Poetic Tenses (cont.): Hidden Preterites and False Preterites

1. As I noted previously, the SC2 can appear in poetry without the waw which usually accompanies it in prose. The same is true (and this is more widely accepted) of the PC2, which can appear in poetry as the type wayyiqtol, as in prose, or simply as yiqtol. Examples are ready to hand, such as Ps. 24:2, כי הוא על ימים יסדה || ועל נהרות יכוננה , "for he founded it (the earth) on the seas, and made it firm on the rivers." The past orientation is clear from the context, which deals with the creation of the earth. Other examples are Deut 32:10-13, Ps. 18: 4-19; etc. (There is an excellent post here on this very verse, with stimulating discussion in the comments.)

Another example, precisely of the same sort, is found in Ps. 78:58: ‏‏ויכעיסוהו בבמותם ובפסילים יקניאוהו. "They angered him with their high places, and with their images made him jealous." Only the most captious or over-subtle interpreter could find a difference in the time reference of the two verbs here.

2. More controversial are examples of the opposite kind, in which verbs vocalized as preterites (PC2) must be understood as PC1 (imperfect) or jussive (PC3). This entails a rejection of the Masoretic vocalization, but the overall implicature of the poem, along with lexical and syntactical cues – in short, the context – make such a move necessary in many cases. An example is Ps. 94:23: ‏‏וישב עליהם את אונם וברעתם יצמיתם. "May he turn against them their sin, and destroy them for their evil."

In this case, the first verb wayyashev must be understood as PC3, not PC2. The LXX translates both verbs in the future tense (see the BHS apparatus). Another example is Ps. 29:9, where ‏וַיֶּחֱשֹׂף must be understood as PC1, in accordance with the sense and form of the verb ‏יְחוֹלֵל in the previous line. Here also the LXX translates the first verb as present participle, the second as future; note also that the targum translates both by participles.

To sum up: in Biblical Hebrew poetry, the form known as wayyiqtol (preterite) in prose can be simply yiqtol in poetry, but still a preterite. On the other hand, forms that the Masoretic text presents as wayyiqtol preterites must sometimes be understood from the context to be imperfect or jussive with conjunctive waw (and therefore the MT must be vocalized differently).

I think these principles are fairly uncontroversial. I'll try to get to more debatable ones (e.g., the prophetic perfect) sometime in the near future. In the meantime, comments are welcome.

Toward a Theory of Hebrew Poetic Tenses

A simplistic take of the Hebrew verbal system is that there are two conjugations, the prefix-conjugation (or imperfect), or PC, and the suffix-conjugation (or perfect), or SC. Formally, this is not far from the truth, but it is generally recognized now that there are actually three different PCs: the imperfect (PC1), the preterite (PC2) and the jussive-cohortative (PC3). All of these have diverse historical origins. Although formally they often fall together in Biblical Hebrew, occasional differences in morphological form are discernible between these three.

There are also two kinds of SC: the perfect (SC1) and a second form (SC2) sometimes called the "converted perfect," or just we-qatal (because in prose the SC2 is usually preceded by the conjunction ו). My impression is that the SC2 is currently the most discussed of these forms. Although SC1 and SC2 may have the same historical origin, they function synchronically in different ways, and should always be distinguished.

The workings of these five conjugations is pretty well understood now in prose texts: PC1 for future, general present, modal, or past habitual; PC2 for narrative past; PC3 for volitional mood. SC1 is also used for past tense when narrative sequence is not in view, while SC2 is used in the same way as PC1 with the added feature of sequentiality. There are various fine-tunings of all these functions, but the broad outlines are agreed upon.

As I said, this picture is valid for prose only. When it comes to Hebrew poetry, the outline is not so clear. Various conjugations appear in neighboring poetic lines without clear difference in function. PC1 appears to sometime be used for the past, SC1 for the future. Plus "odd" uses of SC1, such as the precative perfect or the prophetic perfect, are claimed to appear in poetry.

Without going into the whole history of discussion, I propose that Hebrew poetry is more like prose than usually thought, but with the difference that word order is variable and the usual conjunctive particles that in prose differentiate the conjugations are either absent or replaced with different particles. More particularly, I think that the "odd" uses of the SC1 are often actually "normal" uses of SC2. The reason this has been hard to notice is because usually SC2 in prose occurs with the conjunction ו, but in poetry the ו is optional. In other words, in poetry you can have the וקטל without the ו. This accounts for some anomalies in Hebrew poetry.

