Syntactic Studies in Targum Aramaic: A Text-Linguistic Reading of 1 Samuel 9781463241292

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Syntactic Studies in Targum Aramaic

Gorgias Biblical Studies

71

In this series Gorgias publishes monographs and edited volumes on the history, theology, redaction and literary criticism of the biblical texts. Gorgias particularly welcomes proposals from younger scholars whose dissertations have made an important contribution to the field of Biblical Studies. 

Syntactic Studies in Targum Aramaic

A Text-Linguistic Reading of 1 Samuel

Vasile Condrea

gp 2020

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2020 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܒ‬

1

2020

ISBN 978-1-4632-3910-7

ISSN 1935-6870

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements.......................................................................... ix Foreword ......................................................................................... xi Chapter 1. Introduction ..................................................................... 1 The dialect of Targum Aramaic ................................................ 9 Chapter 2. Text-linguistics and Biblical Hebrew and Targum Aramaic Syntaxes ..................................................................... 13 Harald Weinrich: his place in text-linguistics ........................... 15 The text-linguistics of H. Weinrich .................................... 16 The tense as linguistic sign and its ‘relevant semantic features’ ....................................................... 17 Narrative text time versus narrative foregrounding ........... 27 Text-linguistics and Biblical Hebrew Syntax........................... 30 Schneider ............................................................................ 31 Niccacci’s work on Biblical Hebrew syntax ........................ 38 Cook ...................................................................................54 Text-linguistics and Aramaic Syntax ........................................ 58 Buth ................................................................................... 58 Kuty .................................................................................. 66 Gzella................................................................................. 77 Conclusion: about foregrounding, the comment register, and all the king’s men ............................................................ 86 Foregrounding .................................................................. 87 Comment .......................................................................... 90 Weinrich and his readers.................................................... 90 What does Weinrich’s approach stand for after all?............ 91 v

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Chapter 3. Wqetal ........................................................................... 99 The methodology of narrative forms ...................................... 99 Wqetal and Narrative Time ................................................... 105 Normal wqetal narrative................................................... 106 Conclusion ....................................................................... 128 The Double Sentence or ‫ והוה‬as macro-syntactic sign ........... 130 The double-sentence and the relation transitiontheme-rheme ............................................................. 131 Methodological reflections on the macro-syntactic sign ........................................................................... 134 The main function of the double sentence: Bridging a gap in the plot ......................................... 136 Further functions: retrospection and prelude.................... 141 Double sentences with emphasis: the apodosis in xqetal ........................................................................ 149 Conclusion ........................................................................ 153 Chapter 4. Wparticiple .................................................................... 155 Theoretical discussion of foreground and background .......... 156 Functions of participle ............................................................ 161 Description and introduction of secondary characters................................................................... 161 Further circumstances ...................................................... 167 The wparticiple sentence as prelude ................................. 170 End-of-episode (postlude) wparticiple ............................. 174 2:12–17—a ‘background’ episode ...................................... 177 Conclusion............................................................................. 180 Chapter 5. The xqetal, xparticiple, and xyiqtul sentences ................ 181 Word order and comment in Targum Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew ........................................................................... 181 Theoretical discussion of comment ....................................... 184 The SVO sentence between the narrative contrast and the comment register ........................................................... 188 Narrative contrast/correlation: xqetal .............................. 189 The linguistic sign and Derrida’s trace.............................. 195 Comment retrospective: the xqetal sentence .................... 203 The comment zero degree: the xparticiple sentence; the xparticiple and xqetal combination .................... 221

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Comment anticipation and background: TA xyiqtul and xparticiple............................................. 246 General conclusion for xqetal, xparticiple, and xyiqtul ......... 249 Chapter 6. Narrative: Text, Episode, and Time Passage ................. 253 What is a text? What is an episode? ........................................ 255 Application of the theory: John 11, two or three episodes? ..... 257 The wqetal of prelude and temporal sequenced episodes in Targum 1Samuel ............................................................ 259 Further sentence types in prelude position ........................... 264 Conclusion............................................................................. 271 Chapter 7. General Conclusions: The world of comment.............. 275 The content of the book ....................................................... 276 Where to? ............................................................................. 279 Annex 1: Division of episodes......................................................... 285 Annex 2: Report on the significant variations of the critical text of Targum 1Samuel .................................................................... 293 Bibliography ................................................................................. 297 Indices ............................................................................................ 305 Index of Authors ................................................................... 305 Index of Subjects....................................................................307 Index of Biblical References .................................................. 309

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the beginning of my PhD, Dr Robert Hayward challenged me to think about what I really want to work on while at Durham. I cannot thank him enough for that time of reflection and for his kind friendship and expert guidance during the various stages of this research, including its rewriting and expansion into a book for Gorgias Press. I have the excellent professor Alviero Niccacci to thank for introducing me to how he thought the text-linguistics of Harald Weinrich could be applied to Biblical Hebrew. I am voicing the feeling of all his students and colleagues at Studium Biblicum of Jerusalem when I say that he was the salt of the earth. I also thank Wilfred Watson for his friendship and for taking the time to read the last draft of this book. I am grateful to Gregor Geiger of Studium Biblicum for his encouragement to pursue this project. Thanks are due to Melonie Schmierer-Lee, Yael Landman, and Tuomas Rasimus (Gorgias Press) for their expertise, massive patience, and promptness in all our dealings. I owe a debt of gratitude to Lionel Goh OFM; he has been the most steadfast and caring promoter of my studies in the UK. To Maria, my wife, and her loving patience, I owe the timely completion of the project. Vasile A. Condrea Newcastle, February 2020

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FOREWORD The distinguished career of Harald Weinrich, Professor Emeritus of the Collège de France, spans more than five decades of research and publication. His distinctive and impressive contributions to the science of text-linguistics are well known, widely acknowledged, and highly regarded amongst French, German, Italian and other continental European specialists; but his work is rather less familiar to the English-speaking scholarly world. Dr. Vasile Condrea’s monograph seeks to ensure that Weinrich’s approach to texts, especially as regards their use of the “tenses” of verbs, is given due appreciation in Anglophone scholarship; and that his theoretical models, in their entirety, receive proper attention. This second concern is crucial, in that some students who have claimed to follow Weinrich’s insights on tense have tended to rely only on elements of his work, while largely failing to engage with important aspects and results of his scholarship as a whole. The re-assessment of Weinrich’s work undertaken in this book reveals its freshness and originality and its enduring value for the study of narrative texts. With great sensitivity, Dr Condrea applies Weinrich’s method to the Aramaic Targum of 1 Samuel and demonstrates the significant consequences of this application in his observations on the literary coherence of the Aramaic translation of 1 Samuel. The analysis he offers has implications for the relationship of Targum 1 Samuel to its Hebrew parent text, which are discussed in the later part of the book. Throughout this monograph, application of Weinrich’s insights into the translation of the Hebrew Bible into modern European languages is kept before the reader. Robert Hayward Durham, 6 August 2019 xi

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Biblical studies were making their first strides into text-linguistics when Alviero Niccacci wrote his The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose (1990).1 I came to know of it as I was embarking on a course in Biblical Hebrew taught by Niccacci at the Studium Biblicum in Jerusalem. I was impressed by the ease with which he tackled difficult problems in Biblical Hebrew syntax whether in prose or poetry. Niccacci employed the syntactic method of Harald Weinrich, a German professor of Romance languages who in 1964 published his major work under the name Tempus.2 In this brief introduction, I argue that, in its definitive form (that is Tempus and its two applications to French and German),3 the method of Weinrich is aimed at much more than explaining the function of tense in Romance languages, English and German: it is a fully formed theory of language. The current contribution constitutes a revision of my PhD thesis defended at the University of Durham (2017). I have added a chapter focused on critically examining the work of those who have employed this method on BH syntax (Wolfgang Schneider and Niccacci) and of Translation by Wilfred G.E. Watson of A. Niccacci, Sintassi del verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum‒Analecta 23, 1986). 2 H. Weinrich, Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964). 3 H. Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français (Paris: Didier/Hatier, 1982/1989); H. Weinrich, Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache (Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1993). 1

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those who have unjustifiably attacked the work of Weinrich, mainly Randall Buth and Holger Gzella. I do not consider this chapter so much a critique of their work as providing a pretext to highlight particularly important points in Weinrich’s approach to language which have been, I think, missed or misinterpreted. It has been my experience that that the work of Weinrich on language is an excellent alternative to the classical tense theories. This book is my effort to show that it is applicable to Targum Aramaic (TA), and by extension to Biblical Hebrew (BH).4 Weinrich’s approach to language is not a mainstream method. On the contrary, by proposing the ideas that tense does not mean time, and that the analysis of language should be based on text rather than sentence, he sometimes comes under fire from colleagues in Germany and elsewhere. As much as the academic world proclaims that fresh ideas are its lifeblood, I found that that it is not the case with Weinrich’s reception. However, Weinrich exhibits remarkable ability in dealing with issues of tense, article, adverb, adjective, numeral, conjunctions, etc., with far-reaching consequences for syntactic studies, translation, and general language teaching. In fact, the one other thing that Weinrich is known for, besides linguistic works, is teaching German as a foreign language.5 While his work has gone almost unnoticed in the UK and the US, Weinrich gained a much deserved recognition in Germany and France. He concluded his teaching career as holder of the Chair of ‘Langues et littératures romanes’ at Collège de France (1992 to 1998). By that time, his Tempus reached its 5th edition in German (being translated into at least 7 foreign languages). Weinrich’s Tempus is animated by continental philosophy as evident in the writing of the French and German humanists of his time: literary critics like Roland Barthes, linguists like Émile Benveniste or J. Larochette. His classical studies with his Lehrer Heinrich Lausberg, the great rhetorician, have also their contribution to Weinrich’s intellectual breath as academic. Before Weinrich, Käte Hamburger had argued for the discontinuity between tense and time in narration: she My application to Biblical Hebrew is found in V. A. Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint II’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament , 1–24. 5 See the list of his publications in H. Weinrich, Sprache, das heisst Sprachen (Tübingen: Narr, 2001), 357–411. 4

INTRODUCTION

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thinks that the origo—the point of reference—remains enclosed in the story with no connection to the events depicted. For his side, Weinrich puts forward the proposal that this is not an exceptional phenomenon of the narrative literature. On the contrary, in every instance of language, the grammatical system is isolated from ‘real time’ of the facts or fictitious events to which it refers. Many prominent scholars are already thinking differently about the function of tense in language. They are kindred spirits to Weinrich, although not aware of his work. They too understand that tense means something other than time. To give some examples: Paul Hopper’s theory of foregrounding is paralleled by one of Weinrich’s dimensions of language (the relievo or foregrounding).6 Another example is the research in sociolinguistics by William Labov and Joshua Waletzky. They propose that the narrative sentences can be categorised in relation to the so-called temporal juncture (a fixed sequence of sentences whose switch is impossible lest it would create a different story): narrative sentences are those which contain this juncture; coordinated sentences are those which allow a switch between two subsequent sentences without changing the story. This is not about convincing the reader of one way or the other. It is about making clear that (1) there is an alternative to the classical tense theories and that (2) many have already rejected to a certain extent the claim that tense means time.7 Be that as it may, I think that, in order for the reader to properly appreciate the significance of Weinrich’s approach to language, including his tense model, one would have to be aware of the fundamental goal of his life’s work as linguist. There is one such occasion when Weinrich speaks about it explicitly. When his Textgrammatik der A longer personal message received (via email) from Hopper confirms this lapse between American discourse analysis and German text-linguistics: ‘I am sorry to say that I didn’t know of Weinrich’s book [Tempus] at the time I was writing my papers on aspect and foregrounding. As you point out, his views were not well known at that time, and even today, probably because he wrote in French and German.’ 7 I shall make good use of the work of Hopper and Labov and Waletzky in the chapters dedicated to the TA wqetal and wparticiple. 6

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französischen Sprache (1982) was translated into French, he received an accolade invitation to defend his work in front of THEDEL, a panel of linguists working at the Paris (René) Descartes University (Paris V). These were prominent students and associates of André Martinet who have critically examined this translation and asked a number of poignant questions as recorded in a ‘Discussion’.8 While giving evidence about his emphasis on text9 (rather than sentence) and the associated methodological decisions (synchronic analysis, focus on deixis, and terminology), Weinrich asserted: ‘The Sprachtheorie of [Karl] Bühler10 was a major event in the history of linguistics. But this book dates back to 1934, and we are now [1993] several decades after it. Contemporary linguists must take a few steps forward. That is what I tried to do in my grammar [Grammaire textuelle du français]’.11 To explain what this means, it is worth pondering a summary of Bühler’s work in the expert words of Werner Abraham: ‘Bühler distinguished between the symbolic field and the deictic field. While in the first, symbolic, field of linguistic description the speaker is hidden, he enters the analytic picture – the origo – himself both as the actor in the linguistic performance and as an observer of the speech act as well as of himself as speaker. Every language makes essential use of cognitive fields, the symbolic as 8 H. Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich

et la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, La Linguistique 30/2 (1994); H. Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français. 9 Collete Feuillard, the panellist asking this particular question, introduces her long question (pp. 143–144) with what I believe is a relevant congratulatory remark: ‘The great interest of your book is precisely to have tried to work on the text. This is an essential dimension, which was missing from all existing grammars [of French].’ 10 Bühler is the first to convincingly explain the deixis or ‘direct pointing at objects’; see W. Abraham, ‘Preface: Traces of Bühler’s Semiotic Legacy in Modern Linguistics’, in Theory of Language, ed. D. F. Goodwin and A. Eschbach (Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 2011), xiv. 11 H. Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, La Linguistique 30/2 (1994), 145– 146.

INTRODUCTION

5

well as the deictic one. This has to do with two facts: one that language makes use not only of classificatory lexemes (nouns), but also of the recurrence strategy to such antecedents (‘pronouns’ and reflexives, in terms of the field of symbols); and another where deixis (direct pointing at objects) is intrinsic in the communicative act.’12

In this context, I take as crucially significant that, from the first edition of Tempus (1964) up to his two Textgrammatiken of French and German, Weinrich is on course to generate a modern theory of language—the text-linguistic theory. While the theory of Bühler draws up a pointing system of language, Weinrich creates a text-linguistics theory which makes visible the corporeal involvement of the speaker/writer during communication. So it is not by chance that Weinrich sets as the first ‘theoretical fundamentals’ of his ‘Grammaire textuelle’ the text followed by ‘dialogue’ and ‘anthropology’. Whereas the first item is representative of all types of communications (for Weinrich texts are ‘oral or written’), the remaining two items are eminently connected with the actual presence of the one speaking/writing addressing the one listening/reading:13 Dialogue: ‘This grammar is based on a linguistic approach that finds its full dimension not in the monologue, but in dialogue. It is therefore not the isolated statements of a single speaker, but on the contrary the exchange between (at least) two interlocutors engaged in a language interaction that provides the reference model for this grammar.’ Anthropology: ‘The model of dialogue only assumes its full illustrative force if the interlocutors are physically represented in a face-toface situation. [...] The explanations provided by this grammar therefore also refer to the physical features of the communication.’ Now, it becomes evident that the three dimensions of language through which Weinrich analyses tense—register, relievo/foregrounding, and perspective—are semantic sieves differentiating the various ways in which this presence of the author is described. Each of the three dimensions focuses on actual linguistic movements by which the 12 Abraham, ‘Preface: Traces of Bühler’s Semiotic Legacy in Modern Linguis-

tics’, in Theory of Language, xiii. 13 My translation from Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 19–20.

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sender of the message makes oneself present in communication. Weinrich’s text-linguistics essentially is a corporeal text-linguistics. 1. The register is in charge of explaining to the recipient that the sender has embedded into the message either an involved (commented) or a distant (narrated) stance towards what is being said (‘this concerns / does not concern us directly’, respectively). 2. Relievo is about presenting a narrative contour of the presto advancement of the plot (or passage of time) or its lento stalling with descriptions, details and alternatives. 3. The perspective refers to the order of the events in the story which either advances the communication (by narrating it or commenting it) or interrupts it by recovering past /anticipating future events during this continuous progression of communication towards the end. From this point of view, while in Bühler’s deictic approach, language points to things and events, in Weinrich’s approach, language is a vehicle which, whilst expressing things and events, ingrains the corporeal presence of the speaker into the message. *** Some explanations about the organisation of this book and other practical matters are necessary before proceeding to the next section regarding the place of Targum Aramaic among the other Aramaic dialects. This book is organised in view of two major priorities. The first is to clarify the content of Weinrich’s method and critically examine whether previous scholars of biblical languages were successful in applying it to BH; also, I examine whether the critique of Weinrich’s approach by students of Semitic Languages is justified in view of recent scholarly developments. I further elucidate particular aspects of these matters in Chapter 2 of this book. In view of this priority, throughout the book, I insist on translating, discussing, and developing sections of Weinrich’s thinking and of others (Labov and Waletzky, Hopper, Hamburger, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Jacques Derrida), as and when required for my exposition of the functions of the Targum Aramaic sentence types.

INTRODUCTION

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The second priority is to produce a syntactic reading of the Aramaic of the Targum of 1Samuel, which is limited in scope and results to indirect speech. The following are the sentence types analysed and their respective chapter. • wqetal or waw-perfect – this is a VSO sentence; see Chapter 3; this chapter includes a sizeable section focused on the syntax of the wqetal form of the verb ‘to be’ ‫;והוה‬ • wparticiple or waw-participle – this is a VSO sentence; see Chapter 4; • xqetal or x-perfect14 – this is a SVO sentence; • xparticiple – this is a SVO sentence • xyiqtul or x-imperfect – this is a SVO sentence. All SVO sentences (on very rare occasions, they might be OVS) are examined in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 proposes a theory of how a biblical book may be divided into biblical ‘episodes.’ Annex 1 contains the divisions into episodes of Targum 1Samuel which I consider correspond to those of the Hebrew Bible. The last two sections of Chapter 6 are dedicated to explaining the impact that one or other tense and word order arrangements (VSO versus SVO) have on the temporal sequence of the episodes in 1Samuel: wqetal in initial position (prelude) marks continuity between two subsequent episodes (from the end of one to the beginning of the other); the other sentence types signal discontinuity. To facilitate comprehension, I have inserted an annotated glossary in the closing statement of the second chapter (see the section, ‘What does Weinrich’s approach stand for after all?’), limited to explaining the three dimensions of language as argued by Weinrich. To clarify what is out of scope, the following items are not discussed in this book: ● Subordinated and negated sentences; ● Nominal clauses (verbless sentences); ● The direct speech passages; ● General issues and debates regarding the comparison between the Masoretic Text and the Targum; 14 x may be a subject, object, or an attribute.

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Matters of comparisons between the Targum Jonathan (TJ) and Targum Onqelos (TO); their provenance and the history of research.

