t conjugate for tense. I agree with you there.

But the definition for “aspect” that I use is not mine, rather it’s one that I was taught by other linguists. It’s the one that’s on the SIL website. As far as I know, that’s the standard definition for “aspect”.

Using that definition as the standard, Biblical Hebrew doesn’t conjugate for aspect either.

But I don’t understand your definition. Since it’s not the standard definition, should you rather coin a neologism, than to repurpose an already defined term and fill it with your own meaning?

Karl W. Randolph.
R.J. Furuli
Posts: 158
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Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by R.J. Furuli »

Dear Karl,

You have not fully grasped what scholars say about aspect. Carlota Smith, The Parameter of Aspect 1991, p. 91 says: Aspectual viewpoints functions like the lens of a camera, making objects visible to the receiver. Situations are objects on which viewpoint lenses are trained. And just as a camera lens is necessary to make the object available for a picture, so viewpoints are necessary to make visible the situation talked about in the sentence. On p. 93 she says: "The main semantic difference among aspectual viewpoints is how much of the situation they make visible." Smith clearly concludes that aspects are subjective and not objective. Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976, p. 3 says: "Aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation." On p. 4 he says: "It is quite possible for the same speaker to refer to the same situation once with the perfective form, then with an imperfective, without in any way being self-contradictory." Aspect is highly subjective. L.J. Brinton,The Development of English Aspectual Systems, 1988, p. 2 says: "In the history of aspect scholarship, the term /aspect/ has been used in diverse ways, and no single definition of the concept has come to be accepted." Different definitions have been given, but I have never seen a scholar say that aspect is an objective property.

Neither do the SIL definitions portray aspect as objective properties. The SIL definitions leave much to be desired:

"Aspect is a grammatical category associated with verbs that expresses a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb." This definition is so vague that we learn very little from it. For example, tense is also "a grammatical category associated with verbs that expresses a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb". So,how can we distinguish between tense and aspect according to this definition?

"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." States do not have any internal structure, but any part of a state is similar to the state as a whole. So "state" should be removed from the definition. Removing "state," the definition holds for English, where the participle expresses the imperfective aspect, but not for Hebrew where the imperfective aspect expresses conative and resultative situations, both being external and not internal.

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." This definition does not hold for English, where perfect (the perfective aspect) is a point at the end of an event and not the whole of it. Neither does it hold for Hebrew where the beginning or end (a point and not the whole) can be expressed, and a great part, but not the whole event can also be expressed by the perfective aspect.

Any definition of aspect that we start with is random and uncertain, and we are forcing this definition upon the language we are studying. Therefore, it is much better not to start with a particular definition of aspect, but rather to use the universal parameters event time and reference time and see how the relationship between the two can tell us whether a language is aspectual, and in that case, what the meaning of the aspects are.
kwrandolph wrote:Dear Rolf:
R.J. Furuli wrote:Dear Karl,

Because you view aspect as an objective property and I view it as a subjective one, from a linguistic viewpoint, we speak two different languages. So, we cannot have a meaningful discussion of aspect, because a meaningful discussion requires an agreement regarding the basics.
Exactly! That’s why we need to agree on terms before making conclusions, and that’s what I see is not being done.

You do agree that tense is an objective measure of time, at least I think you agree. It’s on that basis that you can claim that Biblical Hebrew doesn’t conjugate for tense. I agree with you there.

But the definition for “aspect” that I use is not mine, rather it’s one that I was taught by other linguists. It’s the one that’s on the SIL website. As far as I know, that’s the standard definition for “aspect”.

Using that definition as the standard, Biblical Hebrew doesn’t conjugate for aspect either.

But I don’t understand your definition. Since it’s not the standard definition, should you rather coin a neologism, than to repurpose an already defined term and fill it with your own meaning?

Karl W. Randolph.

Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway
Ruth Mathys
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:49 pm

Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by Ruth Mathys »

I am with Rolf here on the concept of aspect. IMHO at the very heart is its subjectivity. At least in my native tongue, a speaker can get all kinds of interesting pragmatic effects by using the aspect that isn't 'normal' for a given verb. E.g. the Coca Cola slogan "I'm loving it" which goes against the usual rule that experiencer verbs like love can't take the progressive form. By using the 'wrong' form, the slogan makes us feel like we're in the middle of the (presumably pleasurable) experience. A thorough cross-linguistic study would indicate the extent to which it is normal for languages to be able to use 'wrong' aspects for effect. (For that matter, 'wrong' tenses as well.) This is why I claim that you need quite a bit of evidence to be able to claim that a language doesn't do something that is so prevalent in languages throughout the world (and we have such a limited corpus to work with). How can you be sure that a given passage (especially if it's poetry) isn't just messing with the conventions?

It seems to me that there are two ways of coming at a passage. Some people start with an assumption about the meaning of the passage (genre, time reference, etc.) and then try to assign values to the verbs based on that. Others start with an assumption about the values of each verb, and then try to make sense of the passage based on that. Both approaches are valid and important, and we need to share our insights.

I'm with Rolf too that the LinguaLinks definitions of aspect and tense (as found on the SIL website) are less than helpful. But they were never intended to be used independently of reading the literature on the topic.

Ruth Mathys
kwrandolph
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Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by kwrandolph »

R.J. Furuli wrote:Dear Karl,

You have not fully grasped what scholars say about aspect.
That is true. My knowledge of “aspect” dates from decades ago, from works written in the 1960s and earlier. At that time, “aspect” was an objective measurement of time, and that only. As a non-professional linguist, I haven’t followed newer redefinitions of the term.

Ken quoted Binnock as saying that in much of linguistic literature, “aspect” has become a “trash bin” into which is thrown all sorts of meaning. When a term means anything, it means nothing. Either we clean out all the trash and crud from that “trash bin” and return it to be a container with a specific meaning, or we coin a neologism for the historic meaning of “aspect” and let the now meaningless modern term sink into well deserved obscurity.
R.J. Furuli wrote:Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976, p. 3 says: "Aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation." On p. 4 he says: "It is quite possible for the same speaker to refer to the same situation once with the perfective form, then with an imperfective, without in any way being self-contradictory."
These quotes from Comrie can refer to objective measurements of time, just as I was taught.
R.J. Furuli wrote: Aspect is highly subjective. L.J. Brinton,The Development of English Aspectual Systems, 1988, p. 2 says: "In the history of aspect scholarship, the term /aspect/ has been used in diverse ways, and no single definition of the concept has come to be accepted." Different definitions have been given, but I have never seen a scholar say that aspect is an objective property.
Yes you have seen an objective property to “aspect”—“a temporal view” is an objective property.
R.J. Furuli wrote:Neither do the SIL definitions portray aspect as objective properties. The SIL definitions leave much to be desired:
I agree they leave much to be desired.
R.J. Furuli wrote:"Aspect is a grammatical category associated with verbs that expresses a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb."
Notice—“temporal”—last I looked, this refers to time. This isn’t a category referring to viewpoints, what can be seen, what is brought into view, angle of view, rather something dealing with objective time.

Yet “a temporal view”—tense is a temporal view, so do you claim that tense is subjective and not objective?

SIL needs to get its act together on this definition, as it is so vague as to be meaningless. However, when looking at examples of aspect given below the gloss, I find objective measures of time.
R.J. Furuli wrote:"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."
Seeing as this is a subset of a temporal measure, it makes sense. When it’s taken out of temporal context then it becomes vague.
R.J. Furuli wrote: States do not have any internal structure,
Yes they do, continuous aspect if expressed with a verb.
R.J. Furuli wrote: but any part of a state is similar to the state as a whole. So "state" should be removed from the definition. Removing "state," the definition holds for English, where the participle expresses the imperfective aspect, but not for Hebrew where the imperfective aspect expresses conative and resultative situations, both being external and not internal.
This is what is at the heart of why I started this thread—you have à priori defined Biblical Hebrew as an aspectual language, then put into this “trash bin” of “aspect” the meanings that you want. This confuses rather than communicates.

My question: if we are to study linguistics on a technical level, should we not first define our terms, then analyze the language to see if it fits the patterns? Or should we assume that the terms apply to the language, then redefine the terms to fit the language? Which approach is more likely to lead to communication? To confusion?
R.J. Furuli wrote: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." This definition does not hold for English, where perfect (the perfective aspect) is a point at the end of an event and not the whole of it.
Wrong on two counts.