For instance, in Ps. 23, all the finite verbs are PC1 except for v. 5, ‏dishanta. (The questionable form veshavti in v. 6 I leave out). Although dishanta is SC, it is almost always translated in accordance with the presumed general present tense of the other verbs: "thou anointest (my head with oil)." Here it makes most sense to take this SC as SC2, continuing the tense of the PC1. In prose, the line would read as follows: תערך שלחן -- ודשנת בשמן וגו , "you prepare a table ... and anoint with oil," etc.

Another example is from Ps. 11:2: הרשעים ידרכון קשת כוננו חצם , "the wicked string the bow, they set their arrow (on the string)."** Most English translations again use the general present for both verbs, although the first is PC1 and the second is SC. In prose, the second verb would be וכוננו , "and then they set," etc. It is SC2, not SC1.

The picture is complicated, of course, by the fact that SC1 is also used in poetry, both in a past sense and, depending on the Aktionsart of the verb, as a present. Plus it should be asked whether there was some kind of suprasegmental differentiation (such as stress accent) between SC1 and SC2 in poetry. In a future post, time permitting, I might go into these issues and also the question of the prophetic perfect and the precative perfect as poetic usages of SC2, but this necessarily brief survey gives the general idea. Comments and reactions are welcome.

**Many translations obscure the fact that the idiom דרך קשת means "to string the bow" (by stepping on one end and bending the other end down to attach the string), not "to bend the bow (for shooting)." Hence stringing has to precede setting the arrow, and the second verb cannot be taken as past or as conceptually prior to bending.

A Note on the Translation of Gen 3:15

A Roman Catholic deacon, in a talk I heard yesterday, asserted that the usual English translations of Gen 3:15b, "He/it shall bruise your head," are mistaken. The proper translation, he said, was "she shall bruise your head," and refers allegorically to the Virgin Mary.

I checked this when I got home and the Hebrew clearly says הוא ישופך ראש, "he/it will bruise your head." Whence the good deacon's assertion? The Septuagint also clearly uses the masculine form. But the Vulgate says ipsa conteret, "she will bruise." A little research turned up a boatload of comment on this reading (a controversy of which I had been until yesterday completely unaware). The RC Douay Rheims translation follows this reading. However, the Nova Vulgata, the revised Latin version authorized by the Vatican now reads ipsum conteret, "it will bruise." This is no doubt correct in terms of the original text; nor can I believe that St. Jerome's original translation of the Hebraica veritas was anything but ipsum.

What amazed me in the literature was the fierceness of the opposing sides. Apparently in a previous age, up to the 19th century, the question of Gen 3:15 seemed to both RC and Protestant to involve crucial questions, and that to retreat amounted to surrendering a key point. But there could only be one outcome to the debate, and the RC church has accepted it, recognizing, I think, that its claims about Mary are not really at risk in the question of the translation of this verse. Nevertheless, I can tell you that at some levels, among the laity, the old debate is still very much alive.

UPDATE: Translation of ipsum corrected to neuter, with thanks to Scott Johnson.

Apposition in Biblical Hebrew

I've been going through Waltke and O'Connor's Intro to Biblical Hebrew Syntax with some students, giving it a detailed read and appraisal. It's been tremendously influential and is without question a magisterial work. However, I must admit I'm not wholly sold on everything in it.

An example is the treatment of apposition (Chapter 12). Apposition is described as a "sequence of nouns ... with the same syntactic function and agreement and with comparable reference" (p. 226). This is not very clear, as W&OC seem to recognize. I want to discuss a different set of criteria, without discussing all the details of the chapter.

The appositive phrase is basically of the structure N1 N2. This is similar to the structure of the construct phrase, but in the construct phrase the N2 cannot be omitted without disturbing the phrase structure. In apposition N2 can be dropped and the phrase structure is left intact. For instance in the construct phrase nehar Perat, "the river Euphrates", while notionally appositional, is syntactically a construct phrase and Perat cannot be omitted leaving only nehar. But in the phrase ha-melek Dawid, "king David," Dawid could be omitted leaving ha-melek to function as a one member noun phrase. So the first test is omission of N2.

The omission test doesn't work against adjectival phrases however. In the phrase N-Adj, Adj could be dropped, just like N2 in the appositional phrase, e.g., ish tov, "a good man" could be pared to just ish. We could say that tov has a "distinct sort of reference" (W&OC 12.1c) as an adjective, but not every word used attributively in Biblical Hebrew is morphologically an adjective, e.g., ish yoshev ba-bayit, "a man dwelling in the house," where Adj = participle + prepositional phrase.

In fact, it is not easy to find further tests to differentiate appositional phrases from adjectival, but I propose two possibilities. One is the reversibility test. One could conceivably reverse the order of N1 and N2 in apposition, e.g., ha-melek Dawid = Dawid ha-melek. One could not similarly reverse ish tov into *tov ish. Thus the adjectival phrase shares with the construct phrase the trait of irreversibility.