This book has a synchronic approach, which means analysing the tense and word order for what they mean in TA, to the point that it does not attend to the matter of the relation between BH and its Targum and tense and word order correspondences or Targum as translation. For convenience, this book contains a number of tables containing the syntactic analysis of the text I discuss. In the left-hand side column, the reader will find the analysis of the TA forms seconded by the sentence type used in the Hebrew Bible. With this I suggest that, as long as the tense equivalences and word order between TA and BH are preserved, the syntactic analysis proposed is the same for both TA and its BH original. I have outlined my position with regard to the syntax of BH in a recent contribution.15 Apart from the Targum 1Samuel 1:1, the Targum reflects the morphology and the word order of the Vorlage. These are the regular tense and word order correspondences between the two languages which are for the most part scrupulously followed by the Targum. BH wayyiqtol wqatal xqatal xparticiple and xyiqtol

TA wqetal wparticiple xqetal xparticiple (rarely xyiqtul)

There are only 5 occurrences of TA yiqtul (imperfect) in the indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel; this is because the BH yiqtol (with the exception of these 5 occurrences of yiqtul) is translated with participle or xparticiple depending on the word order of the BH original. The middle column of the table contains the relevant text of the Targum 1Samuel in Aramaic as collated by Alexander Sperber.16 I checked the relevant sections in his critical apparatus for variations and these are recorded and analysed in Annex 2. 15 Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint II’.

Alexander Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic: Volume II - The Former Prophets according to Targum Jonathan (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1959). 16

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The right-hand side column includes the translation of the text which seeks to reflect as much as possible the syntactic analysis. In most cases, the wording of the translations follows Eveline StaalduineSulman; on rare occasions, I also employed the work of Daniel Harrington and Anthony Saldarini;17 the italics in these translations (either in the body of text or the tables) represent my modifications. Also, if not stated otherwise, the translations from French, German, and Italian belong to me. When occurring, my additions to the translations are indicated in square brackets. The last section of this introductive chapter is aimed at providing a historical and geographical positioning of the Aramaic language of TJ and implicitly that of Targum 1Samuel (Targum Aramaic or TA) in the context of the other dialects of Aramaic.

T HE DIALECT OF TARGUM ARAMAIC The focus of this book, Targum Jonathan of 1Samuel, is the Aramaic translation of 1Samuel of the Hebrew Bible. I list here the stages of development of Aramaic and seek to describe the place of the Aramaic language of the Targum from the point of view of geography and the associated religious traditions. I also mark the differences between various dialects of Targum Aramaic: (a) the language of Onqelos and Jonathan; (b) Targumic Jewish Palestinian Aramaic; (c) Late Jewish Literary Aramaic. The Aramaic language is normally assumed to have five stages of existence starting from the Old Aramaic (950–600 BC), and continuing with Imperial/Official Aramaic (600–200 BC), Middle Aramaic (200 BC–200 AD), Late Aramaic (AD 200–700), and Modern Aramaic (AD 700 to present).18 Eveline van Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel (Leiden: Brill, 2002); D. J. Harrington and A. J. Saldarini, The Aramaic Bible 10: Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets (Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1987). 18 S. Creason, ‘Aramaic’, in The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum, ed. R. D. Woodard (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 109. According to Gzella, this periodisation goes back to Joseph Fitzmyer (1966, 1979); H. Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic (Boston: Brill, 2015), 47. 17

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Most recently, Gzella maintains that the language of the Targumim has a place in the wider ‘multicultural setting of Roman and Byzantine Palestine’. Following the common opinion,19 he separates the Late Aramaic stage into the branches of Western (Palestinian) Aramaic and Eastern (Syrian and Mesopotamian) Aramaic. These areas contain a variety of three Aramaic dialects which are different not only in spelling and script but also in their cultural and religious provenance. While Christians and Samaritans communicate in their own respective dialect and script, the Jews persevered a ‘square script in the Persian period and employed it for their literary and documentary texts in Palestine as well as in Babylon’.20 While the geographic distance imposes a further dialectal difference, these two areas, however, ‘remained in contact over the centuries and were even formally united under the caliphate of the Umayyads (622–750 C.E)’.21 With the advent of Islam, ‘the genuine Palestinian variety of Aramaic was eclipsed by Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and the language of the Targumim Onqelos and Jonathan.’22 With regard to the original place of composition of Targum Onqelos and Jonathan, Gzella asserts that ‘it is impossible to demonstrate whether a complete version of the text redacted in Babylonia had already been drafted in Palestine’.23 Based on the comparison between the morphological of analysis of TO and TJ, and that of their Western and Eastern counterparts, it is now clear that TO/TJ language is a mix of the two Aramaic dialects at the time of composition in which one can also observe the earlier ‘Palestinian offshoot of 19 Creason, ‘Aramaic’, in The

Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum, 109. 20 Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic, 281. Samaritans use a ‘pre-Achaemenid epigraphic Hebrew script with its strong nationalist connotations’; Palestinian Christians use ‘the Estrangela writing of their brethren in Syria and Mesopotamia’. 21 Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic, 304. 22 Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic, 305. 23 Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic, 308. On this Palestinian provenance of these two Targumim, Gzella mentions the overview on this matter by R. J. Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 5–14.

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Achaemenid Official Aramaic’. This particular linguistic substrate creates a strong connection with the Aramaic texts at Qumran and the Palestinian Targum. In the end, Gzella thinks that the combination of the Jewish Palestinian with the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic dialects creates a ‘supra-regional … and highly standardized written code’ which is a ‘linguistic entity in its own right’24. Subsequently, Gzella refers to Kuty (in note 1047) for further information on the Eastern/Western features of the TJ (albeit limited to Targum 1–2 Samuel) and its relation with the other Aramaic dialects. The conclusion of the latter is that the language of TJ to 1–2 Samuel has ‘typical Eastern Aramaic features’ and that this text ‘received its ultimate form in Babylonia … and nowadays most scholars agree that this happened around the 4th century C.E, i.e. towards the beginning of the L[ate] A[ramaic] period’.25 He also suggests that the language of TJ has plenty of features dating back to the Middle Aramaic period and, possibly for this reason, ‘Q[umran] A[ramaic] would appear to be TJ’s closest relative’. His final conclusion is that TJ has a ‘non-Babylonian setting in the Middle Aramaic period’. 26 Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic, 309. Talking about the language of the Babylonian Talmud (written in the Jewish Babylonian/Eastern Aramaic), Gzella asserts that the language of TJ and TO is not the same as Jewish Eastern or Western Aramaic, but the former is ‘a language in its own right that cannot be subsumed under either Jewish Palestinian or Jewish Babylonian Aramaic without proper discrimination’. He also presumes that TJ and TO have a ‘basic layer that does not belong to the Eastern dialect group’; Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic, 353. In the eminent compendium by S. Weninger, ed. The Semitic Languages (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011), no entry for the language of Targum Onqelos and Jonathan can be found. The only mention is by Michael Sokoloff who lists the ‘Onkelos-Jonathan Targumic Aramaic’ among the ‘other varieties of Aramaic written by Jews’ like Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic; p. 611. 25 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 247. 26 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 250. Kuty discusses the opposing view of C. Müller-Kessler, ‘The Earliest Evidence for Targum Onqelos from Babylonia and the Question of its Dialect and Origin’, Journal for the Aramaic Bible 3, No. 1–2 (2001). Kuty asserts that ‘her [Muller-Kessler’s] notion of ‘Standard Literary Babylonian Aramaic’, and 24

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Before concluding this section, I note two things related to the language of Targum Onqelos and Jonathan, mainly on the so-called ‘Standard Literary Aramaic’ and the Late Jewish Literary Aramaic. There is a continuous influence of the Imperial/Official Aramaic over the subsequent stage of Late Aramaic which has led Jonas Greenfield to propose the existence of the so-called ‘Standard Literary Aramaic’. This proposal has been rejected by Gzella on the grounds that ‘neither Greenfield nor his successors ever defined “Standard Literary Aramaic” or even identified one single linguistic feature that distinguishes it from Achaemenid Official Aramaic’. 27 The Late Jewish Literary Aramaic (LJLA) shares features but it is not the same as the dialect of Targum Onqelos and Jonathan. Stephen A. Kaufman proposed the existence of the former dialect in an article originally written in Hebrew (1993); he suggested that the following texts belong to this dialect: ‘Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to the Pentateuch, Targum Psalms, Targum Job, and Targum Sheni, along with, perhaps, a few of the tosephtot to TJ to the Prophets’.28 More specifically, Kaufman finds that LJLA has a morphology similar to Targum Onqelos (p. 7) and they share vocabulary (p. 2: Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ‘is not uniform from a linguistic point of view: it contains words and idioms from the Aramaic of the Yerushalmi Targum, from that of T[argum]O[nkelos], from Biblical Aramaic, and from the language of the Babylonian Talmud’).29 Once again, this volume is an analysis of the Targum Aramaic of 1Samuel following the lines of Harald Weinrich’s text-linguistic approach to language. Its results are further limited in scope to the indirect speech of this biblical book. This is a synchronic reading and does not tackle issues related to any other form of Aramaic. therefore also her alternative model for the origin of TO/TJ, should be left in suspense until the exact nature of the linguistic relation between TO/TJ and the magic bowls (and hence the very existence of SBLA) has been clarified’; see Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 12. 27 Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic, 165, note 523; see J.C. Greenfield, ‘Standard Literary Aramaic’, in Actes du premier Congrès international de linguistique sémitique et chamito-sémitique, ed. A. Caquot and D. Cohen (The Hague/Paris: Mouton, 1974). 28 St. A. Kaufman, ‘Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and Late Jewish Literary Aramaic’, 11, No. 1 (2013), 10. 29 Kaufman, ‘Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and Late Jewish Literary Aramaic’.

CHAPTER 2. TEXT-LINGUISTICS AND BIBLICAL HEBREW AND TARGUM ARAMAIC SYNTAXES This chapter outlines Harald Weinrich’s methodological stances with regard to language. It continues with a critical discussion of those attempts to apply this method to Biblical Hebrew (Schneider, Niccacci). To these, I add an overview of those BH and Aramaic syntaxes which adopt a discourse analysis perspective to language by integrating the foreground-background opposition in a tense/aspect framework (Randall Buth, Renaud Kuty and Holger Gzella). These syntaxes mainly adhere to Paul Hopper’s theory of foregrounding. The second objective is to reassert what Weinrich’s text-linguistic method achieves. Probably, its misreading in Biblical Studies might be the underlying reason why only a handful of scholars have adopted it. I note in particular three important elements of Weinrich’s methodology: (1) that there is a linguistic attitude of comment or the comment register, which has an equal standing with its counterpart, the narrative register—the comment and narrative registers are not equivalent to the direct and indirect speech; (2) that tense has nothing to do with time or aspect; (3) most importantly, the theoretic basis of Weinrich’s methodology resides in the ‘semantic instructional features’—the semantic features and the pragmatic view of the foregrounding operate together. On the first point, Weinrich defined narrative and comment as registers of communication which instruct the reader/hearer of the position (relaxed or involved, distant or close) one should have towards the content of the communication. My primary criticism of Schneider and Niccacci derives from their misunderstanding of this particular 13

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methodological point: that the narrative and comment registers are not equivalent to the indirect and direct speech.1 Regarding the second point: rejection of the connection tense and time is inherent to Weinrich’s method. More significant is what he proposes instead—the dimension of the linguistic perspective. Each sequence of the narrated events or comment assertions is a flow of zero degree forms which advance the communication. The zero degree sequence may be interrupted by a narrative event or a comment assertion that recovers or anticipates events—these are the retrospective and the anticipative perspectives, respectively. By inserting this additional information containing a perspective, the author curbs the zero degree flow of information to present a reminder or an expectation of something. The ‘zero degree’ means that the tense or the form bearing this label exhibits an unmarked perspective or that it lacks perspective. Hence, tense is not connected with time; when occurring, the perspective only signals that there is information to be recovered or anticipated. Otherwise, when perspective is absent, the communication advances toward the end in a zero degree/unmarked for perspective fashion. Making any more assumptions based on tense, according to Weinrich, is in the domain of speculation. The issue of disconnection of time and tense brings me to another assertion for which the method has come under attack2—that this method is simpler. There is no need to bring evidence to the fact that time and aspect studies of tense make for difficult reading. The study of tense based on time and aspect goes back to the grammars of Latin and Greek; in the 20th century, time and aspect based theories of tense have received new clothing and justification through the work of Hans Reichenbach and Bernard Comrie. For scholars like Alexander Andrason, the rejection of any kind of simplicity in language syntax is the norm: ‘Neat, binary, discrete and static models correspond I have developed this particular point in V. A. Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1–20. 2 K. Strunk, ‘“Besprochene und erzählte Welt” im Lateinischen? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit H. Weinrich’, Gymnasium 76 (1969). Following him, also H. Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004). 1

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to “folk” representations of reality’. 3 Although the binary model is integral to the century-old structuralist manner of thinking, Andrason’s idea should not be considered valid only because this model might be a statement about language that speaks the language of the folk. My contribution is to take these particular ‘“folk” representations of [the] reality’ of the binary sign further into the post-structuralist examination of language (see Chapter 5 of this book). By this, I also suggest that folk should continue to judge the viability of a syntactic proposal whilst they adopt it (or not) in further syntactic studies, translations, and exegesis of the Biblical text.

H ARALD WEINRICH: HIS PLACE IN TEXT-LINGUISTICS Robert de Beaugrande asserts that as soon as the linguists started to analyse the text ‘beyond’ the limits of the sentence, text-linguistics was born. He lists among the main schools of text-linguistics: ‘text-grammar’ (Teun A. van Dijk), ‘text-syntax’ (Wolfgang Dressler), ‘hypersyntax’ (Bohumil Palek), or ‘macro-syntax’ (Elisabeth Gülich).4 Eva Schoenke testifies that the influence of Prague School is very much present in these approaches. She mentions Weinrich as the one who coins the term text-linguistics: „Linguistik ist Textlinguistik“.5 She connects the old and the new trends in text-linguistics: (1) František Daneš of Prague School proposed the analysis of the ‘thematic progression’; (2) Klaus Brinker’s theme development; (3) John L. Austin’s illocutive structures (subsequently represented by Wolfgang Motsch and Dieter Viehweger); (4) theme as object with information deficiency (Andreas Lötscher); and (5) ‘Quaestio’ of texts (Wolgang Klein and Christiane

A. Andrason, ‘Against Binarism, Simplicity, Neatness and Stasis’, Folia Orientalia 54 (2017), 11. 4 R. de Beaugrande, ‘Text Linguistics’, in Discursive Pragmatics, ed. Jan Zienkowski, Jan–Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 2011), 287. 5 E. Schoenke, ‘Textlinguistik im deutschsprachigen Raum’, in Text– und Gesprächslinguistik: Linguistics of Text and Conversation, ed. Klaus Brinker, et al. (Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 2000), 123; H. Weinrich, ‘Syntax als Dialektik’, Poetica 1 (1967), 109. 3

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von Stutterheim).6 In very broad strokes, this is the rich text-linguistic environment in which Weinrich has his own distinctive voice. The text-linguistics of H. Weinrich

Weinrich’s text-linguistic proposal analyses the syntax of tense under three dimensions:7 register (narrative or comment); perspective (zero degree versus the recovered/anticipated information); and relievo (foreground/background). His proposal rejects the cognitive or psychological explanations of language. Instead, he favours the analysis of language in literary written texts and real life communications. He draws and develops the work of Karl Bühler (especially his deixis),8 Käte Hamburger, and Günther Müller. 9 Schoenke, ‘Textlinguistik im deutschsprachigen Raum’, in Text– und Gesprächslinguistik: Linguistics of Text and Conversation, 125–126. 7 Another summary in English of Weinrich’s three dimensions of language is found in P. Ricoeur, K. Blamey, and D. Pellauer [tr], Time and Narrative 2 (Chicago/London: UCP, 1985), 67–72. He calls the three dimensions with the term ‘axes of communication’. 8 K. Bühler, Sprachtheorie (Stuttgart/New York: G. Fischer, 1934/1982); see Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, 145–146. 9 In the 4th edition of his Tempus (1985, p. 341), Weinrich explains that he started from two ideas put forth by the discipline of literary criticism. According to Hamburger, the presence of the preterit signals that the I-Origo (the point of reference) is transferred from the narrator ‘into the field of fiction – […] where now ‘today’, ‘yesterday’, or ‘tomorrow’ refer to the fictive Here and Now of the respective figures, and no longer to a real Here and Now of the narrator’, K. Hamburger and M. J. Rose [tr], The Logic of Literature (Bloomington: IUP, 1971/1993), 79. This is to say that the narrative literature provides no indication as to the time when the action is taking place or ‘it ‘presentifies’ without referring to any temporal present, past, or future of the epic figures’. It is evident here that tenses do not refer to real time; see Hamburger and Rose [tr], The Logic of Literature, 93–98. According to Gunther Müller, narrative time does not coincide with solar time. Consequently, it can be stretched or shortened according to the author’s choice or interpretation; see G. Müller, ‘Erzählzeit und erzählte Zeit’, in Festschrift fur Paul Kluckhohn und Hermann Schneider (Tübingen: Mohr, 1948; reprint in Morphologische Poetik (Tübingen: 1968)). This idea is picked up later by Roland Barthes who, regarding the French passé simple, 6

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The tense as linguistic sign and its ‘relevant semantic features’

Two principles set aside the work of Weinrich from those scholars working with tense. The first is that the word for tempus or time is not connected with the tense or that tense does not say anything about an event and its situation with regard to the traditional triad past-presentfuture.10 This broadly means that tenses are not elements that convey time and aspect. Second, he maintains that the text is the proper place in which one should analyse tenses. The text is ‘a logical (i.e. intelligible and consistent) sequence of linguistic signs, placed between two significant breaks in communication’. 11 Some of Weinrich’s concepts and mechanisms may seem idiosyncratic, especially because scholars tend to read only his landmark contribution, Tempus. I offset this apparent idiosyncrasy by presenting Weinrich’s methodological explanations which he introduces as a foreword to his application of this methodology to French.12 The subsequent ‘discussion’ of this work before the THEDEL panel (already

explains that its purpose is not to denote a specific time, but to take ‘the reality to a certain point, […] to a pure verbal act’ which is integrated into a set of actions and which ‘supposes a constructed world, thought out, detached, reduced to a few significant lines’; R. Barthes, Le degré zéro de l’écriture (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972), 46. 10 H. Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo (Bologna: Società Editrice il Mulino, 1964/1978), 10–11. 11 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 14. The English translation belongs to Watson; A. Niccacci and W. G. E. Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 56. 12 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français. This Grammaire and the application to German (Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache) are only one part of the larger literature that Weinrich has produced. His ‘Nachwort’ (‘Afterword’) to the 4th edition of Tempus (1985, pp. 340–344) indirectly decries the fact that scholars have ignored his subsequent work on the topic like Literatur für Leser: Essays und Aufsätze zur Literaturwissenschaft (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1971); Sprache in Texten (Köln: Klett–Cotta, 1976); and Wege der Sprachkultur (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1985).