The English perfect is not the perfective aspect as far as grammar is concerned.

“I have lived in Norway.” refers to the whole event.

“I have worked here for ten years.” can refer to imperfective aspect when referring to an action that is continuous through the present time.
R.J. Furuli wrote:Neither does it hold for Hebrew where the beginning or end (a point and not the whole) can be expressed, and a great part, but not the whole event can also be expressed by the perfective aspect.
Strictly speaking, “aspect” in grammar refers to different and recognizable forms of verbs that carry meaning. Seeing as both Qatal and Yiqtol can carry both perfective and imperfective meanings, there’s no such thing as “perfective aspect” in Biblical Hebrew.
R.J. Furuli wrote:Any definition of aspect that we start with is random and uncertain, and we are forcing this definition upon the language we are studying.
That is true if and only if we insist that the language conjugates for aspect. If, on the other hand, we do not force on the language the presupposition that it must conjugate for aspect, we then are free to take a common, widely understood definition for “aspect” then ask if the language conjugates for that definition—if it doesn’t conjugate for that definition, then we’re free to say that the language doesn’t conjugate for aspect.

To me it seems backwards to insist à priori that a language must conjugate for aspect without making a study first whether it actually does or not.
R.J. Furuli wrote: Therefore, it is much better not to start with a particular definition of aspect, but rather to use the universal parameters event time and reference time and see how the relationship between the two can tell us whether a language is aspectual, and in that case, what the meaning of the aspects are.
I’m sorry, but this sounds like a nonsense statement to me.

If you had taken the same approach to “tense” as you have here to “aspect”, would that not invalidate your dissertation?

Karl W. Randolph.
Last edited by kwrandolph on Mon Oct 07, 2013 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
kwrandolph
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Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by kwrandolph »

Dear Ruth:
Ruth Mathys wrote:I am with Rolf here on the concept of aspect. IMHO at the very heart is its subjectivity. At least in my native tongue,
What is your native tongue? Mine is American English, as used in the Midwest U.S. What’s yours?
Ruth Mathys wrote: a speaker can get all kinds of interesting pragmatic effects by using the aspect that isn't 'normal' for a given verb. E.g. the Coca Cola slogan "I'm loving it" which goes against the usual rule that experiencer verbs like love can't take the progressive form.
Who says? From where did that rule come?
Ruth Mathys wrote: By using the 'wrong' form, the slogan makes us feel like we're in the middle of the (presumably pleasurable) experience.
But is it ‘wrong’ in American English, where that slogan was coined? I doubt it.
Ruth Mathys wrote: A thorough cross-linguistic study would indicate the extent to which it is normal for languages to be able to use 'wrong' aspects for effect. (For that matter, 'wrong' tenses as well.) This is why I claim that you need quite a bit of evidence to be able to claim that a language doesn't do something that is so prevalent in languages throughout the world (and we have such a limited corpus to work with). How can you be sure that a given passage (especially if it's poetry) isn't just messing with the conventions?
Because the patterns I refer to are found not only in poetry, but also in prose (for Biblical Hebrew) and all other literary genre.
Ruth Mathys wrote:It seems to me that there are two ways of coming at a passage. Some people start with an assumption about the meaning of the passage (genre, time reference, etc.) and then try to assign values to the verbs based on that. Others start with an assumption about the values of each verb, and then try to make sense of the passage based on that. Both approaches are valid and important, and we need to share our insights.
And some come with just question marks, and try to find patterns.

Actually I start with definitions of terms as defined by usage throughout Tanakh, then look for meaning of a passage (genre, time reference, etc.) (first layer of patterns) then look at those patterns to see how they are expressed by specific forms (values of verbs shown by conjugations) (second layer of patterns).

So I see that mine is a third approach.
Ruth Mathys wrote:I'm with Rolf too that the LinguaLinks definitions of aspect and tense (as found on the SIL website) are less than helpful. But they were never intended to be used independently of reading the literature on the topic.
That’s a mistake, as the literature is not always available to those who read the site.

