I went through a number of posts in the b-hebrew archive and I have not found yet what precise alternative model Furuli offers for the analysis and interpretation of the BH verbal system... from what I have read he seems to dismiss the notion of aspect whereas, as I vaguely remember, the NWT endorses it, only challenging the conversive element in wayyiqtol. I'd be grateful if someone who has got it (veradico?) could briefly summarise it or point me to a post that does...
Rolf Furuli
by Alleymom 36 Replies latest watchtower bible
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veradico
Leolaia, If I remember correctly (and I'm rather sure that I do), Furuli's examples come from many books outside the Pentateuch as well. But even the Pentateuch represents a number of different stages of the Hebrew language. In order to perform a really sound synchronic analysis, Furuli, in my opinion, would have to accept all sorts of “higher criticism” that his religion condemns. He would have to isolate the strata of the OT that represent the different stages of linguistic development and systematically perform his analysis on each stage. I don’t think he did this. The fact that he talks about using all the discernable verbs in the DSS, Ben Sira, and the inscriptions (as well as the OT) leads me to conclude that he has no such thoughts in mind. It's all one to him. Also, my argument is not entirely diachronic. I agree that one could ignore the evidence from other Semitic languages per se. But such things as translations, commentaries, and paraphrases of the OT made by native speakers of Classical Hebrew are a lesser form of synchronic evidence, at least for the later Hebrew works. I want to emphasize that I agree with you about the legitimacy of isolating synchronic material and deducing grammatical patterns from it. I think the Hebrew corpus is large enough to make this feasible for a number of significant stages of Hebrew grammar. I also agree with your last points. Still, Furuli’s analysis does not seem very compelling to me. I think he did the following (but I’ll have to wait to read his dissertation to be sure). He read the OT, the DSS, Ben Sira, and the inscriptions, placing each verb into one of his categories. Then he discussed those examples that best fit his conclusions. Thus, he can claim to have not done “sampling” (after all, he read everything and put every verb into a category), while, in fact, his sampling can be quite narrow, subjective, and biased (if his categories themselves are not, and I worry that they may be). In matters such as these, I think it is best to first turn to the ancient evidence. Testimony, both explicit and implicit, can be found in numerous ancient works attesting to the waw consecutive. Instead, I think Furuli’s evidence is all in his head. If he can convince one to accept his new vocabulary and theoretical framework, I think he’s already almost won his case. He wants to redefine the whole system of aspect—not only which verbs are in which aspect, but also what aspect itself means. In order to prove this, he wants to put verbs into whole new categories that the speakers of Hebrew did not choose to explicitly represent in their language by any means, morphological or otherwise. Certainly, no language bothers to distinguish explicitly between all of its semantic subtleties, and I’m not denying the theoretical existence of the different senses that Furuli mentions. But I do think that major semantic divisions in a language are eventually represented by means of vocabulary and morphology. If Furuli wants to claim that the differences between WAYYIQTOL and YIQTOL are pragmatic but not semantic, I hope he bothers to provide some explanation as to why these pragmatic differences exist and why these “pragmatic” differences were felt to be semantic differences by later speakers of Hebrew (not to mention speakers of other, related tongues). He may have done all of this. The only way we’re going to find out is to buy his book from him.
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veradico
Sorry, Narkissos, I just saw your post. I'm afraid one can't easily summarize Furuli's ideas about aspect. He has his own language (nucleus, coda, etc.). If I had a scanner, I'd post his article. Although I wonder if that would violate copyright law. Instead of saying that perfective and imperfective verbal aspects refer to complete and incomplete action, he thinks of aspect as a verbal way of "focusing" in on a part or the whole of an action from various angles--which he's kind enough to give us degree measurements for in his charts :-) I'm sure you can get the book from a library. Or perhaps someone here has a copy? It's full of fascinating apologetical articles about the NWT.
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Narkissos
Thank you veradico
There's nothing from Furuli in my Biblical library (yet?).
I just checked one detail about verbal "aspect" (I was surprised to see Furuli argue against that notion, as I believed it was endorsed by the WT) and I see why I got confused: the WT literature in English does not use the word "aspect" but in French translation we did use the equivalent term (aspect -- I was a WT translator in the early 80s, whence my memories). It was a common notion in the available Hebrew grammars, easily understandable, and since it was not an explicit WT taboo we felt we could use it -- and the French NWT translator did, too. The term is still used in the revised French NWT appendix 3c (1996).