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mentioned in the introduction) will provide more answers with regard to these issues of foundations.13 As indicated above, Weinrich examines language from the perspective of the text, not within the confines of a sentence. His work involves a dialogic and an anthropologic stance towards language which assumes communication as being that between a dispatcher of information and a receiver. The dispatcher attaches instructions to the content of his or her communication: ‘the speaker uses the language to interact with the receiver (or listener). […] the meaning of statements [they are to be taken]: as instructions, i.e. as guidelines that a sender sends to a receiver to let him know how he is expected to behave in the given situation.’ This is an ‘instructional linguistics’ in which the receiver of the message cannot overlook these instructions as they are ‘an imperative hypothetical with the message: “Dear listener, if you want this text to have meaning for you, then here is how you must behave”’. It means that the language contains the disposition in which the message should be understood.14 Here, Weinrich comes to the so-called ‘traits pertinents sémantiques’ or ‘relevant semantic features’. They are items which stand in binary opposition to each other, as for example and ; and ; or and .15 These features are attachable to a grammatical concept: ‘Thus each grammatical concept is defined as the particular combination of a limited number of relevant semantic features’. Each grammatical sign (like tense, article, etc.) is defined by the presence of one or the other of these semantic features. Each language has a particular number of paired semantic features by which the linguistic signs are interpreted. Weinrich asserts 13 Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et

la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’. 14 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 20–21. Pages 19–23 contain a summary of these ‘methodologic foundations’; the subsequent pages reflect more closely what each of these terms mean (see pp. 23–30). 15 For a full list of these features with regard to French, see Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 635–641; for German, Weinrich, Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache, 1081–1088.

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that the number of these pairs varies: French and German use 30 such pairs. Other languages could use more or fewer pairs; only a text-linguistic analysis can say for sure. 16 To get to the point of this little linguistic excursus, the features of tense of register (narrative versus comment), perspective (zero perspective versus recovered/anticipated perspective), and relievo (foreground versus background) are nothing but ‘relevant semantic features’. A key word in this expression is ‘relevant’: these three features are relevant to tense; others are pertinent to the rest of the linguistic signs like the article, adverb, adjective, the pronoun, etc. Weinrich repeatedly argues that, in French for example, these three features are pertinent to the tense: ‘The concept of “tense” recovers in French three semantic dimensions: the tense perspective; the tense register, and the tense relievo’.17 They apply to all the other Romance Languages, German and English as evident in his Tempus. Although this has been largely overlooked, Weinrich takes tense to mean a linguistic sign which is subsequently investigated in the context of the other linguistic signs.18 According to him, The division of the verbal tenses in comment tenses group and narrative tenses group more precisely indicates the following: tense forms are morphemes obstinately inserted in the signs chain 16 Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et

la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, 141. In the same discussion, Weinrich inserts these semantic features into the larger discussion in linguistics: the only a priori property of his syntax is to begin from the evidence provided by the text situation, the semantics, following the maxim of Wittgenstein ‘Denk nicht, sondern schau’ or ‘Do not think, look!’. By language signs, Weinrich observes that they can be analysed starting from these semantic features. This is by contrast with Noam Chomsky for example who puts ‘sentence’ as an a priori (p. 141). Weinrich (141) quotes here Ludwig Wittgensteins’ Philosophische Untersuchungen, §66; I return to this argument in my critique of Buth, see below. 17 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 117. I translated the three occurrences of the French ‘temporelle’ with ‘tense’ as these dimensions have nothing to do with the meaning of ‘time’ or ‘temporal’ but they are referred to the morpheme of ‘tense’. 18 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 40.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC of a text and they are used by the speaker to make heard a particular type of signal. In the first case the signal says: “this is a comment passage”, while in the second: “this is a narrative passage”.19

There is a very finely tuned equilibrium between the semantic and pragmatic sides of his methodology. He assumes a dialogic stance of a speaker/writer and hearer/reader communicating to each other; this feeds into his ‘anthropology’ of communication in which the two sides are involved not only through heard/written words but also through body.20 By emphasizing that the instruction (see above) is integral to grammar, Weinrich cleverly puts together the pragmatic side of the grammar (that which encompasses the reason for two sides communicating and how that is realised) with the semantic part, which contains the meanings that each syntactic sign bears. The semantic features developed by Weinrich in language make up the backbone of this text-linguistic approach so that ‘each grammatical concept is defined by the particular combination of a limited number of relevant semantic features’.21 Through an analysis of the verb with regard to the three dimensions of language (register, perspective, and relievo), Weinrich creates a unique description of each tense starting from the analysis of literary works in modern languages, Romance languages, English and German. This, I think, amounts to a ground-breaking methodology which produces a unique description for individual tenses; each tense has one strict linguistic meaning. The text is the only environment in which a linguistic sign can acquire more than one linguistic meaning. The basic meaning of a sign, however, is always there. To give an example, a French imparfait (a narrative tense) may appear in the company of a passé composé (a comment tense), but, whatever its tense partner, the imparfait is always going to induce a narrative meaning, especially when this meaning is confirmed by other linguistic signs

19 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 37. textuelle du français, 20–21. 21 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 21; see the section, ‘Traits pertinents sémantiques’. 20 Weinrich, Grammaire

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with the same narrative function.22 In the following, I explain these three dimensions of language relevant to the analysis of tense. Register: comment and narrative, two faces of communication The first dimension of language is that of register (also known as linguistic attitude). The register is represented by the opposition between the narrative and comment registers. On the one hand, by using comment tenses, the speaker/writer instructs the hearer/reader that he or she should have an ‘attitude of tension’ as the message is something of interest for him or her. This tension is reflected in their corresponding types of communication which display predominantly comment register tenses:23 ‘the dramatic dialogue, the political memorandum, the main column [in a newspaper], the testament, the conference, the philosophical essay, juridical comment and any form of ritual discourse, formalised or performative’. The events contained in these pieces of literature are explicitly affecting the speaker/writer, so he or she ‘is in a state of tension and their discourse is piercing […] and, consequently, the one who is listening too must receive it in a state of participation’.24 Tense is the main instrument for conveying register, but that does not exclude the contribution of other linguistic signs to convey the narrative or comment register. So it is typical of these texts to contain verbs and pronouns in first and second person, reflecting the implication of the person transmitting the information. On the other hand, the narrative passages convey information where the listener should not regard this being in tension.25 The narrative tenses are found in higher numbers in ‘a youth story, the description of a hunting expedition, a fable of one’s invention, a

22 Weinrich, Grammaire

textuelle du français, 134–138. Oral communication may convey a narrative register sequence through associating a passé composé (as standing for a narrative foreground tense) associated with narrative particles as for example ‘alors’ ‘(et) puis’, ‘puis alors’, ‘enfin’ coupled with imparfait which provides the foreground narrative tense (p. 137). 23 This does not exclude the presence of a narrative tense in a predominantly comment register communication and vice versa. 24 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 47. 25 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 44.

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religious legend, a short story or a historical episode, a novel of an ingenious construction, or even the information present in a newspaper referring to a political meeting’. The verbal forms create a relaxed state of affairs in which the author calmly relates the story; neither the speaker nor the reader needs to react in consequence.26 Pronouns and verbs are usually in the third person, reflecting this state of rest and relaxation in which the reader is not required to act or react to what is said. Linguistic perspective: retrospect, zero degree, and anticipation Weinrich rejects the classical tripartite division of time (past, present, future) with regard to tenses.27 His solution is to propose the difference between real time and text time: the real time refers to the reality described; text time (present in every communication) is created by the linear disposition of tenses. The text time is the succession of the linguistic signs in the narrative register. The text time may be of a zero degree as the sequence of events is linear, advancing the plot towards the end of the story; or this zero degree line may be interrupted to introduce an event that happened later in the story than the point where it is actually inserted (hence, the plot anticipates something) or earlier in the story (and, hence, the plot recovers something that happened before). Again, the text time is not the solar time but the sequence of tenses/sentence in the text.28 The degree zero in any kind of text (comment or narrative) refers to the case in which ‘there is no problem between text time and real time’, or that the sequence of the events in real time is mirrored by that in the text.29 Briefly, text time may actualise three situations: zero degree, anticipation and retrospection. (1) Text time is of zero degree either when the sequence of tenses reflects the order of events as they happened in the reality described, or the sequence of events is not interrupted by anticipated or retrospective information. Zero degree does not necessarily imply temporal advancement of the plot so the narrative or comment tenses include 26 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 48. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 9–11. 28 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 77–79. 29 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 78. 27 Weinrich, Tempus.

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both those actions that suggest completed or prolonged action. A passage reflecting the zero degree in the narrative register is the following fragment from Margaret Atwood (simple past is the English zero degree tense).30 ‘Morrison was not up on the theories of group dynamics. He liked the old way: you taught the subject and forgot about them as people. It disconcerted him when they slouched into his office and mumbled at him, fidgeting and self–conscious, about their fathers or their love lives. He didn’t tell them about his father or his love life …’

(2) Text time may reflect a different sort of sequence from the order of events as they happen; it strays from the zero degree of past simple into a past perfect (again from Atwood): ‘It was colder […]. She jumped up and down beside the car till he got the plug–in engine heater untangled and the door opened, her head coming out of the enormous second–hand fur coat she wore like a gopher’s out of its burrow. He had seen a lot of gophers on the drive across, many of them dead; one he had killed himself, an accident, it had dived practically under the car wheels. The car itself hadn’t held up either: by the time he’d made it to the outskirts—though later he realized that this was in fact the city—a fender had come off and the ignition was failing. He’d had to junk it, and had decided stoically to do without a car until he found he couldn’t. He swung the car onto the driveway that led from the university.’

The zero degree of past tense (‘It was colder […]. She jumped up and down’) is interrupted by a sequence past perfect of recovered information or presenting pre-information about this character’s preceding experience with ‘gophers’. His accidental hitting of a gopher becomes a retrieved memory that the author inserts into the zero degree sequence starting from ‘He had seen a …’ to ‘He’[ha]d had to junk it, and had decided …’. After the experience is recounted, the text returns to zero degree past tense (‘He swung the car onto the driveway …’). Both tenses are of narrative register: past simple represents the zero 30 All excerpts of this section are from Margaret Atwood, Dancing

Other Stories: Polarities (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), 52–53.

Girls and

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degree; past perfect is the recovered information. This type of tense sequence is typical of the narrative register communication whether the events described take place in the past or in a projected future. A science fiction novel describing events taking place in a distant future (with regard to the moment when it is written or read) will use the same alternation of tenses, which is further evidence that there is no connection between the actual time of the event and tense employed in communication. Weinrich provides the example of George Orwell’s novel 1984:31 although the events related are posited in the future, the same distribution of narrative tenses occurs as any other communication about the past. (3) A second type of interruption of zero degree is anticipated information: ‘The house was one of the featureless two–storey boxes thrown up by the streetful in the years after the war when there was a housing boom and materials were scarce. It was stuccoed with a greyish gravel Morrison found spiritually depleting. There were a few older houses, but they were quickly being torn down by developers; soon the city would have no visible past at all. Everything else was high rises, or worse, low barrack–shaped multiple housing units, cheaply tacked together.’

The sequence of past simple tense is briefly interrupted by a prevision or pre-information signalled by the form ‘would’ (‘soon the city would have no visible past at all’), after which the zero degree resumes. The ‘older houses’, to be demolished later, still exist in the next sentence as they stand in contrast with the ‘high rises’—this completes the prevision effect of the sentence with ‘would’. The form ‘would’ which signals anticipation in the narrative register and the future tense (the anticipative tense of the comment register) have nothing to do with the position in time of any of the objects or facts described.

31 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 63.

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Relievo: foreground and background Relievo (or prominence)32 marks the opposition between foreground and background tenses. Similarly with the other two dimensions, it implies specific tenses in each language. For example, French displays this opposition with the passé simple (foreground) and l’imparfait (background). Looking at their uses in literary texts, Weinrich observes that ‘narrative tenses are mixed. There is no story containing only occurrences of imparfait or passé simple’.33 The alternation between the imparfait and passé simple has the purpose of ‘giving relievo to narrative according to a background and a first level’. 34 Aspect and Aktionsart are not part of this discussion. Whether the action is punctual or durative, iterative or unique is not relevant when choosing between the employment of imparfait or passé simple (or the equivalents in Italian and Spanish). I answer the question of (1) what the ‘first level’ or foreground is and what its rapport with background is, as well as (2) its constraints; also, I briefly discuss the English tenses conveying the (3) foreground/background opposition. (1) Foreground tenses usually record the reason of the story and the ideas that would be included in a possible summary; first level or foreground is represented by the item/article/object ‘that in fact would induce the people to leave for a time their work to listen to the story of a world which does not belong to the daily life’;35 here,

For Weinrich’s German term Reliefgebung, I use the equivalent relievo as suggested by H. Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, Archivium Linguisticum 1 (1970), 37; this is a short English summary of his approach to language. Wilfred G. E. Watson (in his translation of Niccacci’s Syntax) proposes as equivalent ‘prominence’, see Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 14. I use the equivalent relievo as suggested by Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 37. 33 To take the example of French, a further opposition foreground/background found in narrative is that of passé antérieur/plus—que—parfait, both tenses representing recovered information. 34 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 161. 35 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129. 32

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Weinrich equates this type of narrative with ‘the unheard-of event’36 of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Background is the opposite of the first level/foreground but also the one providing a better understanding of the text.37 A story is worth writing when something new occurs, unheard of, unusual, that does not happen every day—this is the component of narrative which attracts the reader to reading it. This element of newness represents the centre of the action and, in French, is usually conveyed through passé simple. For the other information, which one can do without, and is not critical to the understanding of the story, the narrator uses the imparfait.38 He expands this topic in his explanation of the asymmetry of the French tense system: there are two narrative tenses, passé simple and imparfait, and one comment tense, the present tense. ‘These two tenses are like two tempo indications: lento for the imparfait, and presto or molto presto for the passé simple’ (Weinrich’s italics). One finds imparfait in ‘the exposition and final passages, in descriptions and portraits, in marginal scenes, additions, details, and in images’ and passé simple in ‘the main plot’.39 It is notable that, according to Weinrich, the narrative plot is marked with foreground tenses; usually but not necessarily, the details are presented through background tenses. It is not the information that has the syntactic function but the tense. Tense is an instrument in the hands of the author to mark what he or she believes to be foregrounded or backgrounded information in the story. (2) Turning to the constraints that this opposition reflects, there is a connection between content and the distribution of foreground/background tenses. While some information might be ‘We talked over the title which should be given to the novel. Many were proposed; some suited the beginning, others the end, but none seemed exactly suitable to the whole. ‘“I’ll tell you what,” said Goethe, “we call it ‘The Novel’ (Die novelle); for what is a novel but a peculiar and as yet unheard-of event? This is the proper meaning of this name; […]”’; J. W. von Goethe et al., Conversations with Goethe (Da Capo Press, reprint of the 1930 London edition, 1998), §1827, p. 162–163. 37 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129. 38 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 160–165. 39 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 37. 36

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preferably be conveyed with imparfait and other with passé simple (see the above correlations: story frame and imparfait; body of narrative and passé simple), this distribution is dependable on ‘several narrative fundamental structures.’40 The introduction, the conclusion, the presentation of the secondary circumstances, descriptions, reflections, and everything that the author wants to put in the background may frequently require the imperfect tense. The actual alternation of passé simple and imparfait is contingent on the author's preference.41 (3) In English the place of the imparfait, as background tense is occupied by the form ‘he was singing’, as ‘the tense in English of the background in the narrative world’.42 Conversely, simple past is the tense of narrative foreground.43 In view of my subsequent analysis of Targum Aramaic sentences, the segue of this section will look into what is particular to my understanding of Weinrich’s foreground and how this fits with the other foregrounding theories of Paul Hopper, Robert Longacre and others. Narrative text time versus narrative foregrounding

The above foray into the work of Weinrich leaves no doubt that this is a serious development in the domain of text-linguistics. What is less evident is that foreground was not originally developed as a linguistic term. I think it was the discipline of Stylistics which has had a long history of researching foregrounding. In his pertinent examination of the state of the art in the field, Willie van Peer exposes the roots of foregrounding which are to be found in Russian Formalism, the Sometimes, the alternation is related to specific characters in the plot, see Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 128–129. 41 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129. 42 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 168. Weinrich often uses to refer to the comment and narrative register the alternative terms ‘commented world’ and ‘narrated world’. Weinrich understands ‘world’ as meaning (p. 27) ‘exclusively the sum of everything that can become the object of a communicative act’. While ‘comment register’ refers to this linguistic dimension, the ‘commented world’ refers to the general relations that the dimension of register achieves in general or in their ‘world’. 43 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 171. 40

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Prague School, and Structuralism.44 The book by van Peer contains the missing link between the stylistic and the syntactic meanings of foregrounding. According to him, the Formalists marked as foreground the ‘defamiliarisation or the making strange’ (V. Šklovskij) or ‘the unfamiliarity due to this deviation from normal usages’ (T.S. Dorsch).45 Jan Mukařovský (Prague School) marks as foreground that which is uncommon and novel, that which is unexpected, unusual and unique.46 Roman Jakobson encloses foregrounding in the pragmatic exchange between the sender and receiver: foregrounding ensues the emphasis of resemblances and repetitions/equivalences of ‘sounds, stress, image, rhyme, poetry patterns’; backgrounding is evident in sequential information and the like.47 This is when foregrounding crosses the line into linguistics. In the United States, it is Paul Hopper who makes foregrounding part of the linguistic debate proper.48 With this reciprocal confirmation coming from Stylistics and Linguistics, it is no wonder that foregrounding gained a stable footing in the domain of linguistics.49 Hopper asserts that the definition of foreground and background W. van Peer, Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding (London: Croom Helm, 1986). 45 Peer, Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding, 1–3. 46 Peer, Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding, 8; Peer uses the translation of Mukařovský’s works by P. L. Garvin, A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure, and Style (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1964). 47 Peer, Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding, 10–11 quotes from T. Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics, 1977, 81. An updated account of foregrounding is found in W. van Peer and J. Hakemulder, ‘Foregrounding’, in Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second Edition), ed. Keith Brown (Oxford: Elsevier, 2006), 546–560. 48 As I explained in note 6 (page 3), Hopper was not aware of Weinrich’s writings at the time. The topic of foreground/background was discussed at the Symposium on Tense and Aspect (UCLA, May 1979), whose papers were gathered in a volume edited by P. J. Hopper, Tense–aspect: Between Semantics & Pragmatics (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1982). 49 The same is evident in BH syntactic studies where tense-aspect theories are correlated with foregrounding, see John A. Cook, Time and the Biblical Hebrew Verb (Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2012), chapter 4. 44

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relies on the quality of being on ‘the story line’ or whether it ‘narrate[s] the main events’. By fulfilling both these tasks, foreground makes up the ‘skeletal structure of the discourse’.50 Foreground represents the sequence of events in chronological order; the sequence contains completed events one after another. The subject tends to be the same within the sequence. The sentence displays an unmarked (normal) word order and preference for human subjects and dynamic events; the information is presented as real (as opposed to modal, subjective, optative, etc.). Background is represented by non-sequenced and non-completed events (the events may be simultaneous, after, or before what is previously stated). Frequent changes of subject, marked (emphatic) word order, irrealis information, and static events are its main features.51 In a later article, Hopper and Sandra Thompson expand on the fact that foreground conveys high transitivity and background lower transitivity. The parameters according to which transitivity is assessed are (the first option of the two characterises foreground): participants (2 or more versus 1 participant—participant has the pragmatic meaning of agent, object, etc.); kinesis (action versus non-action); aspect (telic and atelic: complete or incomplete action); punctuality (punctual versus non-punctual); volitionality (volitional versus non-volitional); affirmation (affirmative versus negative); mode (realis versus irrealis); agency (agent high in potency versus agent in low potency); affectedness (object totally affected versus object not affected); individuation (object highly individuated versus object non-individuated).52 Hopper independently confirms Weinrich’s connection of foregrounding with the narrative plot. Weinrich understood the plot as the general progression of the story towards the end with no retrospection or anticipation. Hopper further suggests that foregrounding P. J. Hopper, ‘Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse’, in Discourse and Syntax, ed. J. M. Sadock and T. Givón (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 213. 51 Hopper, ‘Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse’, in Discourse and Syntax, 216. 52 P. J. Hopper and S. A. Thompson, ‘Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse’, Language 56, No. 2 (1980), 252–253. The article provides statistical evidence (pp. 284–288). The authors also state that foreground is determined by ‘a cluster of proprieties’—no single propriety is sufficient for it to be ascertained (p. 284). 50

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could be correlated with other tense related features like transitivity (transitive-intransitive), telicity (complete versus incomplete action), chronology (chronological versus non-chronological events), and subordination. These are all items still to be researched further in BH and TA syntaxes. I stress again that Weinrich concedes a pragmatic view of language which is based on an inherently semantic analysis of linguistic signs. Moreover, he proposes a strict correlation between form and function; in modern languages, each tense has one discernible function: one tense has only one text-linguistic function. The function of a tense is complete when all the three dimensions of language (under relievo, register, perspective) are delimited.