However, I am not sure this works all the time. My intuition (as well as W&OC) tells me that ishah almanah "woman, widow" in Hebrew is apposition, but it is not reversible. One could not say, I don't think, *almanah ishah just as well as ishah almanah. Perhaps this means we should actually understand this phrase and others like it as adjectival modification, and not apposition.

Another possible test is the repetition of the preposition test (or: "rep of prep"). In apposition, a governing preposition may be repeated before N1 and N2, e.g., livni le-Yitzxaq, "to my son, to Isaac" (Gen 24:4). The same could not happen in the adjectival phrase, e.g., ha-ish ha-tov "the good man" cannot become *la-ish la-tov "to the good man." But as W&OC point out (12.3f), the preposition or other particle is not repeated in apposition if N1 is a proper name. It is not clear why this is.

In any case, I think it is clear that some of the further cases mentioned by W&OC, e.g., shloshah banim, "3 sons," cannot possibly be apposition. The relation between numeral (or other quantifier) and the quantified noun does not meet any set of criteria for apposition, including W&OC's. Further discussion of quantifiers will have to wait, however. For now, I'd be interested in hearing comments about apposition.

Teaching Aramaic: Diachronic or Synchronic?

This note is more jottings for my own benefit --a form of thinking out loud -- than a fully considered proposal. Comments from scholars are welcome.

In teaching introductory Aramaic, the decision has to be made whether a synchronic or diachronic approach is to be used. The textbook I currently use (an unpublished text by another scholar) uses the synchronic approach, with the Aramaic of Targum Onkelos as the beginning dialect.

For a certain class of nouns, the synchronic approach leads to certain problems. Consider the two words gabra "man" and nahra "river." Although they are alike on the surface, a diachronic approach would discern historical etymons of a different shape, namely [gabr] and [nahar]. Because of differing processes of historical change, these forms have a similar outcome. Because of changes affecting monosyllablic nouns ending in a consonant cluster, [gabr] becames at a certain point [gabar] (with anaptyxis), and then [gbar] (with pretonic short vowel reduction in open syllables), although the base form for suffixes remains [gabr]. On the other hand, [nahar] was bisyllabic from the beginning, and only underwent the vowel reduction yielding [nhar] for the absolute, while the base form for suffixes also underwent vowel reduction, yielding [nahr-] out of [nahar].

But in the synchronic approach, is there any reason to posit different historical base forms? Can one come up with a set of rules that generates all the relevant forms, both absolute and determined, without appeal to historical forms?

Let's propose for both forms the underlying base forms [gabr, nahr]. The next rule would be:
A. CVCC bases must be changed to CVCVC in free-standing forms. This gives us [gabar, nahar]

Next rule:
B. Short vowels in open unstressed syllables reduce to shewa or zero. This gives us [gbar, nhar].

One could even reduce it to one rule, as follows:
A'. CVCC bases must be changed to CCVC in free-standing forms.

Does this work? Let's try it on two more nouns: sipra "book" and zimna "time."
A'. The rule rewrites [sipr, zimn] as [spar, zman]. These are the correct absolute forms.

But the rule should probably specify that the vowel in the rewritten form has to be /a/.
A''. CVCC bases must be changed to CCaC in free-standing forms.

Does this work? Let's try two more, malka "king" and laxma "bread." Application of A'' should yield [mlak, lxam]. However, these forms are not correct. The absolute forms are [málak, lxem]. Now what?

For malka, there has to be another rule modification, namely
A'''. CVCC bases must be changed to CCaC in free-standing forms, or else to CáCaC.

For laxma, the rule needs a further modification, namely
A'''''. CVCC bases must be changed to CCaC or CCeC or CáCaC in free-standing forms.

This rule might cover most forms. However, the rule has to be understood as predicting the parameters of possible lexical surface forms, and not as generating forms on its own.

I'm starting to think that the diachronic approach might just as well be introduced at this point. For instance, the diachronic approach will predict correctly that historical CVCC bases can become CáCaC or CCaC or CCeC, while historical CVCVC bases will become only CCaC or CCeC. This seems like a useful distinction to make.

Of course, this doesn't even start to deal with the question of spirantization. Maybe I'll deal with that in the next post.

More Dylan Thefts, II: Rollins, Pynchon, Hemingway, etc.

A while back I reported on some passages of other authors that Bob Dylan had re-used in Chronicles. I've continued to find more, as have others, especially the indefatigable Scott Warmuth.

Some of the more interesting borrowings I've found are the following:

The Portable Henry Rollins (1998), p. 131:
"Roads full of debris and sadness, old music shifting on the radio. The smell of gasoline on my hands."