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Alleymom
http://www.hermesac.no/Awatu_Publishing.pdf
Awatu Publishers
Øvre Smestadvei 47B
0378 Oslo
NorwayA New Understanding of the Verbal System of Classical Hebrew An Attempt to Distinguish Between Semantic and Pragmatic Factors
Rolf J. Furuli
The book is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation and has the following outline:
For the first time all the 79,574 finite and infinite verbs the Tanakh, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, and the Inscriptions have been analyzed in the same study. The description of the Hebrew verbal system in this study is completely new and different from any previous descriptions, both regarding the nature of each conjugation and the definition of the different forms.
In the chapters of the book, 2,106 Hebrew passages with 4,261 verbs (1,402 wayyiqtols, 887 yiqtols, 78 weyiqtols, 769 qatals, 315 weqatals, 280 infinitives, and 530 participles) have been discussed and analyzed. This is 7.4 percent of
all finite and infinite verbs that function as predicates in the Tanakh.The analysis of all these verb forms reveals that yiqtol, wayyiqtol, weyiqtol, qatal, and weqatal can have past, present, and future reference. Thus, a strong case is made against the view that tense is grammaticalized in classical Hebrew. As for aspect, the data show that each of the mentioned finite verb forms can signal incomplete and complete(d) actions. So a strong case can also be made against
the view that the Hebrew conjugations represent aspects in the traditional definition of the word (exemplified by English aspects).This book represents a new approach to the study of the verbal system of classical Hebrew.
[The above is an excerpt. For summaries of each chapter, click on the link at the top of this message.]
Marjorie
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Kaput
The following presents more information regarding the questionable research by Rolf Furuli: http://user.tninet.se/~oof408u/fkf/english/seventy.htm
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veradico
Ah! I see. The denial of aspect is simply a rhetorical attention getter for the intro. If you look at the outline to his book (thanks, Alleymom), he still wants redefine aspect in Hebrew. And his intro is honest. His new definition does involve a rejection of the "traditional" definition of aspect. I must say, now that I've seen this outline, that I'm really looking forward to reading his book. His dissertation looks like it will address those questions that I was concerned that he entirely ignored in his shorter article. Presumably, he will address the views of other modern grammarians in his history of the subject over the past 1,000 years (chapter 1). Chapter 3 claims to present a diachronic analysis throughout the OT, a comparison with a number of other Semitic languages, and a discussion of the influence of the Masoretic pointing. If I remember correctly, he only discussed the identity of wayyiqtol and yiqtol verbs in his article. It's been so long since I read the article, I'm glad I have his outline to remind me of what was in it. The categories into which he divides the verbs are the tenses (showing that there is no distinction between yiqtol and wayyiqtol in this category is obviously not very meaningful since almost everyone agrees that Hebrew verbs do not encode tense) and such functions as conative, ingressive, continuative, resultative, stative, fientive, and situations in which one type of action "intersects" with another. The subjective nature of this type of enterprise can be compared, I think, to the criticisms of the NWT's "continuative" translation of John 17:3. As Byington said in his review of the NWT NT:
“The main fault is overtranslation. I mean that, where a Greek word may he found to carry an implication in addition to its rough meaning, this implication is made explicit, frequently by an added word. This fault is common to various translators, who usually claim it as a merit, but the New World Translation goes rather far. The tenses of verbs are rendered not only by such forms as "would say" or "was saying" but also by inserting "begin to" or "continue to" where the tense is deemed to be inceptive or continuative.”
As anyone who has ever had a Latin class in which one debates about which kind of ablative or subjunctive is being used in a given passage knows, a lot of this kind of thing depends on the biases (theological and otherwise) of the interpreter.
I also notice that he has finished (or is close to finishing) his second volume defending the Society's chronology. I look forward to reading the response of Jonsson and others. He sure has balls. -
Leolaia
Thanks for all the info, looks like indeed he has a diachronic corpus of biblical Hebrew that spans at least seven centuries (counting up to the early first century AD), and looks like he's given some thought to these other issues (which you'd expect with a thesis approved by a competent linguistics department in any case). It would be interesting to see how he conducts the diachronic survey and whether he adopts traditional (Society-sanctioned) datings to individual writings, or whether he adopts the generally-accepted datings based on internal evidence. I could see how his diachronic analysis would be highly skewed if he attributes postexilic writings to, say, the ninth or fifteenth centuries BC. The question of grammaticalization is certainly raised in the shift from pragmatic to semantic functions and the morphological change of waw as a clause-level conjunction to a bound morpheme that affects the aspectual value of the verb (as presumed in waw consecutive), and I'd have to admit to being quite skeptical if he finds a single verbal system throughout the period or if waw remained strictly a conjunction throughout the whole period (again I'm hazy on his specific claims).