T EXT-LINGUISTICS AND BIBLICAL H EBREW SYNTAX The aim of the subsequent two sections on BH and Aramaic syntax is not to weigh how valid a particular view of syntax is. Instead, I answer two questions which are more relevant for this book. The first is that of asserting how the approach of Weinrich has been understood by those who positively implemented it in the analysis of Biblical Hebrew, particularly Wolfgang Schneider and Alviero Niccacci. Second, as Weinrich has received a significant amount of less competent reviews from prominent scholars working with BH and Aramaic, it is paramount to perform a reading of this literature and confront it with what Weinrich actually says. This state of affairs could also be the result of the fact that almost no attention has been paid to the wider linguistic and philosophic context of Weinrich’s work. Also, scholars tend to limit their readings to his Tempus leaving aside his other extensive bibliography. My critique of their work could be read by some as a rebuttal of Weinrich’s depreciative reviews or as a defence of his method. However, it is intended more as a comparative elucidation of those points where Weinrich has been misunderstood. Besides the use of Weinrich’s approach, Schneider and Niccacci resort to the linguistic trend of functionalism. Speaking in the most general terms possible, one of the aims of the functional syntax is to describe how the elements within a sentence contribute differently to transmitting information. Following Prague School grammarians, the new information (the rheme of the sentence) is built on the given information (the theme) already introduced in the preceding context.

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For example, Niccacci frequently uses the theme-rheme pair belonging to the Prague School. I showed elsewhere that his syntactical position is a combination of Weinrich’s approach with that of H. J. Polotsky.53 For the purpose of clarity, I describe the BH syntactic stances and the methodology of Schneider and Niccacci under the following points: A. Their overview of BH syntax; B. BH sentence types; C. the understanding of the foreground/background opposition; D. the backgrounding role of subordination and negation; E. the view according to which the pair of comment/narrative means direct/indirect speech; F. the existence of comment passages in indirect speech; G. Tenses-function correspondence in modern languages as found in Schneider and Niccacci versus tense-function correspondence as originally proposed by Weinrich; H. –I. points particular to a specific author. Schneider

Wolfgang Schneider is the father of the text-linguistic reading of the Bible. His book on the BH has set the tone for the way in which subsequent authors have interpreted Weinrich’s statements about language and their reading of BH syntax. While Niccacci and others have refined his analysis of BH syntax, Schneider’s reading of Weinrich’s methodology is pervasive in most of the subsequent research of Biblical Hebrew.54 A. In ‘narrative’ (that is indirect speech), Schneider considers that foreground narrative is represented by the wayyiqtol or the so called ‘verbal clause’;55 ‘Clauses that interrupt the narrative chain 53 Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’.

Schneider has a rather practical view of Weinrich’s approach: ‘The theory [of Weinrich] is not absolutely true; it can however in my opinion best explain the use of the verb forms in text’; W. Schneider and R. L. McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (New York: Peter Lang, 2001/2016), 161. 55 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 160–161. 54

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contain background information’. 56 This means that all interruptions of wayyiqtol chain (xqatal, xyiqtol, and the nominal sentence—these are called ‘nominal clauses’) are background. ‘Simple nominal clauses (often with participle […]) described contemporaneous circumstances’57—following the preceding assertion, this is presumably background information. The ‘previous information’ is conveyed by qatal or perfect which is ‘the looking-back tense’.58 In ‘discourse text’ (direct speech), the yiqtol/imperfect is the tense of foreground. To perfect/qatal, Schneider allocates again the ‘(backward-)perspectival function’.59 B. Schneider proposed the distinction between the verbal clauses (verb first clauses), in which ‘the focus lies on the verb, which describes the event’, and nominal clauses, where ‘the focus lies on the nominal standing at the front’. 60 The nominal clauses are divided in verbless nominal clauses (NC, no verb present) and in compound nominal clauses (CNC, verb in second position of the sentence).61 The topic of sentence types in BH is discussed below again with regard to Niccacci’s similar arrangement. It is important to note that Weinrich does not divide between different kinds of sentences in language. In languages like French, word order (Schneider’s division into verbal and nominal sentences is a mark of word order) has little impact on whether a sentence is foreground/background or comment/narrative—these syntactic functions are conveyed by tense. However, according to Weinrich, word order can play a significant role in marking foreground from 56 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar

of Biblical Hebrew, 163. of Biblical Hebrew, 163. 58 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 163. 59 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 164. 60 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 139; bold letters belong to Schneider. There is no explanation of what exactly focus should mean. I presume that he refers here more or less to the definition put forth for this term by the Prague School as shown by his reference to their thema/rhema pair in note 6, p. 143. 61 In Niccacci the verb second sentence is called Compound or Complex Nominal Clause. There is no difference in their interpretation as far as I understand. 57 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar

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background as it is the case with German (see also below). Ultimately, Schneider’s division into verbal and nominal sentences could be referred back to the Arabic grammars, as Cook has pointed out with regard to the same type of sentence division found in the work of Niccacci. 62 As a critique, Schneider’s terminology on sentence is too broad to be sufficiently useful because it leaves out the morphologic feature of the sentence. For example, a compound nominal clause could be an xqatal, xyiqtol, or an xparticiple so it is not always clear which of them are referred to in the analysis. The alternative is the now established terminology of wayyiqtol, wqatal, wparticiple, weyiqtol and xyiqtol, xqatal, and xparticiple where the both the word order and verb morphology are evident; the term ‘nominal clause’ is suitable to mark those constructions with no predicative verb. C. One of the major differences in method between Weinrich, on the one hand, and Schneider and the subsequent BH syntactic tradition, on the other, is the divergent explanation they give to relievo or foreground/background opposition. In note 4 attached to the above distinction between a verbal clause and a nominal clause, Schneider refers to ‘foreground’ and ‘background’ as ‘metaphors from the world of the theatre. […] What is narrated in verbal clauses takes places at the front of the stage. When nominal clauses “appear” (!), a new scene is played, backdrops are painted and pushed in, persons move, or the curtain is raised or lowered’.63 Schneider does not seem to borrow from Weinrich the opposition of foreground/background; the latter explains this opposition as types of tempos: presto and lento narrative, respectively.64 Schneider asserts that the distinction between the verbal clause (verb first clause) and the nominal clause is syntactically equivalent with the difference between Weinrich’s foreground and

62 Cook, Time

and the Biblical Hebrew Verb, 156. Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 140. The exclamation sign belongs to Schneider. 64 See the development of Weinrich’s position under point C in the case of Niccacci. 63

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background.65 When referring to actual verbal forms, Schneider thinks that wayyiqtol is the only foreground narrative form in Biblical Hebrew.66 All the remaining ones are background sentence types.67 D. In BH, Schneider considers the subordinate and negated sentences as background sentences.68 However, Weinrich’s method does not say anything of the subordination as being by necessity part of background. He briefly discusses this problem with regard to German, where indeed, the subordinate sentence may represent background.69 Yet, it is the changed position of the verb which matters in the context of German, not the subordination itself. This is evident in the analysis of the other languages, where subordination is not mentioned when it comes to discerning the theoretical tenets of background (I discuss further this issue in the case of Niccacci, see point D). E. It seems to be a presumption of Schneider that Weinrich’s opposition comment/narrative corresponds to dialogue/narrative. 70 Moreover, the texts used for analysis in §44.2 under the title ‘In dialogue’ are only of direct speech. I have already explained why Weinrich’s narrative and comment registers are not the same as the direct/indirect discourse, and dialogue/monologue.71 F. For the purpose of my own description of TA and BH syntax, it is important to note that Schneider proposes as possible the existence of a ‘comment’ passage in indirect speech whenever the narrator discusses ‘something with his hearers/readers, which also should interest them outside the narrated world’72—‘narrated word’ (in German erzählte Welt) is the key term opposed to the commented work (besprochene Welt), both marking Weinrich’s narrative/comment 65 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar

of Biblical Hebrew, 140. of Biblical Hebrew, 161. 67 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 163. 68 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 140: ‘verbal clauses, which have only a conjunction (‫ִאם‬, ‫ֲאֶשׁר‬, ‫ )ִכּי‬or ‫ ל ֹא‬in front of the verb, belong to the background of narrative’. 69 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 200–202. 70 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 140–141. 71 Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’. 72 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 170. This mirrors my own analysis of the matter; indeed, the indirect speech does contain comment register passages. 66 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar

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registers. Nevertheless, it is rather difficult to understand the actual results of his analysis. What Schneider calls ‘commentary’ (referring to the sequence of three sentences wqatal-wqatal-xyiqtol found in Exodus 18:25f) is not translated in English or German with Weinrich’s comment tenses (the English present, present perfect, or future; and the German Präsens, Perfekt, Futur). The tense combinations with the auxiliary ‘would’ (as McKinion translates Exodus 18:25: ‘they [the judges appointed by Moses] would judge … would bring … would judge’) or the German Preterit (the 2001 edition of Schneider’s Grammatik shows ‘So richteten sie das Volk ständig. Schwierige Fällen trugen sie Mose vor; aber jeden normalen Fall entschieden sie selbst’) correspond to the narrative register, not to the comment one.73 G. This last point leads to Schneider’s text-linguistic tense correspondence presented in the table ‘Overview of tenses’ that presumably should reflect the distribution of English tenses as Weinrich proposed it. They are similar for the most part.74 The forms ‘he writes’ and ‘he wrote’ are indeed ‘primary tenses’ (or zero degree tenses) of the comment (in English, McKinion translates this with ‘discourse’) and narrative, respectively. While ‘he had written’ and ‘he has written’ correspond to Weinrich’s narrative retrospection and comment retrospection respectively, the form ‘he wrote’ is not a retrospective but a zero degree or ‘primary tense’. This last point contradicts the strict connection of one tense with one linguistic explanation in Weinrich’s method and creates confusion with the past perfect which is the designated retrospective tense in narrative. A recurrent problem in Schneider’s work is the unfortunate use of the word comment. To say that (not the actual wording of Schneider) the ‘narrator/character comments’, ‘adds a comment’, or ‘performs a commentary’ creates confusion: the meaning of the German Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 170. McKinion translates the 2001 version of Schneider’s Grammatik des biblischen Hebräisch. In this edition, the discussion of Exodus 18:25 is found at pp. 188– 189. The discussion and the example do not occur in the first edition of 1974. Weinrich lists the German comment tenses in Weinrich, Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache, 198. 74 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 178. 73

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Besprechen is translated in Italian/French as commento and comentaire and, in English with comment. Thus when Schneider says that ‘it [the negated clause] does not necessarily contain some background information … rather more likely some commentary of the narrator’75, the untrained reader may ask: is this comment still part of the narrative background (so ‘commentary’ means actually a narrative explanation) or should this comment be understood as opposed to narrative? In Weinrich’s method to each of these two possibilities there corresponds one tense only (past continuous and present tense, respectively), which makes the answer to these questions particularly significant. H. After declaring that verbal clauses represent the foreground, while the nominal clauses are in the background, Schneider suggests that ‘outside narration, the nominal clause generally cannot be allocated to the background of the speech. There are genres [Gattungen] that are structured differently’. 76 This sentence suggests that Schneider allocates the genre a place at the syntactic table. Weinrich never suggested that this is the case. This ultimately is connected, I think, with Schneider’s attempt to explain the rather higher occurrences of wayyiqtol with the narrative genre. Schneider rightly observes that the narrative genre is made of ‘75%’ wayyiqtol forms; while other genres do not narrate (‘laws, sermons, prophetic speeches, psalms, also in the dialogue parts of the narrations’) and, thus, contain yiqtol/imperfect in 50% of cases and perfect consecutive with 20%.77 It is true that Weinrich does give examples of texts which belong to the narrative genre. Indeed, this genre contains a higher number of narrative register forms. Conversely, he talks about comment register forms and their predominance in non-narrative texts78 (see above for 75 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar

of Biblical Hebrew, 163.

76 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 141. Bold letters

belong to Schneider. 77 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 160. 78 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 114: with regard to Spanish, Weinrich brings as confirmation the correlations between the Spanish perfecto simple (a narrative tense) and narrative genre texts in contrast with

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the list of genres attached to each register presented by Weinrich himself). In addition, he does not shy away from evaluating syntax in view of the number of occurrences.79 However, he does not make a point of explaining one or the other use of a tense by genre on the lines: ‘because past simple is the most used tense in the narrative genre, it means that it is a narrative tense’. For example, passé simple (the French equivalent of past simple and wayyiqtol) is of the narrative register because it has the ‘the semantic feature’ of ‘narrative’;80 being narrative is simply the main trait of passé simple so it does not come from its higher number of occurrences in narrations. As a result, wayyiqtol has a default narrative meaning wherever it occurs, should there be no other syntactic sign to say otherwise. The correlation between narrative genre and wayyiqtol is correct because wayyiqtol has the semantic trait of narrative; that, in turn, produces a narrative genre sample of text by the accumulation of its occurrences. Ultimately, Schneider’s argument is the argument of distributional analysis:81 because texts of the narrative genre predominantly are composed of wayyiqtol than wayyiqtol is narrative. This is a flawed argument which confuses the narrative effect of wayyiqtol with his syntactic function. It is the narrative syntactic function of wayyiqtol that creates narrative whenever it occurs in higher numbers, not the other way around. It is important to clarify that the semantic feature of a tense makes it what it is. It is obvious from Weinrich’s own use of this methodology that the higher or lower distribution of tense in a certain genre may be a confirmation of one analysis or the other; but this is not a syntactic argument. 82 the lower occurrence of perfecto compuesto (a comment tense) in the same genre. This is based on research of Spanish tenses by E. Alarcos Llorach. 79 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 51–56; 81; and 114. 80 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 145. ‘Le passé simple est charactérisé par le traits sémantiques et , qui lui permettent de désigner le premier plan des récits’. 81 Distributional analysis will become a key tool in the subsequent analysis of BH, as obvious from the work of Eep Talstra and John Sailhamer (BH), and Michael Shepherd (Biblical Aramaic). 82 That genre is not part of the method is the essential issue that John Cook misses in his discussion of Weinrich (see the relevant section below).

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC Niccacci’s work on Biblical Hebrew syntax83

A. In narrative, Niccacci asserts that wayyiqtol represents foreground; in the protasis/apodosis construction, the apodosis (usually in wayyiqtol, xqatal, or waw-xqatal) is foreground; background is reserved for: subordinate conjunction with qatal sentences; xqatal; wqatal; xyiqtol; the simple nominal clause; and the protasis sentence. In discourse, the indirect volitive forms (we’eqetela, weqetol, weyiqtol), xyiqtol indicative, waw-x-yiqtol, the simple nominal clause, and the construction in the apodosis are foreground. In background, one finds the subordinate conjunction with qatal sentences, xqatal, the simple nominal clause, and the protasis sentences.84 B. Niccacci argues that BH displays three types of sentences: the verbal sentence ‘with a finite verb in 1st position’; the nominal sentence ‘without a finite verb form’; and the compound (later called also ‘complex’) nominal sentence ‘with a finite verb form in 2nd position’.85 Although seemingly similar to Schneider’s sentence division, Niccacci refines it following the work of Polotsky’s syntax. This refinement is marked by bounding the predicate to the first position in the BH clause, no matter the morphological value of the first word: in verbal clauses (those which begin with a verb) the predicate is represented by the verb; in nominal clauses (those clauses which begin with any other morphological form but a verb) the predicate is represented by the noun or pronoun which happens to take the first position, leaving the verb to take up the function of subject.86 First, in Hebrew the first position in the sentence is filled by the predicate, not by the subject. Second, [while it is obvious that the predicate-subject word order is active when a verb occupies the In an abbreviated form the discussion of Niccacci’s foregrounding and comment/narrative (that is points C and E) is also present in Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’. 84 Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, see table at pp. 168–169. 85 A. Niccacci, ‘An Outline of the Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in Prose’, Liber Annuus 39 (1989), 9. 86 Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 26. 83

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first position in the sentence,] when a Hebrew sentence begins with a noun or an adverb the predicate is not identical with the verb [in second position] but in actual fact with that noun or adverb. Accordingly, what is normally the “subject” becomes the “predicate” and vice versa. This transformation is not exclusive to Hebrew as it occurs in other languages, ancient and modern.87

It is not by chance that Niccacci attaches to this last sentence a note which sends the reader to the examples presented by Polotsky in his article ‘Les transpositions du verbe en égyptien classique’, §2.5. There Polotsky explains how that classic Egyptian may have a predicate in first position no matter what the actual morphologic form of the item standing here. Two word orders are possible:88 • •

predicate-pw-subject—this is called ‘sentence with nominal predicate’ (‘la phrase à prédicat nominal’); the subject-predicate word order. The first item in the sentence is in fact an ‘adverbial predicate’ as there is an ‘adverbial emphasis’ (in French: ‘vedette adverbiale’) or a ‘cleft sentence’ (see Polotsky’s article point 2.5.3.) present in the first position, while the only verb of the sentence has ‘a personal substantive form’ which turns it into the ‘subject’.