Chronicles, p. 74:
"Radio sounds came shifting out of cafes. Snowy streets full of debris, sadness, the smell of gasoline."

Hemingway, "The Battler," The Nick Adams Stories:
"Nick saw that his face was misshapen. His nose was sunken, his eyes were slits, he had queer-shaped lips. Nick did not perceive this all at once; he only saw the man's face was queerly formed and mutilated. It was like putty in color."

Chronicles p. 75:
"His face was misshapen, looked queer formed, almost mutilated -- like putty in color."

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, p. 529
"...cast-iron flowers on spiral vine all painted white..."

Chronicles, p. 58:
"There were some iron flowers on a spiral vine painted white leaning in the corner"


Jack London, "The White Silence":
"All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege ...."

Chronicles, p. 96:
"When I hear Hank sing, all movement ceases. The slightest whisper seems sacrilege."

"The Yellow Claw", Sax Rohmer:
"Through the leaded panes of the window above the writing-table, swept a silver beam of moonlight."

Chronicles, p. 166:
"From the far end of the kitchen a silver beam of moonlight pierced through the leaded panes of the window illuminating the table."

Scott has also uncovered a lot of other interesting material, which I'll leave to him to write about.

There are two ways to take all this. One is to say that Dylan is alluding, not copying; paying tribute, not ripping off; and conceivably playing a game with his readers, daring them to find (as he knows they will) the various authors whose words he has creatively re-used. This is part of his genius. This is a perfectly respectable point of view. The second perspective, however, is the one that I favor, which is to be disappointed that Dylan's descriptions, narrations, and word choices are, much of the time, not his. It seems like lack of imagination, and maybe a little distrust of his own abilities, to say nothing of the questionable ethics.

But whatever you think, isn't it better to know what his method is? Chronicles, it's now becoming clear, is comprised of some authentic reminiscence and some fiction (I take it that the characters Ray, Chloe, and Sun Pie, to name a few, are fictional). Within this mixture, typically when he is reaching for an eloquent description of the physical setting, or of his own tangled thoughts, he uses the words of others, sometimes heavily rewritten, sometimes only lightly retouched. Plagiarism or collage? It's your choice.

This is to be distinguished from the use of sources for the purpose of information. Scott has demonstrated that Dylan used an issue of Time magazine for his portrait of the early '60's. It can also be demonstrated, for instance, that Dylan's information about Balzac (Chronicles, pp. 45-46) is derived from Graham Robb's Balzac: A Biography (1995). (What, you thought Bob knew Balzac personally?) Nothing problematic about any of that. I would have cited these sources, but I'm an egghead, and Bob is not.

More of this stuff will come out. Eventually the palimpsest that is Chronicles will be as full of marginal glosses as the Talmud. Like his method or not, it is interesting to see what the dude has been reading. And if we didn't like Bob, it wouldn't matter, right?

Little Walter, Bob Dylan, and the Two Sonny Boys

Bob Dylan, in his autobiographical Chronicles, tells this story of Sonny Boy Williamson:

The only comment that I ever got [on my harmonica playing] was a few years later in John Lee Hooker's hotel room in Lower Broadway in New York City. Sonny Boy Williamson was there and he heard me playing, said, "Boy, you play too fast." [p. 257]

An interesting parallel is found in Blues with a Feeling: the Little Walter Story, by Tony Glover, Scott Dirks and Ward Gaines:

[Billy Boy Arnold] asked [Little Walter] if he knew Sonny Boy. Walter replied, "Yeah, I knew him. He was really good man, he was the best. He used to tell me 'you play too fast, you play too fast.' " [p. 89]

There are several possibilities here. One is that "Sonny Boy Williamson" really said that Little Walter and Bob Dylan played too fast and told them so. It is certainly true that the early Dylan occasionally played harmonica at a frantic, helter-skelter tempo.

On the other hand, since it is now clear that Chronicles contains generous helpings of fiction as well as fact, maybe Dylan appropriated this story to himself. It is a telling fact that the section in which Dylan's story occurs deals partly with Minnesota harpist Tony Glover, who is co-author of Blues with a Feeling. Also pointing to the fictional character of the story is the fact that the Little Walter anecdote refers to the first Sonny Boy Williamson, who died in 1948. Dylan's anecdote has to refer to Sonny Boy Williamson II, who died in 1965.

Therefore if both stories are true, then Sonny Boy I told Little Walter that he played too fast, and Sonny Boy II told Dylan that he played too fast. This is certainly possible. But I have to favor the idea that, given other evidence of Dylan's borrowing of sources, he also borrowed this one, without noticing that he assigned the saying to the wrong Sonny Boy.