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Alternative Hebrew Aspect selections


Ken Simpson

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Hi,

It think it would be good to offer the modern versions of the first three Hebrew aspects in accordance.

 

here in Australia at least, many schools are leaving the Perfect, Imperfect, Waw-Consecutive for more morphologically descriptive names. I think this is true is significant numbers of Schools around the world as well.

 

The alternatives (which I would suggest would be a Hebrew preferences item) - Qatal, Yiqtol, Wayyiqtol.

 

Thanks

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One of my Hebrew profs required us to use Suffix or Prefix instead of Perfect or Imperfect. That said, I would tend to think it's simplest for us to continue to use the 'standard' terms in-app and allow users to use their preference when referring to these terms.

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Agree with Ken. We have to explain the terms offered in every seminar as users aren't familiar with perfect/imperfect (as these are now discussed more with regard to aspect than to tense-forms).

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This may be true down under (being upside down all the time must do stuff to your brains), but is it true for the majority of seminaries and schools in the USA? Australia is our second biggest market, but US still rules that area. If there is sufficient support we could perhaps program it as an option, like European notation. However, no two scholars agree on everything, so would there even be an alternate nomenclature that would meet wide acceptance?

 

I am moving this topic to the main forums so that we get wider feedback.

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This may be true down under (being upside down all the time must do stuff to your brains), but is it true for the majority of seminaries and schools in the USA? Australia is our second biggest market, but US still rules that area. If there is sufficient support we could perhaps program it as an option, like European notation. However, no two scholars agree on everything, so would there even be an alternate nomenclature that would meet wide acceptance?

 

I am moving this topic to the main forums so that we get wider feedback.

Thanks Helen, I would love to hear what others are finding...

 

And being upside down all the time sniarb ruo ot gnihton soed!!

Edited by Ken Simpson
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I agree with the OP.

 

As do I. We're trained to work with both systems when learning Biblical Hebrew, but qatal/yiqtol is slowly taking over the perfect/imperfect distinctions here. And even more so for comparative Semitic linguistics.

 

This may be true down under (being upside down all the time must do stuff to your brains), but is it true for the majority of seminaries and schools in the USA? Australia is our second biggest market, but US still rules that area. If there is sufficient support we could perhaps program it as an option, like European notation. However, no two scholars agree on everything, so would there even be an alternate nomenclature that would meet wide acceptance?

 

I am moving this topic to the main forums so that we get wider feedback.

 

This would be great! I'd really like such a feature.

 

With kind regards

 

Pchris

Edited by Pchris
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I should add to that, we're also taught that the qatal (‏ ‎[VERB perfect]‏ ‎<NOT>‏ ‎<PRECEDED BY>‏ ‎<WITHIN 1 Words> ו) is not the same as weqatal (ו <followed by> <within 1 word> [VERB perfect]) ) (nb orders reversed).

this is currently not an option, and to search for a qatal that is not a weqatal requires this fiddling around every time.

 

I would also add cohortative - I'm not sure how I would even search for that (without the syntax module). the only volative option is the imperative (i.e. 2nd person).

 

so ideally the list would be:

qatal **

yiqtol **

weqatal *

wayyiqtol **

cohortative *

imperative

infinitive absolute

infinitive construct

active participle

passive participle

 

* additional

** renamed

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here in Australia at least, many schools are leaving the Perfect, Imperfect, Waw-Consecutive for more morphologically descriptive names. I think this is true is significant numbers of Schools around the world as well...

 

C. L. Seow's, A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew quietly released back in 1987 (revised 1995) was probably the first mainstream introductory grammar released in the states to make extensive use of the morphologically descriptive method.

 

 

Here below are the seven major בִּנְיָנִים Binyanim = Constructions (page 78 of Seow)

 

Pattern = Traditional name

Qatal = Qal

Niqtal = Niphal

Qittel = Piel

Quttal = Pual

hiqtil = Hiphil

hoqtal = Hophal

hitattel = Hithpael

Edited by bkMitchell
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Hi Brian, - Seow used these names for the the binyanim, and he was quite progressive in that, but the ones I cave come across are not for the binyanim but for the aspect (which would normally be dubbed perfect, imperfect, waw-consecutive, infinitive construct, infinitive absolute, imperative, etc etc).

 

I don’t like Seow’s grammar personally, but I do like the descriptive terms he uses.

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The morphological categories are something I would strongly endorse. They are about the only "semantically neutral" (or close to it) option. For instance, I do not think that there even is such as a thing as the "was-consecutive" perfect. It's just a perfect, but used with modal/irrealis semantics.