The meaning of this transposition can be understood better with another example of Polotsky from 2Corinthians 4:3 (the English translation is NRSV): εἰ δὲ καὶ [And even if] ἔστιν κεκαλυµµένον [is veiled] τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡµῶν [our gospel], ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυµένοις [to those who are perishing] ἐστὶν κεκαλυµµένον [it is veiled]. Polotsky puts together the ancient wisdom of the Arabic grammars with modern advancements in functional linguistics. He observes that in certain cases the adverbial complement of the second sentence bears the most ‘interest’ as the ‘predicative force’ of the grammatical predicate (which means the second κεκαλυµµένον) is ‘entirely consumed’. In the mindNiccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 29. The square brackets represent my clarifications. 88 H.J. Polotsky, ‘Les transpositions du verbe en égyptien classique’, Israel Oriental Studies, No. 6 (1976), 16–17. 87

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set of the Arabic grammarians, the second κεκαλυµµένον is there ‘only to support’ the complement, as it is ‘already known to the hearer’. Consequently, the verb becomes ‘the logical subject’ (he means here the expression ἐστὶν κεκαλυµµένον [it is veiled]), while the adverbial complement (ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυµένοις [to those who are perishing]) is ‘the logical predicate’ or ‘the part [of the sentence] in which one is interested’.89 Translating Polotsky’s underlying theory into plain English, he suggests that (1) there is one possible word order in language (in classic Egyptian that is predicate-subject). Niccacci catches Polotsky’s train of thought at this station: BH has the same fixed syntactic word order of predicate-subject. Because of the fixed word order, whenever the word order is different (so subject-predicate), (2) the first position is actually an emphasis/a cleft sentence which turns the subject into the ‘logic predicate’. While Polotsky resorts to Ibn Yaʿīš to support his theory, Niccacci inadvertently borrows a modern description of a similar reality: A. Niccacci, ‘Marked Syntactical Structures in Biblical Greek in comparison with Biblical Hebrew’, Liber Annuus 43 (1993), 14. Niccacci quotes from H. J. Polotsky, ‘Études de syntaxe copte I–II’, in Collected Papers, ed. E. Y. Kutscher (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1944/1971), §5, p. 25. The full quote from Polotsky is (my translation): ‘Both of them [the occurrences of κεκαλυµµένον] are “predicates” in the sense given to them by the school grammar, where, as far as the verbal phrase is concerned, it [the predicate] simply signals that which the Arabs call fiʿl “action” in opposition with faʿil “the one who executes the action” and mafʿul “object or the result of the action”. However, when looking at their logical value, one realises that they [the two forms of κεκαλυµµένον] are completely different. This is a typical case where the logical and grammatical terms are not in correspondence. From the logical point of view, the verb [κεκαλυµµένον] is the predicate only in the former case. Its predicative force is totally exhausted. Once enunciated, it does not offer any “interest” to the hearer. If it is repeated in the second sentence, “it is only to support” the adverbial complement (ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυµένοις), which represents “the part in which one is interested” in the sentence, in other words, the predicate; the verb, “already known to the hearer” has become the logical subject’. The emboldened words represent the sections that Polotsky translates from Arabic original of Ibn Yaʿīš, Commentar zu Zamachsariʾs Mufaṣṣal, §26, p. 105, 21–24. 89

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that is that of theme/rheme which is described by the Prague School, especially by Jan Firbas. 90 I think it is ‘inadvertently’ because while one can see a similarity between the arguments of Ibn Yaʿīš and of the Prague School, there is no sense that Niccacci actually heeds the definitions of these terms as found in the Prague School grammar. Furthermore, I found no explanation by Niccacci of how BH morphology allows for a noun to be the syntactical predicate and for a verb to be the syntactical subject. Indeed, one finds no such thing, as Niccacci does not understand predicate and subject as ‘syntactical’ values which do need that morphological correlation; he reads them as functional values which do not need it. Effectively, either Niccacci interprets as functional phenomenon (theme and rheme) what in Polotsky is a grammatical phenomenon (predicate-subject) or it is Polotsky who makes this confusion in the first place. In both cases, Niccacci unwittingly uses a functional91—not a syntactic—relation to describe the syntactic function of sentence in BH. Up until this point, I showed that Niccacci’s supposition that the first position in the BH belongs only to the predicate is theoretically untenable. Niccacci build on this supposition to argue that verb first sentences are foreground and verb second, background. It is normal to think that the word order influences syntax. However, the end result of Niccacci’s stance is to attribute the text-linguistic function of background to a higher number of BH sentence types as seen above. More than one sentence type receives the same background function. Although these ‘background’ sentences contain two types of word The notion of theme/rheme is first proposed by Vilém Mathesius, based on Henry Weil’s ‘point of departure’ and ‘the purpose of the speech’. Libuše Dušková showed that the cleft sentence was the concern of the Prague School since Vilém Mathesius (d. 1945); L. Dušková, ‘From the Heritage of Vilém Mathesius and Jan Firbas: Syntax in the Service of FSP’, Theory and Practice in English Studies 3 (2005), 13–17; J. Firbas, ‘It Was Yesterday That ...’, SPFFBU A15 (1967). 91 In the Prague School grammar, the functional word order is different from the syntactic one. The functional theme-rheme disposition refers to the given/new position of the information; the syntactic word order is subjectpredicate; J. Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication (Cambridge: CUP, 1992). 90

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order (verb first and verb second) and various morphological tenses, there is no explanation why they are syntactically equivalent to each other. Also, Niccacci’s description of sentence is not related to Weinrich’s text-linguistics. I will come back to the topic of foreground/background under the point C below. Related to the issue of sentence is the broader issue of the definition of the text. This is a central point where Niccacci diverges from Weinrich even further. In one of his articles, Niccacci assimilates the subject and predicate to Aristotle’s substance and property of a substance. 92 This means that his syntactic stance is rooted in a return to sentence, not in Weinrich’s definition of ‘text’. This is significant for two reasons. First, the analysis within the limits of the sentence supports Niccacci’s position that the predicate retains the first position in the sentence no matter whether this is a verb first or verb second sentence (following Polotsky).93 Second, Niccacci aims to re-write Weinrich’s definition of text to fit into the predicate first principle. I explain the position of Weinrich with regard to text. He argues that there is no ‘one single irrefutable reason’ to consider the sentence as ‘the highest linguistic unit of reference’, which means that the text is the proper place for syntactic analysis. He considers this to be ‘a further stage of development from the structural linguistics’ and here he refers to Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale. After a further detour on the importance of the paradigmatic versus syntagmatic dimensions in the structural analysis,94 Weinrich arrives at the A. Niccacci, ‘Simple Nominal Clause (SNC) or Verbless Clause in Biblical Hebrew Prose’, Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 6 (1993), 217. Niccacci follows here Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics, § 8.1.3. 93 The main lines of Polotsky’s syntax are presented in: Polotsky, ‘Études de syntaxe copte I–II’, in Collected Papers; H. J. Polotsky, ‘The “Emphatic” SḎM.N.F Form’, in Collected Papers, ed. E. Y. Kutscher (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1971); Polotsky, ‘Nominalsatz und Cleft Sentence in Koptischen’, in Collected Papers; Polotsky, ‘Les transpositions du verbe en égyptien classique’. 94 One cannot stress enough how significant Weinrich’s double paradigmatic and syntagmatic view of language is. This has been already observed by Ricoeur, Blamey, and Pellauer [tr], Time and Narrative 2, 67, 72–74. A considerable piece of my arguments on the syntax of the SVO sentences (see 92

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definition of text which is ‘a logical (i.e. intelligible and consistent) sequence of linguistic signs, placed between two significant breaks in communication’.95 How Niccacci interprets this definition of text is suggestive: the ‘text’ is the sequence of narrative sentences, or of wayyiqtol forms (a VSO sentence). Four articles by Niccacci contain a definition of text on this line.96 His adaption of Weinrich’s definition of text is (square brackets represent Niccacci’s addition): ‘A text is a logical (i.e. intelligible and consistent) sequence of linguistic signs [particularly indicative/initial constructions in Egyptian, and wayyiqtol/weqatal in Biblical Hebrew], placed between two significant breaks in communication [i.e. non–indicative/non–initial construction in Egyptian, and [waw–]x–qaṭal/yiqṭol, or other non–verbal constructions in Biblical Hebrew]’.97 Is this reading of the definition possible in the context of Biblical Hebrew? The answer is no. If these background sentences are not part of the text, as Niccacci claims, their syntactic status is vague.

Chapter 5, ‘The linguistic sign and Derrida’s trace’) is based on this paradigmatic and syntagmatic approach. 95 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 10–14. The English translation is mine, apart from the definition of ‘text’ which is by Wilfred G. E. Watson; Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 56. 96 A. Niccacci, ‘Diluvio, Sintassi e Metodo’, Liber Annuus 44 (1994), p 11–12; A. Niccacci, ‘Syntactic Analysis of Rut’, Liber Annuus 45 (1995), 105; A. Niccacci, ‘Syntactic Analysis of Jonah’, Liber Annuus 46 (1996), 19 and note 5; and A. Niccacci, ‘Polotsky’s Contribution to the Egyptian Verb-System, with a Comparison to Biblical Hebrew’, in Egyptian, Semitic and General grammar: studies in memory of H. J. Polotsky, ed. G. Goldenberg and A. Shisha-Halevy (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2009), 453–454. 97 Niccacci, ‘Polotsky’s Contribution to the Egyptian Verb-System, with a Comparison to Biblical Hebrew’, in Egyptian, Semitic and General grammar: studies in memory of H. J. Polotsky, 454. A similar definition of text opens another of his contributions, see A. Niccacci, ‘Workshop: Narrative Syntax of Exodus 19–24’, in Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible: Papers of the Tilburg Conference 1996, ed. E. J. van Wolde (Boston, Mass: Brill Academic Publishers, 1997), 203.

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C. Niccacci does not tackle the meaning of the foreground/background opposition at the theoretical level. I argued elsewhere that his BH syntax follows a substantial claim which draws on Polotsky’s work on Middle Egyptian and Coptic. 98 It is evident that Weinrich’s description of foreground/background and that supposed by Niccacci do not rely on the same theoretical foundations. In the following, I will look at how Weinrich develops foregrounding further. First, for Weinrich, relievo is the opposition between foreground or the presto type of information ‘that in fact would induce the people to leave for a time their work to listen to the story of a world which does not belong to the daily life’99 and background or lento type of information (see the French imparfait) found in ‘the exposition and final passages, in descriptions and portraits, in marginal scenes, additions, details, and in images’.100 Second, in the narrative register, Weinrich’s relievo is inextricably connected with his refusal to accept the connection between tense and time.101 In his book Knappe Zeit (translated in English as On Borrowed Time) Weinrich follows the meaning of ‘time’ through centuries from Aristotle to present. Weinrich explains that his theory of ‘the sense and pulse of time’ is contrary to Aristotle who thought that time is closely related to space. In line with Henri Bergson’s critique of Aristotle, Weinrich postulates that ‘[h]uman time, which derives its rhythm from the regular or irregular beating of the pulse, cannot be understood as a movement in space […]. I cannot help but insist […] that time is to be understood in temporal and not in spatial terms’.102 The adjective ‘temporal’ means that tense is connected to the time of the human body which is regulated by pulse or by the tempo of the beating heart. In fact, tenses are types of tempos as in beatings of a human heart, a property that is evident in Weinrich’s’ relievo: the tempo of foreground is presto as it marks the advancing of the plot;

98 Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’. 99 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129.

100 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38. 101 The subsequent material in this section is a slightly modified version of an

analysis from Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’. 102 H. Weinrich, On Borrowed Time (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 205–206.

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background adds the lento details that do not necessarily contribute to the plot. What does this mean for Weinrich’s method? The disconnection between tense and time/space allows Weinrich to incorporate the structuralist position of the zero sign, or the sign that marks the absence of something rather than its presence. The zero degree quality of a tense marks the absence of retrospection/anticipation; other tenses do contain such retrospective or anticipative information. This understanding of language shapes the two items of Weinrich’s approach which have been grossly misinterpreted. 1. Foreground and background are zero degree values. The message of the foreground/background zero degree values looks to the next thing in a subsequent line of events. Background does not anticipate or recover information but it complements foreground in its advancement of the story. This is exactly one of the points where Niccacci’s work becomes most confusing: by losing the perception of the zero degree as foreground and background, one is unable to see that background does not mean retrospection and anticipation; 2. The recovered and anticipated information are not equal to the background because they do not contribute to the plot of the foreground by advancing it. Moreover, the retrospective/anticipated information does not qualify as details necessary to understand the plot. Instead they interrupt the foreground/background of presto/lento tempo with information that, while inserted in the current plot, is part of another storyline. To exemplify this last point, I take the hypothetical example of a sequence of preterits developing the story Storming of Bastille (July 14, 1789) which starts from that morning and ends with the moment when the people step inside the prison (as zero degree does). By recovering or anticipating information (from the previous or the following day) with past perfect or conditional tenses, respectively, one uses information from another plot. This means that, in describing the sequence of events in the reality described, the sujet of the Storming, one can introduce other events not part of the sequence of events in the literary work, fabula. This is because the day before and the day after

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have their own plot from which the author extracts some events to be introduced into the fabula of the current story of Storming. While some would confuse this with the background information, in fact, the recovered or anticipated information are there for the benefit of the reader, not to depict the actual sujet of the Storming with the presto/lento advancement of the foreground and background tenses.103 This is proof that recovered and anticipated information do not represent the plot. The only syntactic characteristic that both foreground/background and recovered/anticipated information share in this example is that they are of the narrative register. Taking this information into account, it becomes apparent that, for Weinrich, tense form and function are closely linked—each tense having its own place in the description of the system of tenses based on the three dimension: the quality/register of the communication (distant or involved); the manner in which the plot advances or relievo (presto/lento or foreground/background); and the interruption of this advancing by recovering or anticipating information. Consequently, Weinrich proposes a delicate mechanism of tense analysis which looks for the constant value (of foreground zero degree narrative, for example) both in the source and target languages. Hence, it is not that two tenses in the source and target languages are equal to each other, it is their determined use by the text-linguistic analysis of real- life texts which makes them equivalent to each other. This means that the French passé simple is the equivalent of the Italian passato remoto because they share the same ‘relevant semantic features’ in their respective languages described under three coordinates: under relievo, they are foreground; under register (or linguistic attitude), they are both narrative, and under linguistic perspective, they are zero degree. However, one needs to be careful of other details provided by context (the I do not exclude the possibility that one may find the opposition of foreground/background in the disposition of the retrospective/anticipated information. Weinrich lists two Italian retrospective tenses of trapassato prossimo versus trapassato remoto for recovered information in Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi, 79. However, one needs to proceed with caution in determining what the opposition means for the retrospective/anticipated information. 103

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sequence of tenses, personhood, time adverbs, the age of the speaker, etc.) which might influence this analysis.104 In sum, tense equivalence is not mechanical. By not observing this delicate connection between tense form and function established by Weinrich, the Syntax of Niccacci faces difficult questions. He rightly proposes wayyiqtol as the main line/foreground which makes it the equivalent of passé simple and passato remoto. According to Weinrich’s theory, the common traits that these three verbal forms share in their respective languages are: the distance of the narrator/reader from the event; the use of the third person in most cases; and the zero degree of narrative which allows for the plot to flow without being interrupted by retrospection or anticipation. This last element of the list is actually a value which wayyiqtol shares with its French and Italian counterparts but it is not discussed—zero degree means that wayyiqtol does not signal retrospection and anticipation. It shall immediately be evident how that is important. All the other forms of narrative are put in opposition with wayyiqtol as background: wqatal, xqatal, xyiqtol and the simple nominal sentence.105 While in the case of wayyiqtol the connection with the theory is obvious and easy to suppose their tense correspondence, there are now four Biblical Hebrew constructions which receive one single value: that of ‘secondary level verb form’106 or background. In modern languages, according to Weinrich, background narrative is represented by imparfait/imperfetto or past continuous. The main issue is that it is not possible, as Niccacci suggests, for four different forms (wqatal, xqatal, xyiqtol and nominal sentence) to carry the same narrative background function. Conversely, if background narrative 104 See Weinrich’s discussion about the uses of French passé

composé which in given circumstances has an ambivalent use which is ‘neither a real comment nor a real narrative’; Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 149– 150. 105 A. Niccacci, ‘Essential Hebrew Syntax’, in Narrative and Comment: Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider, ed. E. Talstra, et al. (Amsterdam: Kok Pharos, 1995), 112 106 Niccacci, ‘Essential Hebrew Syntax’, in Narrative and Comment: Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider, 112.

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takes all these forms, the other possible forms of narrative retrospect and anticipation, and all the meanings that comment contains (zero degree, retrospect/anticipation; foreground/background) are left with no visible possibility of being expressed. D. With regard to negation, Niccacci thinks that some negated forms are foreground (‫ ולא‬with qatal is the corresponding negation of wayyiqtol foreground107), others are background (‫ ולא‬with yiqtol is the corresponding negation for the background forms of wqatal and xyiqtol respectively;108 x-‫לא‬-qatal xqatal negates a background xqatal). I have found no evidence to suggest that negation is a mark of backgrounding in the works of Weinrich I consulted (see the bibliography of this book). Niccacci argues that the subordinate status of a sentence implies a background role.109 He suggests that background sentences should be connected with their foreground counterparts with conjunctions of: contrast or comparison (with ‘while’, ‘on the contrary’); contemporaneity (‘when’, ‘in the meantime’), motive (‘because’), cleft sentences (‘it is x that did y’ for emphasis) and imperfect (repetition and routine for yiqtol and wqatal).110 The implication is that subordination is the interpretative key of these passages, because of their background role. On the contrary, Weinrich argues that it is tense that discerns between foreground and background. He strives to describe the use of tenses and, where possible, he introduces as additional ‘obstinate signals’ the use of person (the third person against the first and the Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 106. 108 Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 77. 109 Most of the forms of ‘interruption of wayyiqtol’ are rendered in English with the help some kind of subordinate sentence in Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, §39–50. See also Niccacci, ‘Essential Hebrew Syntax’, in Narrative and Comment: Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider. 110 Niccacci, ‘Essential Hebrew Syntax’, in Narrative and Comment: Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider, 115. 107

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second person), of pronoun (demonstratives and possessives), and article and numeral. Non-obstinate (date and time adverbs) and macrosyntactic signals are also part of this process.111 Subordination is not considered by Weinrich as paramount for the delimitation of the two main oppositions of this method, namely, foreground/background and narrative/comment. He discusses the link between tense and (subordinate) conjunction in narrative, and concludes that in narrative there could be a certain correlation between subordination and background tenses (imparfait), between having the status of independent clause and foreground. However, the distribution of tenses in subordinated sentences is rather ‘cumulative’ evidence that they could be background; ‘one can very well do without these concepts, main clause and subordinate clause, as in French they are of use in the case of narrative tense and with them one can explain only a particular case of ordinary narrative relievo’.112 This means not that these concepts should not be used, but that they only have a cumulative effect on the syntactic signals enumerated above. Is Weinrich right in his appraisal of conjunctions as ‘cumulative’ with regard to the background role of these sentences; or Niccacci, who seems to take it as more than that? Individual languages’ cases may be decisive here. However, subordination does not mean by necessity backgrounding, as it is not listed as an obstinate nor as non-obstinate signal at the text-linguistic level. E. Like Schneider before him, Niccacci assumes that narrative/comment means direct/indirect speech.113 Weinrich’s comment and narrative registers do not mean the direct and indirect speech. That is obvious from my analysis of Weinrich’s careful wording with regard to narrative and comment in his Tempus.114 I reiterate here just

111 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 40. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 196. 113 Schneider and McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, §44.2; the passage proposed as ‘comment’ are all of direct speech, see Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, §51–65. 114 Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’. 112 Weinrich, Tempus.