There are a few other recent analyses of wayyiqtol forms in the literature, including Hatav (2004) in the Journal of Linguistics and Cook (2004) in the Journal of Semitic Studies. Both give rather different analyses of the semantics involved in the OT data. Hatav, btw, twice mentions Furuli's thesis in his article, fyi:
Clauses in the form wayyiqtol, however, are interpreted as depicting only events in the past. Furuli (1995: 5) claims that there are as many as 463 examples of wayyiqtol clauses with non-past meanings. The statistical findings of Hatav (1997) show that in the corpus described above, only 0.2% of the wayyiqtol clauses are understood to be modal, i.e. as not necessarily referring to the past (see Hatav 1997: 142, table 4.1).
Here it looks like that his own comparative study had very different results.
At least three systems of pointing were developed, one of which – the Tiberian – has been accepted in the Bible we use now. Furuli (1995: 37) argues that 'all they [the Masoretes] wanted was to find vowel points which as faithfully as possible would represent the vowels they heard in the synagogues', and therefore, Furuli (1999: 99) suggests that the difference between wayyiqtol and wyiqtol was invented by the Masoretes. Following McCarthy (1982: 14f.), I adopt the view of Orlinsky (1966) – as cited by McCarthy – that ‘the medieval scholars from first to last were essentially preservers and recorders of the pronunciation of Hebrew as they heard it '. (See also Waltke & O’Connor (1990: 632) for a similar claim, supported by findings from Qumranic texts.) Thus, I regard the different pointing of the waw in wayyiqtol and wyiqtol as distinguishing between their meanings. In a discussion via the Internet, a comparison between (5) and (6) was drawn to illustrate the different uses of the two forms....
Contra Furuli, Hatav claims to find semantic evidence in the geminated forms that indicates the presence of a third (-ay) morpheme in wayyiqtol forms...I wonder if Furuli's book has responded to either papers...
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Narkissos
Bttt, interesting developments on http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2007-March/date.html#31707 ("refresh" if it is not the first time you are visiting this page). Note Marjorie Alley's diplomatic introduction of the NWT appendix to the discussion, and David Kummerow's short critical review of Furuli's book.
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jeanV
I never really looked at Furuli’s work with regard to lexicon and Bible translation but was interested in his arguments on chronology.
For quite a while I had some admiration for him, a man who stands up to defend WTBTS chronology, while the authors of it hide behind a good for the naïve only “we believe the Bible and not secular chronology”. At least he had the guts of examining the evidence, mention the documents by their name and try to build some counter arguments that go beyond the “we are right and therefore whatever you find that could prove us wrong, it must be wrong/fake/conspiracy”.
While still giving a chance to 607 (which I would still give if new archeological evidence would prove it) I examined some of I came across a discussion that Furuli was having with AlanF at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2000-October/008691.html where he states:
The whole New Babylonian chronology rests on the astronomic diary VAT 4956 which is correlated with Nebuchadnezar's 37 year. This is a later copy, and remember, just one year extra that can be demonstrated in the succession of kings, the information of this table falls apart. It must be correact as to the year, if not, it is totally wrong.
OMG, my two years old daughter knows that the affirmation I marked in bold is fallacious. It is also interesting to note how is thought has evolved since then as highlighted in a letter posted by thirdwitness at
http://www.aimoo.com/forum/postview.cfm?id=311102&startcat=501&start=101&CategoryID=2967&ThreadID=2402573
Furuli’s conclusions:
There is evidence that the dates on VAT 4956 (years 37/38 of Nebuchadnezzar) may have been added after the tablet was written. So even if all the observations were made in 568/567, the tablet does not prove that this was the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar II.
The fact that planetary positions serving as omens are not noted give us strong reasons to believe that the lunar positions were copied from one tablet and the planetary positions from another. Because the lunar positions are similar in 588/587 and 568/567, the planetary positions that only fit 568/567 could have been copied from a tablet made in 568/567 and the lunar data from a tablet made in 588/587.
I marked in bold some typical WT expressions when one has no arguments to support a theory.
My conclusions are that Mr. Furuli sells himself as a scholar while his behaviour is not that of a truly honest scholar (he is not interested in the truth but in proving a chronology that has no legs to walk. In his study the facts do not lead to the conclusion but the conclusion leads to the facts; a totally biased approach the disqualifies him).
No wonder he prefers not to reveal that he is a JW, his credibility is then immediately put into question as he seems to never ever contradict the WTBTS (an organisation that in terms of scholarship and research has a very poor record). Really, how credible is he as a scholar (except among JW)?
I just wish he did examine the cornerstone of his chronology (BM33066 aka Strm. Kambys 400) with the same critical eye he uses for whatever is against his Oslo Chronology, as a true scholar should do.