 

But "cohortative," as I suspect it is intended, is not a morph category and it is not reflected morphologically all the time (that is, not all 1cs jussives use the cohortative -ah). Anyway, it's already available in the "other" drop-down menu under the verb (see below).

post-29948-0-32298700-1413126260_thumb.png

 

 

So, this is what I would like to see in Accordance, since I think it would make the verbal categories neutral (i.e., less tied to any one theory) and thus more scholarly:

qatal

yiqtol

wayyiqtol

participle active

participle passive

imperative

infinitive absolute

infinitive construct

 

 

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I would like to add my support to Robert Holmstedt's comments. As someone who has published a while on the verbal system, the infinitives, participles, and imperative forms are very little disputed. By contrast, the morphological labels (qatal, yiqtol, and wayyiqtol) are widely employed in debates about the verbal system because of their neutrality.

 

Also in line with Robert's comments, the case of the so-called cohortative and weqatal are a more complicated matters. The current means of searching for these forms correctly represents the morphological ambiguity of these forms: as also with the jussive, these forms cannot be reliably distinguished morphologically in a good number of cases (e.g., from the yiqtol and waw-prefixed qatal), so we should not mislead Accordance users to assume they are entirely distinct forms in the system. In any case, I do not believe the underlying morphological tags would even allow distinguishing weqatal (by which I mean Irrealis use of qatal) from waw + qatal.

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The morphological categories are something I would strongly endorse. They are about the only "semantically neutral" (or close to it) option.

 

 

I concur with Dr. Holmstedt, along with Dr. Cook

 

 

but is it true for the majority of seminaries and schools in the USA?

 

I'm not sure, but these terms have been used for a long time. John Sailhamer preferred them in 1986 at TEDS. He also preferred them in his 1990 article, A Database Approach to the Analysis of Hebrew Narrative, Maarov 5/6 (Spring 1990), 323.

 

"To avoid making assumptions about the semantics of the Hebrew verbal system, the following notation of the type of verbal predicate is useful: QATAL, YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, YAQOM, QETOL. The verbal stems, such as NIPHAL, PIEL, and HIPHIL, can be noted in a separate part of the database record."

 

His YAQOM refers to "3rd and 1st person Volition moods, viz, Jussive and Cohortative."

 

 

 

So, this is what I would like to see in Accordance, since I think it would make the verbal categories neutral (i.e., less tied to any one theory) and thus more scholarly:

qatal

yiqtol

wayyiqtol

participle active

participle passive

imperative

infinitive absolute

infinitive construct

 

Robert, would you consider

 

 

qatal

yiqtol

wayyiqtol

qotel

qatul

qetol

infinitive absolute (keep, since have to keep infinitive construct)

infinitive construct (keep, since already used qetol)

 

 

If there is sufficient support we could perhaps program it as an option

 

Even if the majority doesn't prefer these terms (yet), making it an option will help make it so. :)

 

 

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Thanks Helen, I would love to hear what others are finding...

 

And being upside down all the time sniarb ruo ot gnihton soed!!

 

Being upside down does seem to impair your ability to spell does backwards? :)

 

Interesting discussion. We're just in 'pre-Hebrew,' but finding that inconsistency in conventions for names of categories does complicate the learning process. Since not all commentaries and lexicons are consistent, either, I figure we're going to have to learn them all. Our heads may explode.

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Being upside down does seem to impair your ability to spell does backwards? :)

 

Interesting discussion. We're just in 'pre-Hebrew,' but finding that inconsistency in conventions for names of categories does complicate the learning process. Since not all commentaries and lexicons are consistent, either, I figure we're going to have to learn them all. Our heads may explode.

 

 

That is exactly what we do here in Denmark - simply learn them all..with heads subsequently exploding, too!

Edited by Pchris
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The morphological categories are something I would strongly endorse. They are about the only "semantically neutral" (or close to it) option. For instance, I do not think that there even is such as a thing as the "was-consecutive" perfect. It's just a perfect, but used with modal/irrealis semantics.

 

But "cohortative," as I suspect it is intended, is not a morph category and it is not reflected morphologically all the time (that is, not all 1cs jussives use the cohortative -ah). Anyway, it's already available in the "other" drop-down menu under the verb (see below).

http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/public/style_images/master/attachicon.gifScreenshot 2014-10-12 10.58.06.png

 

 

So, this is what I would like to see in Accordance, since I think it would make the verbal categories neutral (i.e., less tied to any one theory) and thus more scholarly:

qatal

yiqtol

wayyiqtol

participle active

participle passive

imperative

infinitive absolute

infinitive construct

 

 

 

 

Love this Prof Holmstedt. This would be my preferred system if it was available. With the caveat below.

 

I would like to add my support to Robert Holmstedt's comments. As someone who has published a while on the verbal system, the infinitives, participles, and imperative forms are very little disputed. By contrast, the morphological labels (qatal, yiqtol, and wayyiqtol) are widely employed in debates about the verbal system because of their neutrality.