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one hand of that discussion regarding the relevant passages in Grammaire textuelle du français (1982/1989). Weinrich uses different vocabulary and mechanisms to define the two pairs. ‘In direct discourse, we quote an opinion in a more or less exact manner. The sign of citation almost always precedes the direct discourse.’115 ‘The indirect discourse is a recounted opinion which is not cited to the letter. The person recounting rephrases in his own way the opinion he recounts. In the process, he may be more or less “faithful”, i.e. he may move away to different degrees from the exact terms of the recounted opinion and more or less colour it with his own ideas. So, more than one semantic nuance occurs and the passage from direct to indirect speech may provide a glimpse of the ideas that the person recounting holds’.116 By contrast, in the case of comment/narrative, the point in case is the quality of the message—the existence of involvement or distance between the people communicating (speaker/listener) and the message (‘this involves or does not involve us’).117 F. Niccacci presents at least one example of a comment passage in indirect speech.118 His argumentation and translation support the idea that he is sometimes aware of the difference between comment/narrative and direct/indirect speech. In Job 32:2–3, ‘the writer switches from pure narrative, in which he narrates in the detached mode of the historian, to comment. It is as if he would address his readers indirectly, i.e. without using first and second persons but using verb forms characteristic of discourse.’119 115 Weinrich, Grammaire

textuelle du français, 565. Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 566. To avoid confusion between the key term reporting (see the section ‘Comment retrospective: the xqetal sentence’) and the relating of information to which Weinrich refers in this quote, I did not translate the French words opinion raportée, rapporteur and rapporte with the English equivalents based on the family word report. 117 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 124–129 (general definitions of ‘commentaire’ and ‘récit’) and 637 (a type of glossary of the terms used in this book). 118 There are other cases where indirect speech passages are analysed as comment in Genesis 7:17–20 and 4:2–4, see Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, §13, p. 33. 119 Niccacci, ‘Essential Hebrew Syntax’, in Narrative and Comment: Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider, 115. 116

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Niccacci’s translation

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Job 32:2–3

Then the anger of Elihu […] flared up;

‫ ַוִיַּחר ַאף ֱאִליהוּא ֶבן־ַבּ ַרְכֵאל‬2 ‫ַהבּוּ ִזי ִמִמְּשַׁפַּחת ָרם‬

it is against Job that his anger flared up because he declared himself right before God;

‫ְבִּאיּוֹב ָח ָרה ַאפּוֹ ַﬠל־ַצ ְדּקוֹ ַנְפשׁוֹ‬ ‫ֵמֱאֹלִהים׃‬

and it is against his three friends that his anger flared up because they had not found any answer

‫וִּבְשֹׁלֶשׁת ֵרָﬠיו ָח ָרה ַאפּוֹ‬3

wxqatal

‫ַﬠל ֲאֶשׁר ל ֹא־ָמְצאוּ ַמֲﬠ ֶנה‬

conjunctionnegation-qatal

and still have declared Job guilty.

‫ַוַיּ ְרִשׁיעוּ ֶאת־ִאיּוֹב׃‬

wayyiqtol

xqatal

wayyiqtol

However, Niccacci’s translation indicates again the divergence of his approach to language from that of Weinrich. Niccacci translates 2b and 3a with the present tense without giving any justification of why these should be read in the zero degree function. I suggest that a preferable syntactic analysis of 2b and 3a is the retrospective comment function implying a present perfect: ‘it has been against Job that his anger […] it has been against his three friends that his anger’. I produce evidence for this analysis in the section on the Aramaic xqetal (the equivalent of the BH xqatal) later in this book. G. Regarding the tense-function correspondence in modern languages, Niccacci’s Syntax (see the table on p. 19) assigns to past and past perfect tenses the narrative recovered function. However, in Weinrich, the past tense is a zero degree tense of narrative along with the imperfect. A similarly problematic rendering of Niccacci is the English past perfect as a ‘background narrative tense’ under point 2 ‘Emphasis’ on p. 20; for Weinrich, the past perfect only marks recovered information. Both the simple past and past perfect are correctly assigned to zero degree narrative and retrospective/recovered information,

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respectively, in the table on p. 20, under point 3 ‘Linguistic perspective’. The third table on pages 20–21 represents Weinrich’s actual distribution of tenses. H. I tackle here the problematic use of Weinrich’s vocabulary. The following passage from Niccacci’s Syntax is obscure: ‘The transitional120 WAYYIQTOL—weQATAL (inverted) marks the shift from narrative to commentary (i.e. from foreground to background), explaining the criterion used by the judges.’121 The main issue is that the shift from narrative to comment cannot be assimilated with that from foreground to background: the former refers to a change in linguistic attitude or register (from a non-involved communication to one which concerns the writer/speaker directly); the narrative foreground represents a presto outlining of the plot which is in contrast with the narrative background, a lento description of details and other elements not contributing to advancing the plot. A further key term in Weinrich’s methodology is ‘report’ or ‘reporting’, which is connected with the comment register. Niccacci argues that ‘a text which can be classified as speech includes a narrative section when the speaker wishes to report certain events he considers important for the actual situation.’122 However, according to Weinrich, the narrative register cannot be used in report situations, because a report is a comment on past events or recovered information in comment.123 The examples of Weinrich are mostly taken from judicial proceedings as one introduces retrospective comments in interrogations, accusations, or in court proceedings.124 They mark moments with particular stress and involvement in which events are not simply narrated but they are commented on retrospectively, or in a word, the events are reported. Moreover, the difference is visible at the level of tenses The word ‘transition’ would be a better rendering as the context suggests a substantive not an adjective; see the Italian version A. Niccacci, Sintassi del verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum‒Analecta 23, 1986), §46. 121 Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 67. The text under analysis is Exodus 18:25b–26a. 122 Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, §74 p. 102. 123 This is relevant in view of the ‘comment retrospective’ or ‘reporting’ function of TA xqetal; see Chapter 5 below. 124 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 104–105. 120

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as, while retrospective narrative information would mean English rendering with a past perfect, a report of comment retrospective uses the present perfect. The point of these observations is to argue that each term in Weinrich’s vocabulary has a particular meaning; a less careful employment of vocabulary leads to confusion. In the view of Weinrich, this is a peculiar statement by Niccacci: each perspective (zero degree, retrospective, and prospective) has a temporal axis. It is argued that ‘discourse [the comment register] uses all the three temporal axes – present, past, and future – as the main line of communication, while narrative uses only the past’.125 Three things are said in this quotation: (1) the narrative has one temporal axis, the past; (2) comment has three temporal axes: past, present, and future; (3) each of these axes has a ‘main line of communication’. Niccacci intuits correctly that Weinrich has replaced the tensetime relation with the linguistic perspective. However, the major divergence between the two authors is that the former reclaims the connection between tense and time as is evident from the assignment of these axes (the axis marks here the sequence of the same sentence) to particular time frames. The second major divergence is suggesting that each axis has its own main line of communication. While in Weinrich the main line of communication is associated with the linguistic attitudes or registers themselves, or, in other words, both narrative and comment have each one main line of communication (represented in French by passé simple and imparfait for narrative and present for comment), Niccacci says that each time axis has its own main line. Effectively, the assignment of main line (the function of foregrounding) is transferred from register (Weinrich) to linguistic perspective (Niccacci) so that the recovered information, zero degree, and anticipated information have a main line (a foreground form), each in their own right; although Niccacci's suggestion might be technically true (for Italian, Weinrich posits a foreground trapassato prossimo versus a background trapassato remoto, see the table on page 96 below), it is not at all clear how this might be the case in BH.

Niccacci, ‘Essential Hebrew Syntax’, in Narrative and Comment: Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider, 116; the square brackets belong to me. 125

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Along with all the other peculiar readings of Weinrich’s method noted in this section, this last point of ‘temporal axes’ is evident that Niccacci’s application of Weinrich’s approach displays crucial differences. Niccacci’s view of language is substantially different from Weinrich. Finally, I note the possible origin of this change, the work of Polotsky. Although Polotsky does not use the term ‘temporal axes’, in at least one attestable instance, Niccacci refers directly to the fact that Polotsky divides the Middle Egyptian forms ‘according to three temporal axes’ of present (in French ‘Inaccompli’), of past (‘Accompli’), and future (‘Prospectif’, this means ‘pertaining to the future’).126 Cook

John A. Cook writes a detailed account of the various trends in BH syntax. After introducing the tense-based and aspect-based syntaxes, Cook comes to what is called discourse analysis in the United States and text-linguistics in Europe. He predictably begins with an alleged fault of discourse analysis that it amounts to an ‘escape from the morass of the traditional semantic and (predominantly) diachronic approaches’.127 He is right that discourse analysis is mostly a synchronic approach which is not an issue from the point of view of the methodology. It is a well-known fact that Ferdinand de Saussure argued that there are two ‘classes’ or ‘methods’ of language analysis, the synchronic and the diachronic classes. These sides do not validate each other and work with principles that are different from each other. Taking the example of the synchronic study of Old French, Saussure asserts that ‘the linguist works with facts and principles that have nothing in common with those that he would find out by tracing the history of the same language from the thirteenth to the twentieth century; on the contrary, he works with facts and principles similar to those that would be revealed in the description of an existing Bantu language, Attic Greek of 400 B.C. or present-day French, for that Niccacci, ‘Polotsky’s Contribution to the Egyptian Verb-System, with a Comparison to Biblical Hebrew’, in Egyptian, Semitic and General grammar: studies in memory of H. J. Polotsky, 402; see Polotsky, ‘Les transpositions du verbe en égyptien classique’, 7. 127 Cook, Time and the Biblical Hebrew Verb, 150. 126

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matter. […] Whichever way we look in studying a language, we must put each fact in its own [synchronic or diachronic] class and not to confuse the two methods’.128 Deriving from the fact that the method is ‘anthropologic’ and ‘dialogic’ which assumes a communication between an encoder and a decoder of the message, Weinrich’s approach is inherently synchronic as the elements under analysis need to be stable and synchronic for the two sides of communication to understand each other and communicate effectively. Cook makes an unsuccessful attempt to argue that Longacre ‘shares the same basic perspective [of language] as Weinrich’.129 Cook’s subsequent reasoning is mainly an outline of Longacre’s view of language supplemented with the work of Eep Talstra and Alviero Niccacci (standing in for Weinrich) with the purpose of suggesting that they are flawed in similar ways. However, Weinrich and Longacre do not share the same approach to language (and implicitly the supposed flaws do not apply to Weinrich) because:130 • Longacre’s ‘discourse types (e.g., narrative, predictive, hortatory, procedural, expository, and others)’ are not the same as Weinrich’s comment and narrative registers; comment and narrative are basic functions of language shared, in English, by present, past perfect, and future tenses; Longacre’s discourse types are genre-like units of the text correlated with BH tenses; it is true that Weinrich gives examples of comment and narrative communications (see above the opposition between ‘the dramatic dialogue, the political memorandum …’ versus ‘a youth story, the description of a hunting expedition’) but, as Ricoeur stressed, Weinrich does not think of them as ‘genres’;131 Ferdinand de Saussure and W. Baskin [tr], Course in General Linguistics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959/2011), 99; my square brackets. 129 To be clear, Longacre does not derive any support from and we have no evidence that he knew the work of Weinrich. 130 Cook, Time and the Biblical Hebrew Verb, 152. 131 Ricoeur, Blamey, and Pellauer [tr], Time and Narrative 2, note 13, p. 176: ‘On the side of commentary are listed “poetry, drama, dialogue in general, a journal, literary criticism, scientific description” […] On the side of narrative 128

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Talstra may have prioritised the pragmatic side of language over the semantic one as Cook suggests; but that is not what Weinrich does as I explained above; the fact that Niccacci attributes a ‘temporal reference’ to BH tenses does not mean that he borrowed this idea from Weinrich; on the contrary, Weinrich refused any association between tense and time in the terms described by Niccacci.

By suggesting that they are similar, Cook sets the stage for a very important charge against Weinrich and Longacre: that they exhibit ‘an unhealthy circularity because of their notable lack of any semantic foundation: correlations between discourse functions and specific verbal forms presume the independent determination of the semantic value of the verbal forms’.132 While I cannot speak for Longacre, with regard to Weinrich, Cook relies on a defective understanding of his method. At the core of Weinrich’s grammar is a semantic reading of language which in turn buttresses the general pragmatic understanding of language as being the communication between a hearer and a listener. Cook’s misunderstanding of Weinrich becomes evident in the following pages. The former reminds us of the three dimensions of language proposed by Weinrich, and thinks that ‘Perspektiv’ means ‘backward vs. zero vs. forward with respect to the temporal location of the communicative situation’ (p. 155). Weinrich does not locate a communicative situation in time: tenses are there to signal whether the flow of communication is interrupted to recover or to anticipate information. Moreover, while at page 150 Cook correctly marks the first dimension of language as proposed by Weinrich as being an opposition between ‘speech’ and ‘narrative’, he twice misrepresents them as being equivalent to ‘narrative’ and ‘direct speech’ (p. 155)— direct and indirect speech are not what Weinrich called narrative and comment. Cook concludes his general assessment of discourse analysis/textlinguistics with the assertion that Weinrich’s method and its three are “the short story, the novel, and narratives of all kinds (except for dialogues)” […] this division has nothing in common with a classification of forms of discourse in terms of “genres.”’ Ricoeur refers here to the French translation of Weinrich’s Tempus (Le Temps, 1973), p. 39. 132 Cook, Time and the Biblical Hebrew Verb, 152.

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parameters are ‘tolerably comparable’ (p. 155) with the three parameters of Longacre. Outlining the methodological similarities/differences between the two theories requires a serious analysis of methodology which I leave for future studies. However, I clarify that, in at least one parameter, the theories do not match. Longacre’s parameter of agent-orientation is not the same as Weinrich’s comment/narrative registers. For the latter, by using a comment or narrative register tense, the author marks the manner in which they handle the message: that the author employs either distance and relaxation or stress and involvement toward what is said. Upon receiving the message encased in such a syntactic tense, the receiver should decode the message with the same distance or involvement. For his side, Longacre’s agent-orientation is ‘orientation towards agents’. This signals whether the genre is interested in telling the reader about the agent of the action or not. According to Longacre, narrative discourse is prone to introduce the agent; similarly the behavioural discourse ‘deals with how people did or should behave’ so there is agency; however, procedural discourse is less interested in the agent as it is the case with the expository discourse, which ‘instead of agent orientation it has thematic organization’.133 In sum, the agentorientation of Longacre is not the same as Weinrich’s involved versus uninvolved communication. In addition to this, Longacre thinks that discourse has a ‘fourth parameter’, that of ‘tension … which has to do with whether a discourse reflects a struggle or polarization of some sort’.134 A careful analysis of the ‘tension parameter’—which does not feature anywhere in Weinrich’s method—and what it means in the context of the other three in Longacre’s system will most certainly dispel any apparently neat similarity between the former and the latter author.

133 R. E. Longacre, The

Grammar of Discourse (New York/London: Plenum Press, 1983/1996), 9. 134 Longacre, The Grammar of Discourse, 10.

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T EXT-LINGUISTICS AND ARAMAIC SYNTAX Buth

Randall Buth’s PhD dissertation is an important landmark in Semitic studies for a number of reasons. First, along with others in his generation (Edward Cook, Kirk Lowery, Talstra, and Niccacci), Buth recognises that the study of biblical languages cannot do without a serious understanding of general linguistic trends. His general description of Aramaic is based on Functional Grammar (Simon Dik) supplemented with foreground/background discourse analysis theory:135 ‘An encoder can choose to mark or distinguish the Foregrounded information from the Backgrounded information in order to help the decoder process the communication’.136 As I shall argue below, Buth’s approach to language favours the pragmatics of language or the relation between the speaker/writer and hearer/reader at the expense of the semantics. Second, Buth reclaims the importance of word order for the syntactic discussion of Aramaic. He shows that most of the preceding grammars of Aramaic support the contention that its word order is free (Franz Rosenthal); Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander propose that there is a preferred word order (SVO), while other dispositions of words could also be activated. There is a tendency of exchanging the VSO word order in (Früharamäischen/Old Aramaic) to SVO (Reicharamäischen/Imperial Aramaic) in the course of time (Stanislav Segert). Edward Y. Kutscher is more interested in the dating and issues related to the different dialects of Aramaic more than the meaning of word order. Rainer Degen comes closer to the position of Schneider and Niccacci, in the sense that there are two sentence structures: nominal sentences (no verb and SV sentences) and verbal sentences (VSO). 135 Buth explains the decision to put them together: ‘As pragmatic functions,

Foreground and Background answer a psychological motivation to provide for easier processing of data.’, R. Buth, Word Order in Aramaic from the Perspective of Functional Grammar and Discourse Analysis (PhD Thesis, California: University of California, Los Angeles, 1987), 478. 136 Buth, Word Order in Aramaic from the Perspective of Functional Grammar and Discourse Analysis, 52.

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Last but not the least, Edward Cook connects foregrounding and backgrounding with a ‘sequence of events’ (VO word order) and ‘previous action … contemporaneous action … or future time’ (OV word order), respectively. On his part, Buth believes that there are two Aramaic sentence types: VSO and SVO or OV.137 More specifically, he

137 Buth’s

diachronic overview of the Aramaic syntax suggests a broad correspondence between VSO and foreground, and SVO and background. Biblical Aramaic. VS sentences (wqetal) mark foreground (Buth, Word Order in Aramaic from the Perspective of Functional Grammar and Discourse Analysis, 139)—they convey the ‘main event in the story’. Wparticiple is said to be a ‘Foregrounded, multi-action event’ (Buth, Word Order, 191) and not a nominal sentence (Buth, Word Order, 238 and 242); it is not clear why two sentences, wqetal and wparticiple can be foreground at the same time. Regarding the SV sentences, they may function both as a foreground and background with a correlation between foreground and sentences with animate subject and background and inanimate/abstract subject (Buth, Word Order, 176); in this case there is an explanation of how they can be differentiated. Old Aramaic. Buth asserts that VSO has the foreground function (Buth, Word Order, 367, 373, 381, respectively); background is related to the SVO sentence (Buth, Word Order, 356, 370, 376, respectively). The texts analysed are the Zakkur Staele, the Bar Raakib text, and Panammuwa (KAI 215). Imperial Aramaic. The letter ‘Cowley 30’ displays a ‘Foreground/Background distinction and seem to reflect the same syntactic situation as viewed in Daniel’ (Buth, Word Order, 412). The analysis of the Ahiqar Narrative claims that ‘the basic functional pattern is based on a VSO structure’; in this context, ‘word order functions are very close to those found in BA’ (Buth, Word Order, 427–429). Qumran Aramaic and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. VSO is the foreground sentence (Buth, Word Order, 436, 451), with background being represented by VX sentences (a type of VSO) mostly considered so because of its subordinate form (Buth, Word Order, 441), and XV (a type of SVO) sentences (Buth, Word Order, 444, 454). These claims are based on the analysis of Genesis Apocryphon. In Antiochus Scroll, SVO sentences are background (Buth, Word Order, 461–462), with some SV clauses fulfilling the role of foregrounding (Buth, Word Order, 463); as in the preceding dialects, VSO is the mark of foreground (Buth, Word Order, 465).