Karl W. Randolph.
Ruth Mathys
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 6:49 pm

Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by Ruth Mathys »

Ruth Mathys wrote: I am with Rolf here on the concept of aspect. IMHO at the very heart is its subjectivity. At least in my native tongue,



What is your native tongue? Mine is American English, as used in the Midwest U.S. What’s yours?
Australian English.
Ruth Mathys wrote: a speaker can get all kinds of interesting pragmatic effects by using the aspect that isn't 'normal' for a given verb. E.g. the Coca Cola slogan "I'm loving it" which goes against the usual rule that experiencer verbs like love can't take the progressive form.



Who says? From where did that rule come?
Well, would it be natural for you to say "I am loving my children" or "I am being wet"?
Ruth Mathys wrote: A thorough cross-linguistic study would indicate the extent to which it is normal for languages to be able to use 'wrong' aspects for effect. (For that matter, 'wrong' tenses as well.) This is why I claim that you need quite a bit of evidence to be able to claim that a language doesn't do something that is so prevalent in languages throughout the world (and we have such a limited corpus to work with). How can you be sure that a given passage (especially if it's poetry) isn't just messing with the conventions?



Because the patterns I refer to are found not only in poetry, but also in prose (for Biblical Hebrew) and all other literary genre.
Could you give examples from various genres of the patterns you see, and how you interpret them?
Ruth Mathys wrote:I'm with Rolf too that the LinguaLinks definitions of aspect and tense (as found on the SIL website) are less than helpful. But they were never intended to be used independently of reading the literature on the topic.



That’s a mistake, as the literature is not always available to those who read the site.
I think you would do well to read other linguistics sites as well, especially ones that go into greater detail.

Ruth Mathys
kwrandolph
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Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Is this the way to study grammar?

Post by kwrandolph »

Ruth Mathys wrote:
Ruth Mathys wrote: a speaker can get all kinds of interesting pragmatic effects by using the aspect that isn't 'normal' for a given verb. E.g. the Coca Cola slogan "I'm loving it" which goes against the usual rule that experiencer verbs like love can't take the progressive form.

Who says? From where did that rule come?
Well, would it be natural for you to say "I am loving my children"
Yes, when doing an action showing that love.
Ruth Mathys wrote: or "I am being wet"?
Not for a state, but when doing an action, e.g. “I am being nice to my children by teaching them well.”
Ruth Mathys wrote:
Ruth Mathys wrote: A thorough cross-linguistic study would indicate the extent to which it is normal for languages to be able to use 'wrong' aspects for effect. (For that matter, 'wrong' tenses as well.) This is why I claim that you need quite a bit of evidence to be able to claim that a language doesn't do something that is so prevalent in languages throughout the world (and we have such a limited corpus to work with). How can you be sure that a given passage (especially if it's poetry) isn't just messing with the conventions?

Because the patterns I refer to are found not only in poetry, but also in prose (for Biblical Hebrew) and all other literary genre.
Could you give examples from various genres of the patterns you see, and how you interpret them?
Quite simply, I don’t know of any cases where conjugations in poetry are different from what is expected in prose.

You claim they exist, so could you provide some examples of ‘wrong’ conjugations in poetry done for effect?

On the other hand, poetry will use word order for effect, a larger vocabulary than normal for prose. and indirect speech instead of a straight statement. But I know of no ‘wrong’ conjugations of verbs for effect.
Ruth Mathys wrote:
Ruth Mathys wrote:I'm with Rolf too that the LinguaLinks definitions of aspect and tense (as found on the SIL website) are less than helpful. But they were never intended to be used independently of reading the literature on the topic.

That’s a mistake, as the literature is not always available to those who read the site.
I think you would do well to read other linguistics sites as well, especially ones that go into greater detail.
Then shouldn’t SIL list URLs of such sites? As it is, I don’t see any, only off line books.
Ruth Mathys wrote:Ruth Mathys
So do you agree with Rolf that “aspect” is an undefined term, free to be filled with whatever meaning a researcher may desire so that the researcher may claim that the language he is studying conjugates for “aspect”?

Karl W. Randolph.
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