 

Also in line with Robert's comments, the case of the so-called cohortative and weqatal are a more complicated matters. The current means of searching for these forms correctly represents the morphological ambiguity of these forms: as also with the jussive, these forms cannot be reliably distinguished morphologically in a good number of cases (e.g., from the yiqtol and waw-prefixed qatal), so we should not mislead Accordance users to assume they are entirely distinct forms in the system. In any case, I do not believe the underlying morphological tags would even allow distinguishing weqatal (by which I mean Irrealis use of qatal) from waw + qatal.

 

The verbal system is a complex issue I know, and I am not trying to minimise that complexity in what I am about to say I hope. One issue I think I see with your thoughts John is that our morphological system is not ours to play around with in some ways. I am not an insider on this but as far as I am aware the morphological system we use is the Westminster-Groves database from the Groves institute. All the parsing information (including the aspect) is what they assign to the text. So, if what we are suggesting is simply a display name change (i.e. imperfect for yiqtol, perfect for qatal etc,) then that is a simple (IMHO anyway) programming change. If it is actually reclassifying words in the Hebrew database, that would be a much larger undertaking and may well be beyond our remit at Oaktree (I am not speaking as an employee here, just thinking out loud).

 

I have had dealings with W-G in the past where they were dismissive of a reasonable suggestion I had about the pointing of a word in Ruth in HMT text as c/w what I (and my Heb teacher) considered was the actual pointing of the word in the WLC, so I suspect getting any wholesale change done there would not be a simple thing. (By dismissive, I don’t mean they simply disagreed, which is their prerogative of course, but there was seemingly no real engagement with our suggestion at all.)

 

All these are musings rather than speaking from any real knowledge of how the underlying Accordance engine accesses the underlying database information in the HMT text so please take it with some (considerable) grains of salt.

Edited by Ken Simpson
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Being upside down does seem to impair your ability to spell does backwards? :)

 

Yes, you are correct, and being in Tennessee doesn’t seem to impair your ability to be a smart alec! :P

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Yes, you are correct, and being in Tennessee doesn’t seem to impair your ability to be a smart alec! :P

 

It's one of my specialties, but it's hard to do on the forums – more susceptible to misinterpretation. I thought you were a safe target on this one. :D

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It's one of my specialties, but it's hard to do on the forums – more susceptible to misinterpretation. I thought you were a safe target on this one. :D

 

I’m sorry but I am deeply offended by your incredibly insensitive pointing out of my inability to reverse spell does. My core is now quick to the cut (or cut to the quick, depending on where you stand).

 

 

 

 

 

:lol:

 

Of course you were safe. Not only did I deserve it, nor simply that your observation was exactly correct, but in order to feel hurt, I actually have to have feelings, which I am reliably informed - by she who would know - I have none of!!!

 

:wacko: - but talk about being OT. Let’s return to the more edifying area of Hebrew grammatical taxonomy! (BTW - completely mea culpa)

Edited by Ken Simpson
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Yeah. I figure whatever comes of this, what those of you who know this stuff decide will be of benefit to those of us who have only scratched the surface.

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Ken,

 

Neither John nor I advocate a departure from the WLC tags, just a surface level name change for the Accordance interface. We're both too familiar with tagged database to suggest any significant change to the WLC tagging (which I'm sure they wouldn't want, anyway).

 

With that said, they've accepted dozens of my submitted corrections. I believe my name is somewhere in the notes to the last release they produced. :-) And I have a couple dozen more I'll submit at the end of this year.

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the ones I cave come across are not for the binyanim but for the aspect (which would normally be dubbed perfect, imperfect, waw-consecutive, infinitive construct, infinitive absolute, imperative, etc etc).

 

I don’t like Seow’s grammar personally, but I do like the descriptive terms he uses.

I see what you mean, now. I do think those terms are become more popular in articles, grammars, and some commentaries.

 

Yeah, as a teaching grammar Seow is pedagogically weak (in my opinion), but I think it can be a nice reference tool.

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Ken,

 

Neither John nor I advocate a departure from the WLC tags, just a surface level name change for the Accordance interface. We're both too familiar with tagged database to suggest any significant change to the WLC tagging (which I'm sure they wouldn't want, anyway).

 

With that said, they've accepted dozens of my submitted corrections. I believe my name is somewhere in the notes to the last release they produced. :-) And I have a couple dozen more I'll submit at the end of this year.

 

Thanks Prof Holmstedt, just making sure :)

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Let’s return to the more edifying area of Hebrew grammatical taxonomy! (BTW - completely mea culpa)

Amen! :)

Edited by bkMitchell
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