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thinks that Edward Cook was ‘on the right track’ when highlighting there is no support for the idea that Aramaic word order was free.138 As Edward Cook before him,139 Buth seem to adhere to Hopper’s theory of foreground/background. The lines of Buth’s foregrounding are: Foregrounding and Backgrounding refer to a manner of presenting predications. Those predications which advance or develop the communication are considered Foreground while those which pause to elaborate or fill-in are considered Background. In narrative discourse the events which are successive, sequential, complete, and past are Foreground; while the stative, simultaneous, back-reference (=plusquamperfectum), incomplete, irrealis (non-indicative) or negated events are usually Background.140

However, Buth continues by asserting that the source of this opposition is ‘human psychology’, that wayyiqtol (waw hahipuk) has a foreground function (following Kirk E. Lowery’s dissertation, 1985, p. 306) and that the ‘Foregrounding should be viewed as a fusion of a Semantic and Pragmatic framework’.141 Relevant for the purpose of my contribution are a number of remarks made by Buth in his article from 1995. It explains his bias against (1) the method of Weinrich and his (2) psychologically/gestalt driven interpretation of language. The second point leads to his (3) explanation of some instances of BH wayyiqtol. 1. One would expect that when asserting ‘such [a] system [referring to Schneider and Weinrich’s narrative versus discoursive categories] is too confined and would fail by ignoring the basic tense-aspectmode opposition’, Buth would have reasoned arguments. Instead, he

Buth, Word Order, 11. Cook refers to Rosenthal, Bauer and Leander, Kutscher, and H. H. Rowley, see Edward. M. Cook, ‘Word Order in the Aramaic of Daniel’, Afroasiatic Linguistics 9, No. 3 (1986), 112. 139 Cook, ‘Word Order in the Aramaic of Daniel’, 122. 140 Buth, Word Order, 51. 141 Buth, Word Order , 53 and 55. 138

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adds: ‘I have not been able to obtain copies of their work’.142 These claims are clearly contradicted by the evidence of the breadth of Weinrich’s work which comprises an overview not only of tense but all the other parts of the language. 2. Buth forcefully refers again to his psychological interpretation of foreground/background: ‘A pair of concepts from gestalt theory is foreground and background. […] some psychological enigmas in the morphological systems of languages are readily explained. Hebrew can never be taught the same way after these foundational concepts are understood’143. This particular psychological take on the foregroundbackground opposition was developed by Tanya Reinhart who connects the linguistic foregrounding with psychological phenomena.144 As Buth only mentions Hopper145 in his article, it is not clear where this psychologic take on language originates. While Schneider entertained a similar idea (see above), it is important to remind that Weinrich’s relievo of foreground/background is about tempo (the type of advancing the narrative plot) not about the prominent psychological position, the gestalt, of a foreground event in contrast with a background one. The psychological view of foregrounding is not the same as Weinrich’s instructional-anthropologic relievo, although the vocabulary in is almost identical.

R. Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature, ed. W. R. Bodine (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 85, note 9. 143 Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature, 85. 144 T. Reinhart, ‘Principles of Gestalt Perception in the Temporal Organization of Narrative Texts’, Linguistics 22 (1984). Her inspiration is Kurt Koffa’s Gestalt psychology. I have explained the syntactic inconsistencies of Reinhart’s model in V. A. Condrea, Syntax of Targum Aramaic: A Text–Linguistic Reading of 1Samuel, PhD Thesis: Durham University, 2017), 66–69 (Reinhart’s general position); 72–75 (discussion of Reinhart’s examples from the perspective of Weinrich’s model). 145 Hopper, ‘Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse’, in Discourse and Syntax. 142

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3. The following is a debatable assertion by Buth: ‘If foreground is limited to an objective definition in the semantic field of grammar [as being represented by ‘sequential and complete’ events], then one must say that the waw-hahippuk is sometimes foreground and sometimes not. It is sometimes sequential and sometimes not’.146 The syntactic ambiguity implied in this assertion (that waw-hahippuk/wayyiqtol could mark both foreground and background) is the alter ego of Buth's earlier statement (see the longer footnote 137 above) that, in Biblical Aramaic, wqetal and wparticiple are foreground sentences. By anchoring foregrounding into being sequential and complete (or not), Buth produces this double ambiguity as these two examples show. My experience with analysing the foreground and background forms in BH and Targum Aramaic is that narrative forms have the general capacity of expressing sequence (the temporal order of events is clearly marked), coordination (both of the events could have come first), or non-sequential message (an event is not shown to be completed before the next begins). All these types of relations between events are narrative phenomena first; and it can be said that some are cases that are reflected by a foreground TA wqetal or a background wparticiple. I emphasize that foreground is closely bound to wqetal while background is bound to wparticiple. But that does not preclude the author from using a background form like wparticiple for a temporal sequence of events.147 At the theoretical level, sequence, coordination, and being non-sequential are semantic traits of narrative; the author can pragmatically distribute these semantic traits to a foreground or a background form. This is where the tension between semantics and pragmatics of the language is most visible. So, from this perspective, Buth’s analysis of the wayyiqtol forms in Jonah 1:16–21 as background does not stand. 148 It is true that any of Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature, 86. 147 For the analysis of TA wqetal see Chapter 3 of this book (there is an appropriate section for: narrative/sequential; coordinate; non-sequential; and hendiadys). For TA wparticiple see Chapter 4. For the situation in BH, see my forthcoming Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint II’. 148 Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature, 86. 146

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the three events mentioned (the sailors sacrifice to God and vow vows, God appoints a fish to swallow Jonah) could have come in any order or that they are coordinated not sequenced. This is because the BH wayyiqtol (foreground) is a narrative form and thus it is able to accommodate a coordinated arrangement of events. Most of the wayyiqtol forms depict temporally sequenced events; the occurrence of coordinated sentences as in this example is not a sign of background but of what it means to be narrative. Moving on to the other example, Buth’s argument that the wayyiqtol in Judges 11:1c is background, because it ‘breaks the sequentiality of waw-hahippuk’ as ‘a warrior’s birth happens before he becomes a warrior’, is simply inapt to describe the syntax of the passage.

wxqatal

Buth’s translation (p. 87) 11:1a and Yiftaḥ the Gilʿadi was a great warrior

nominal sentence (no verb) 11:1b and he was the son of a prostitute wayyiqtol

11:1c and Gilʿad (had) fathered Yiftaḥ

To explain: the new topic/theme ‘Jephthah’ is introduced at the beginning of the chapter with an xqatal in 11:1a which is a comment register form with the linguistic perspective of recovering information. This xqatal does not contribute to the plot and is not a zero degree form, but recovered information: this is a communication addressed directly to the reader and stands outside the narrative register of wayyiqtol sequence.149 This comment register communication continues with a nominal sentence (11:1b) referring to his low birth by a harlot. 11ab are both addressed directly to the reader and require a state of involvement: this Jephthah is somebody of importance who is going to turn around the faith of Israel who desperately needs help after the events in chapter 10 (the Amorites and their dominance over Israel).150 One of the items that should be given more weight is the fact that 11:1c is the first wayyiqtol in the sequence and, consequently, there is For similar (prelude or episode–introducing) TA xqetal and BH xqatal sentences see the section ‘Other sentence types in prelude position’ in Chapter 6. 150 This analysis is based on the theory and analysis TA sentences in Chapters 5 and 6 in this book. 149

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no sequence of wayyiqtol to break, as Buth would suggest. The fact that ‘Gilʿad (had) fathered Yiftaḥ’ initiates the story from the beginning by stating who was the partner of the harlot in begetting Jephthah. Syntactically, 1c signals that the reader should be relaxed as he is told the story from the beginning. The suggested translation with ‘had fathered’ marks a narrative retrospective function in Weinrich’s method which, I argue, is absent in Judges 11:1c. To Buth’s contention that ‘the definition of foreground becomes ‘subjective’ and is not able to be measured by comparison to a referential world’151 I answer that talk about the ‘referential world’ is not a syntactic view of language. For the sake of correctly reading the two theories discussed here, the text-linguistics of Weinrich and the discourse analysis of Hopper, it is essential to keep tense and the references to real time, quite separate. What underpins my analysis is the significance that, following Weinrich, I allocate to the semantic features of BH sentence types in text. By contrast, Buth emphasizes the pragmatic feature of foregrounding: ‘If we define foreground as a pragmatic function, instead of semantically, we get around the impasse of non-sequential events being encoded with a “sequential-foregrounding” structure’ (read here wayyiqtol sequence), the main problem being that ‘the definition of foreground becomes “subjective” and is not able to be measured by comparison to a referential world’. What he proposes is ‘We must look and see how the author structured and encoded the events and then, after looking at the surface structures of the language, we can say that it is or not foreground’.152 The words underlined above mark a pragmatic jump of thought from observing the particular semantic value of one language instance to how that message is related to an encoderdecoder interpretation, or to a psychologic interpretation, as is evident in the definition of foreground/background by Buth above. Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis Literature, 87. 152 Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis Literature, 87. 151

Integrated, of Biblical Integrated, of Biblical

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The thinking process with regard to language should, however, be more paced. Ironically, in his defence in front of the panel at THEDEL, Weinrich phrases his approach to language in a similar fashion to Buth. Weinrich quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein’s dictum ‘denk nicht, sondern schau!’ ‘don’t think, but look!’.153 However, Weinrich emphasises the act of ‘looking’ through the magnifying glass of the semantic analysis, not the subsequent process of thinking within a linguistic method. He implies that it is safer to go by the way of semantics, and to delay the thinking process for later. Once the semantic features for tense and the other linguistic signs are clarified, one can integrate them into a pragmatic view of an encoder-decoder relationship. The communication is, according to Weinrich, an anthropologic dyad which entails ‘not only two voices that respond to each other, but two bodily beings that interact with all their communicative organs’. 154 This means that the pragmatic level does not arise because of a ‘referential world’, as Buth supposes. At stake here is the precedence that the communication roles of the encoder and decoder have in comparison to the referential world. The ‘communicative roles … (Gespräches Rollen) … are the first semantic features to keep in mind in view of grammar. The result is a pragmatic, communicative and dialogical aspect of grammar that will never again be eliminated from subsequent analyses and descriptions.’155 This brief discussion of pragmatics versus semantics shows first that Weinrich’s perspective is much more attached to observing the semantic features. The three dimensions of tense (register, relievo, perspective) are semantic features, not pragmatic ones. From this outlook, although seemingly applicable, the application of Gestalt psychology to linguistics should to be taken with caution. The two examples of Buth indicate why one should be wary of jumping to pragmatic results (of the type ‘wayyiqtol is background because the sequence is not temporal’): the semantic analysis of the passages shows that sequence or lack of sequence is an attribute of narrative. They are not the attribute 153 Ludwig Wittgenstein et al., Philosophische

Untersuchungen / Philosophical Investigations (Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), §66. 154 Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, 142. 155 Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, 142.

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of foreground or of background forms. In a word, outlining events with or without a temporal sequence belongs to what Weinrich calls the narrative register, not to relievo/foregrounding. The sense of Gestalt, the shape/figure, of the foreground/background opposition comes much later into view, I think, and does not underscore the thinking process of the encoder/decoder relationship. The Gestalt is the surface effect hiding a much more complicated relationship between semantics and the foreground/background disposition of information. This discussion confirms that three dimensions of language have a broader semantic side to them which should not be considered of a lesser importance than pragmatics of the encoder/decoder relations. Giving to the pragmatic exchange of information an upper hand in the syntactic analysis leads to problematic affirmations about language, as well as erroneous analyses. Kuty

In a similar fashion to Buth, the contribution of Renaud Kuty is an application of Simon Dik’s functional grammar to Aramaic. When it comes to tense, Kuty employs the tense and aspect approach of Bernard Comrie (Tense (1985) and Aspect (1976)),156 with a touch of discourse analysis as found in the work of Buth.157 It is a warning shot that, in his introduction, Kuty does not refer to any authoritative exponent of discourse analysis.158 He sets the stage by claiming that he uses two of its ‘insights’, ‘discourse type and 156 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 130–137; S. C.

Dik and K. Hengeveld, The Theory of Functional Grammar 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997). 157 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 6 including note 60. The Functional Grammar of Dik is not a theory of grammatical tense. He mentions that ‘This section [on tenses or ‘Localizing predication operators’] is largely based on Comrie (1985)’; see Dik and Hengeveld, The Theory of Functional Grammar 1, 237. 158 He is not a fervent supporter: ‘many of the concepts employed there [discourse-based approaches], though valid in themselves, are yet insufficiently formalized to be fully integrated into a linguistic model’; Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 16, note 60.

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grounding’.159 What Kuty calls ‘discourse type’ has a meagre theoretic support at best: ‘we will distinguish two main discourse types: narrative and direct speech’. Subsequently, Kuty inserts two definitions from a dictionary of Linguistics by Robert Lawrence Trask: ‘narrative’ represents ‘accounts of past events or stories’; and ‘direct speech’ signifies ‘the reporting of what someone said by quoting her/his exact words’.160 Kuty is not clear whether narrative and direct speech is a type of correlation or an opposition. On his side, Trask does not mention any type of relation between narrative/direct speech as, for example, his dictionary entry on direct speech (p. 83) refers the reader to indirect speech (p. 140). In sum, Kuty’s narrative/direct speech relation seems to be nothing but a basic description of direct and indirect speech. Equally awkward is the other assertion: ‘The basic difference between the two [narrative and direct speech] is essentially one of temporality: by their very nature, narrative discourse refers to the past whereas direct speech is concomitant with the present’. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that narrative and direct speech are not decisively bound to past or present. On foreground-background, Kuty resorts to a 100-word description of the term ‘foregrounding’ again by Trask (based on Hopper and Thomson (1980))161 and mentions another article by B. Johnstone,162 a general discussion of narrative with little information and analysis of what ‘foregrounding’ is. The references to the article of Buth (1995), which I discussed above, are useful but prone to the same critique I made to Buth.

159 Kuty,

Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 137. Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 138; R. L. Trask, A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics (London/New York: Routledge, 1993), 178 and 83. 161 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 138; Trask, A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics, 106; Hopper and Thompson, ‘Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse’. 162 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 138; B. Johnstone, ‘Discourse Analysis and Narrative’, in The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, and H. E. Hamilton (Malden, Mass./Oxford: Blackwell, 2003). 160

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One could argue that these two matters are of no consequence for the overall quality of Kuty’s work. However, the meagre substance of these two initial definitions leads Kuty to take for granted the assumptions about foregrounding made by Buth. As a result, it is hard to see how Kuty’s general analysis of TA tense could go unchallenged. First, following Buth, Kuty asserts in footnote 56 that ‘grounding is […] a pragmatic (as against semantic) function, in that organizing the various components of a story into foreground and background is really a question of subjective choices on the part of the storyteller.’163 Kuty continues the same footnote by rising to this point made by Buth: ‘There is not any semantic difference between “having got into the boat he sailed away” and “he got into the boat and sailed away”. But they are different in their pragmatic structure’.164 The assumption is that while the first example is a succession of a background and a foreground form, the second is a sequence of two foreground forms. These claims contain two critical problems. One is that the two examples do not have the same semantic content: in the first example, the plot is viewed from the standpoint of the event ‘sailing’ to which is added a retrospective event of the subject ‘boarding’ the boat first; in the second, both events, ‘boarding’ and ‘sailing’ are semantically equal to each other. This is a semantic difference which becomes a pragmatic difference because the author chooses them as such. Because I have repeatedly stated this in the current chapter, I only mention the other issue which is that retrospection is not background. At least in the languages analysed by Weinrich, they employ different tenses: the English narrative retrospective tense is past perfect; the background narrative tense is past continuous. 165 163 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 139; italics belong

to Kuty. 164 Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature, 88. 165 In reference with Buth’s example, Hopper suggests that there is a kind of ‘elicitation’ (by which the competent user of a language produces an out of context sentence for specific purpose) when one bases a syntactic argument

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It is possible that Buth borrowed this emphasis on the pragmatic side of foregrounding from some of the passages in Hopper and Thomson’s work like the following: ‘we wish to call attention to the essentially PRAGMATIC nature of the grounding distinction. […] we also explicitly recognize that grounding itself reflects a deeper set of principles-relating to decisions which speakers make, on the basis of their assessment of their hearers’ situation, about how to present what they have to say.’166 It is not the purpose of my discussion to debate this claim of Hopper and Thomson; it is unlikely that these two experts would ignore the significance of semantics. Evidence of this is that they use the words ‘semantic-semantics-semantically’ 31 times against 5 occurrences of the word ‘pragmatic’ in a 52-page article. They are well aware of the importance of both analyses as Weinrich is. Buth’s writings constitute evidence of the serious consequences of emphasising one against the other. The encoder cannot create a foreground/background arrangement of the message unless language affords specific semantic tools to facilitate that pragmatic intention.

on an invented text instead of an actual instance of language in discourse (p. 233). The danger seems to be that of ‘treating the contextually anomalous construction as typical’. It could happen, Hopper continues, that these anomalies or errors do not add up to distort the real image of the language, but also the contrary is possible in which case ‘these minor errors will accumulate into something quite significant’ (p. 234). The article describes the ‘mismatches that arise between data that is based exclusively on ‘local’ structure such as isolated sentences and data that is derived from a more ‘global’ textual basis’ (p. 234). The conclusion of the article advises that one should take invented or ‘hypostatised’ instances of language with caution: ‘intuition gleaned from hypostatised sentences, however we may wish to explain them, are not necessarily relevant to discourse’ (p. 245), see P. J. Hopper, ‘When ‘Grammar’ and Discourse Clash’, in Essays on Language Function and Language Type, ed. J. L. Bybee, J. Haiman, and S. A. Thompson (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1997). I add that invented instances of language can be interpreted with equal authority by their author and their reader as there is nothing to say that my interpretation of Buth’s example is not valid. 166 Hopper and Thompson, ‘Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse’, 294– 295; the capital letters belong to the authors.

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The pragmatic analysis may provide an answer to the question of how the semantic units (sentence) in sequence create the message. However, this pragmatic analysis has limitations which arguably do not go beyond recognising the function which similar semantic meanings have in encoder-decoder exchanges. Buth’s analysis of language is a classic example of how pre-set definitions become a ‘cage’ for the researcher, as Weinrich says.167 In more recent studies of language, it has become standard that ‘both views of meaning [semantic and pragmatic] are essential to a complete understanding of language’168 and that one should employ these analyses together rather than separately when approaching language.169 Returning to Kuty, it is a mistake, if one accepts his contention that narrative foregrounding is indeed something defined as referring to past events, to connect: (1) foreground with future events; and (2) background to events presented as happening in the future or in the past of events narrated in foreground.170 The events that one calls of foreground or of background are represented by tenses. It is the alternation of foreground and background tenses that creates the development of the plot. While foreground tenses/verbal forms advance the plot, the background ones slow it or stall it by presenting subsidiary material. So, although in a different way, foreground and background contribute to the plot. However, following Weinrich, anticipation and retrospection tenses—or what Kuty calls future and past—are a Weinrich et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, 140. 168 L. McNally, ‘Semantics and Pragmatics’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 4, No. 3 (2013), 285. 169 This consensus has been recently reaffirmed in an edited book which gathers the latest ideas in the field, see I. Depraetere and R. Salkie, Semantics and Pragmatics: Drawing a Line (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017). In his closing remarks on this edited book, Billy Clark asserts that scholars support ‘the now generally accepted view that it is important to consider semantics and pragmatics together rather than assuming that it makes sense to consider them separately.’ (p. 346). 170 This is in reference to note 56 and the Kuty’s comments regarding future and backgrounding; see Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 139. 167

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different set of tenses that smooth the understanding of plot advancement by bringing one (or more) previous/subsequent events with regard to the moment where it is inserted. In a word, retrospection and anticipation tenses are distinct from background tenses. Discussing a number of examples will clarify why most of Kuty’s analysis of the Targum Aramaic wqetal and wparticiple forms does not work for the average reader, at least from the perspective of discourse analysis.171 Before that, I mention that Kuty divides his discussion of TA tense between fientive and stative cases, each with their own narrative/direct speech division. The difference between ‘fientive’ and stative tenses is related to semantic function of a tense’s being dynamic or not. It is a tense or its broader ‘State of Affairs’ (SoA) that is dynamic or less so. Consequently, ‘a SoA will be considered stative (or ‘non-dynamic’ in FG terminology) when it “does not involve any change, i.e. where the entities … are … the same at all points of the time”’; ‘fientive (or dynamic) SoAs “necessarily involve some kind of change, some kind of internal dynamism … a recurrent pattern of changes all through the duration of the SoA”’.172 This is evidence of a semantic analysis of language. The eclectic use of methods coming from all sorts of linguistic schools (discourse analysis, Functional Grammar, and tense/aspect by Comrie) amounts to an ambiguous image of the Aramaic language in the Targumim. There is no sense of any kind of adjustment being made for these very different scholarly approaches to enable them to work together coherently. I have already hinted to some of the general problems that Kuty’s syntactic overview contains; this is an outline of the issues I found: a) word order appears not to affect his syntactic analysis; b) a uniform translation with past simple of wqetal and xqetal sentences; c) wqetal receives more than one type of syntactic analysis, although it is not clear how this could be possible;

171 I

will only critique the examples from Targum 1Samuel discussed in what Kuty calls ‘narrative’ or more generally the indirect speech; to be precise, I refer to: the comments and discussion at pp. 140–142 on wqetal and xqetal forms; and those on wparticiple and xparticiple forms 156–157. 172 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 130–131. Kuty quotes from Dik and Hengeveld, The Theory of Functional Grammar 1, 107.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC d) ‘background’ is his catch-all description for non-wqetal sentences in indirect speech; e) and anteriority is marked consistently as ‘background’, and in one occasion with ‘foreground’, although there is no methodological support for either claim.

Kuty is correct in asserting that the wqetal forms in 1Sam 10:21; 17:40; 2Sam 8:1; 14:31 represent foreground events and that their translation should use the English simple past. It is important to note that wqetal forms are, according to Kuty, ‘complete events in the past’. 173 Moreover, he rightly suggests that wparticiple sequences like those in 1Sam 7:16 and 16:23 (mentioned in the context of their relation to their BH weyiqtol counterpart)174 are ‘background, describing some situation that was (or will be) unfolding or recurring at the same time the events recorded on the main storyline occurred (or will occur)’. The correct translation is indeed with the past continuous or its background alterative form with the auxiliary ‘would’ as in Targum 1Sam 7:16: ‘and he would go … and make a circuit … and judge’.175 What is problematic in Kuty’s discussion of qetal occurs in the following positions. 1. Kuty claims that background is represented by the sentences marking ‘anteriority’. I explained above why this is theoretically not possible as both background and anteriority/retrospective have their own tenses. The numerous examples Kuty lists are subordinated sentences in qetal introduced with the conjunction ‫‘( ארי‬that’ or ‘because’) or the relative conjunction ‫( די‬his examples are Targum 1Sam. 23:13 and 11:22 among others).176 The contradiction involved in putting together the labels ‘background’ and ‘anteriority’ is evident in translation. Kuty translates ‫די‬-qetal in 1Sam. 23:13 with past perfect which is the natural way of conveying anteriority in English (according to Weinrich); however, another type of background, that of wparticiple, is translated with past continuous in 1Sam 7:16 (see the wparticiple 173 Kuty, Studies

in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 140. in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 156. 175 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 158. 176 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 140–141. 174 Kuty, Studies

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forms above). Two tenses are used to translate the same syntactic analysis of background. To put this into the perspective of Hopper’s framework, anteriority is not part of what he would call background.177 In fact, anteriority is a something else altogether from background and is rightly represented (at least in Weinrich’s approach) by a different tense (past perfect) from the one used for background (past continuous). 2. Again as background are marked a number of xqetal sentences (with subject or object before the predicative verb in qetal) like Targum 1Sam 1:5; 9:5; 11:5; 15:34; 16:14; 18:25 and 21:1. Kuty marks them as ‘circumstantial clauses’ which could mean that they represent a circumstance to the plot. Their translation is marked either with past simple or past perfect. In the case of 9:5, Kuty seems to think that both English tenses could apply ‘(when) they entered/had entered the land…’).178 Similarly to the preceding point, if being ‘circumstantial’ is a syntactic function, it is not clear why, or to which linguistic method this assertion might belong to. In my own analysis of these xqetal cases, I make the difference between (1) the narrative register xqatal and (2) the comment register xqetal forms. While the former type has a ‘narrative head’ in wqetal with which they have a close relation of contrast or other type of correlation (see the sequence wqetal-xqetal in Targum 1Sam 15:34179 as Kuty translates: ‘and Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house’), the comment xqetal is an example of how the word order creates new meanings where context points to a commented involved situation. In the examples from the Targum listed above, I analyse 1Sam 9:5, 11:5, and 16:14 as xqetal of comment. These are involved statements 177 Hopper and Thompson correlated foreground with ‘high’ transitivity and

‘low’ transitivity with background; there is no sense that anteriority is part of the discussion; Hopper and Thompson, ‘Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse’, 251–252. 178 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 141. 179 The xqetal in Targum 1Sam 1:5a has narrative heads in 1:4c: ‘he gave to Penninah… portions and he gave to Hannah once choice portion’; this is Staalduine-Sulman’s wording. 18:25a is narrative head for the xqetal in 18:25e as explained in Condrea, Syntax of Targum Aramaic: A Text–Linguistic Reading of 1Samuel, 275.

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of the author toward the reader at crucial moments of the narrative which supposes a recovering of information in comment. The comment retrospective function, according to Weinrich, is reflected in English by the present perfect tense, see Targum 1Sam 9:5 ‘When they have come to the land in which there was a prophet …’.180 I turn to one other point made by Kuty on TA wqetal. Unlike Buth who assigns a background function to the incomplete wayyiqtol,181 Kuty marks as ‘perfective’ the ‘durative or iterative’ wqetal forms (the TA equivalent of wayyiqtol) in Targum 1Sam 17:16 (‘and for forty days the Philistine drew near early and late and took up his stand’). Consequently, the two wqetal forms are foreground.182 While I think it is important that the wqetal retains the foreground pragmatic function regardless of its perfective or imperfective, durative/iterative or punctual semantic value, I note that the explanation is contradictory in two points (see footnote 65). Durative/iterative has been always associated with imperfective, it cannot be considered perfective. Moreover, according to Kuty, these durative wqetal sentences are foreground and retain the perfective status ‘when they refer to complete events anterior to the situation of the main line’183 which, in other words, means that this foreground wqetal is anterior to another foreground/main line wqetal form. This cannot be the case, because foreground is always a sequence of wqetal forms; anteriority is a separate syntactic matter. Once again, perfectivity and imperfectivity are semantic traits of narrative which the author distributes as foreground or as background tenses. In footnote 65, Kuty continues with another problematic example where he compares the foreground wqetal form of 1Sam 7:15 (‫ודן‬ ‫‘ שׁמואל ית ישׁראל כל יומי חיוהי‬and Samuel judged Israel all the days I develop the comment and narrative function of xqetal in the relevant sections of this book. 181 Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature, 86; see above for my critique of this claim made by Buth. 182 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 141–142 and note 65. 183 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 142, note 65. 180

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of his life’, Kuty’s translation) with what he calls a ‘background’ qetal in 4:18, in fact an xqetal sentence (‫)הוא דן ית ישׁראל ארבעין שׁנין‬.184 The latter is not a ‘background’ form but another example of xqetal foreground narrative as a contrastive statement to its narrative head in 4:18d-f: ‫ והוא דן ית ישׁראל ארבעין שׁנין‬... ‫‘ ומית‬And he [Samuel] died … but he judged Israel for 40 years’. It is unlikely that an xqetal marking a semantic contrast with its preceding wqetal is a background.185 Kuty’s analysis of 4:18 is problematic for the same reasons as the ‘circumstantial’ xqetal sentences discussed above: the same function is proposed for more than one sentence type without presenting evidence for why an xqetal has the same background meaning as a wparticiple. If indeed Kuty relies on Hopper and Thompson to argue this, it should be noted that they do not list repeated actions186 as a feature of background.187 3. Under the same general section of qetal, Kuty inserts a unit reviewing the ‘stative SoA’ in which ‘stative qtal indicates primarily a state. The temporal framework is present or past, depending of the discourse setting, and the aspect is imperfective’. 188 I will look at Kuty’s examples under ‘narrative’ so this implies the ‘past’ temporal framework. Admittedly, the example of a qetal sentence (Targum 1Sam 14:3) with negation is a background form, as Hopper would say that negation is a background sign. One should test how this contention applies to the narrative texts in Aramaic before making any judgement of this sort.189 Be that as it may, the qetal form (no preceding waw or x is present) in Targum 1Sam 5:11 (‫‘ תקיפת לחדא מחתא דיוי תמן‬the stroke of the Lord was very heavy there’) is analysed by Kuty as ‘background Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 141–142; Kuty’s translation. 185 I discuss this example in Chapter 5, section ‘Narrative contrast/correlation: xqetal’. 186 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 142, note 65: ‘the repeated judging of Israel over an extended period time’. 187 Hopper and Thompson, ‘Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse’, 252– 253. 188 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 146. 189 In my research of Targum Aramaic, I did not examine negation, so I cannot say anything one way or the other. 184

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and … past’. This analysis contradicts Kuty’s own methodological statements about stative verbs on page 131, ‘it must be emphasized that SoAs [the States of Affairs], not verbs, are fientive or stative’. If the verb’s meaning is stative (as ‫‘ תקיף‬be heavy’ is) and that is not why the sentence is background, it is unclear why the qetal in 5:11 is not foreground. The question is all the more important because the cases of qetal in first position sentences are marked by Kuty as foreground like Targum 1Sam 10:21; 17:40; 2Sam 8:1; 14:31 as seen above. These are fientive not stative verbs but their ‘dynamic’ quality has nothing to do with foreground/background anyway, as Kuty says. As the qetal in 5:11, these are sentences with a verb first word order in qetal, so, to my mind, not very different from one another. I note that with this section on stative forms, Kuty means to propose a syntactic function in Targum Jonathan that has the following markings: ‘background’, ‘stative’, ‘past’, ‘narrative’ with an ‘imperfect meaning’. While it could be possible, Kuty has no viable explanation of how six sentences190 that are differentiated by word order, negative/positive marking and status (main/subordinate sentence) may perform the same function in language. Subsequently, this section takes a turn for the better to propose that those wqetal sentences which contain ingressive and constative actions retain a foreground function. In Targum 1Sam, Kuty marks as ingressive the wqetal in 1Sam. 1:20; 15:11; as constative: 1:5–6; 11:15; 18:8.191 Wqetal was previously marked as foreground and, when compared with another example by Kuty discussed above, Targum 1Sam 17:16—catalogued as having ‘semantically durative or iterative SoAs’—I should say that, strictly referring to the wqetal (so verb first sentence in qetal preceded by waw), there is a sense of a consistency. In conclusion, I would say that wqetal is the only Aramaic sentence in which the analysis of Kuty is fairly consistent from the point of view of discourse analysis: in its semantic features of punctual, durative, ingressive, constative, to wqetal is attributed only one pragmatic function: foregrounding. His examples are: qetal first sentence (1Sam 5:11); a negative sentence with xqetal (14:3); a subordinate sentence introduced by ‫( ארי‬2Sam 13:15); and two other xqetal sentences (2Sam 1:4 and 19:33); Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 146. 191 Kuty, Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel, 147. 190

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Gzella

The book Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen by Holger Gzella is relevant to my discussion for two reasons. First, he has produced a recent account of the Aramaic syntax. Second, he claims Weinrich’s text-linguistics does not represent a feasible method of interpreting language. Gzella asserts that ‘the Aramaic verbal system itself rests on five pillars, that is, the “perfect”, the “imperfect”, the participle, the imperative, and the infinitive’. There is no mention of the verbless nominal sentence in the English summary (at pp. 326–330). In sum, perfect is responsible for the ‘relative past’ marking ‘progress and literary foreground’; the imperfect is ‘less marked for tense, but rather covers the realm of simultaneous action, present, future, imperfective aspect, and modality as well as subordination’. In narrative, it acts as ‘background concomitant action’. The participle is ‘even less marked and often occurs with the “imperfect”.’ It may convey ‘narrative past under certain conditions’. Gzella also mentions that participle in conjunction with participle and perfect tenses of ‫‘ הוי‬to be’ has the meaning of ‘periphrastic constructions which express durative or repeated events in either past of future’. He assumes that this periphrastic construction is the ‘imperfective counterpart to either simple “perfect” or the “imperfect”. Imperative has the meaning of ‘deontic modality’; infinitive is the ‘least marked form’ with use in subordination and adverbial complements.192 In view of the previous research on Aramaic, the results of Gzella’s work for Imperial Aramaic are not particularly surprising.

Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 327. This book received a good reception by J. Oelsner, ‘Review of Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen’, Die Welt des Orients 36 (2006). Less positive is S. Loesov, ‘Review of H. Gzella. Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen’, Babel und Bibel 3 (2006). In her review of another Aramaic Syntax, Pat-El uses the epithet ‘masterful’ for Gzella’s Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen; Na’ama Pat-El, ‘Review of Tarsee Li, “The Verbal System of the Aramaic of Daniel”, ’ Hebrew Studies 53 No. 1 (2012), 390. 192

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If Gzella’s diatribe against Weinrich’s Tempus was aimed at making stronger the case that tense means time, the obvious misunderstanding of Weinrich’s work fails to deliver that. It is a fact that there are relations above the sentence level in any language that cannot be explained by tense/aspect-based theories (represented by H. Reichenbach) or by topicalisation, that is functionalist approaches (Prague School, Simon Dik or M.A.K. Halliday). From this perspective, it makes sense for Gzella to borrow the foreground/background opposition from text-linguistics or the American discourse analysis. He agrees that tense does have a function of ‘structuring the narrative flow’ and this is ‘paving the way for an integrative linguistic approach open to an aesthetic point of view’.193 This explains why Gzella uses foregrounding as a methodological tool, despite reducing it from what it is, a fully fledged linguistic function of language, to a ‘literary effect’ (see below). I will start my discussion of Gzella’s points about Weinrich with a correction. It is misleading to think that ‘the term “Textlinguistik” generally does not have a particularly good sound in German linguistics’.194 Gzella presents no evidence to support this assertion. Experts in the field like Robert de Beaugrande and Eva Schoenke (see above) have a positive evaluation of Textlinguistik. Subsequently, Gzella introduces the American discourse analysis by considering the work on Semitic studies by Robert E. Longacre as an alternative to the continental text-linguistics and its BH promoters, Schneider, Niccacci and others. It is in this context—rather more variegated and complex than he allows—that Gzella asserts discourse analysis is concerned with ‘zwei miteinander verbundenen Themenkreisen’, ‘two interrelated subjects’, topicalisation and Reliefgebung (foregrounding).195 While mentioning as support for the interrelation the article of Zellig Harris Discourse analysis (1952) and Gillian Brown and George Yule’s Discourse Analysis (1983), Gzella does not really clarify what this interrelation means. A more illuminating discussion of the two subjects and its relevance for BH studies is presented by Elisabeth Robar. She outlines the 193 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 21. und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 69. 195 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 70. 194 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

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two meanings of foregrounding, their relation, and how these relate to Biblical languages study. I add to this the stances of the Prague School and Weinrich. 1. According to Robar, topicalisation is the psycholinguistic process of making one or other syntactic subject theme or topic of the sentence. Her examples are: (1) ‘The woman stands behind the man’— the syntactic subject ‘the woman’ is ‘foregrounded’ or acts as the theme/topic of the sentence; (2) conversely in the example ‘The man stands in front of the woman’, the subject ‘the man’ is ‘foregrounded’ or the theme/topic.196 Prague School grammar has a more semantic interpretation of topicalisation. It considers topicalisation from the perspective of what is given, versus new information; or ‘foundation-laying’ versus ‘coreconstituting’ information; these are called theme and rheme, respectively.197 Weinrich adopts this second type of topicalisation. Within the sentence, the rheme represents the semantic novelty which is supported by a known theme; at discourse level, according to Weinrich, background sentences provide the known or the ‘foundation-laying’ information of the story from which one can easily pick up the novel and ‘core-constitutive’ events; it is this type of foreground that leads the story through the various narrative stages (see also the commented glossary of Weinrich’s terminology in the next concluding section). 2. As is already obvious from the preceding point, Robar attaches a cognitive meaning to Reliefgebung/foregrounding: ‘In human perception, the entity standing out as prominent (foreground, or ‘figure’) receives its prominence […] from the background (‘ground’). A black cat at midnight may be imperceptible until he walks under the light of a street lamp. […] the background […] is just as necessary [as the

E. Robar, ‘Grounding: Biblical Hebrew’, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, ed. G. Khan, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 151. 197 Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 69–74. 196

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foreground] for the perception to take place’;198 (the insertions in square brackets are mine). 3. Robar observes that ‘Most work in Hebrew studies regarding foreground may take its point of departure from this psycholinguistic, clausal approach, but belongs to the second view, the narrative, which develops the meaning of foreground and background in the context of narratives’. 199 This little excursus displays the intricacies of the relation between Reliefgebung and topicalisation which seems to be foreign to Gzella’s subsequent argumentation. Reliefgebung and topicalisation share the concepts of known/‘foundation-laying’/back-seating which provide assistance to another concept of the novel/‘core-constitutive’/front-seating item. This obviously contradicts Gzella’s connection between topicalisation and time/aspect-theories as he subsequently describes it. To return to Gzella’s argument: he adds to his earlier attack on ‘Textlinguistik’ the statement that Weinrich’s work has been ‘rejected by Romance philology and classical philology in large part’.200 As evidence, he mentions a rebuttal of Weinrich’s description of Latin and Greek tense systems by Klaus Strunk and Fritz Fajen respectively, and a 100-page review by Wolfgang Pollak.201 The fact of the matter is that Weinrich decisively responds to his critics. 202 Moreover, there are wellRobar, ‘Grounding: Biblical Hebrew’, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, 151. 199 Robar, ‘Grounding: Biblical Hebrew’, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, 151; Robar’s italics. 200 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 87. 201 Strunk, ‘“Besprochene und erzählte Welt” im Lateinischen? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit H. Weinrich’; W. Pollak, ‘Linguistik und Literatur’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 84 (1968); F. Fajen, ‘Tempus im Griechischen’, Glotta 49, No. 1/2 (1971). 202 An example of Weinrich’s permanent engagement with his critics and followers is the section ‘Bibliographie zu den Rezensionen der Erstauflage dieses Buches (1964), Auswahl’ in the 3rd edition (1977) of his Tempus, 340–343. Weinrich lists 22 reviews which comment on the first edition of Tempus. To some Weinrich answers briefly or summarises their content; for others, he indicates the book/article addressing a specific reviewer. For example, to Pollak, Weinrich answers with two lines, in the same journal number: ‘There are 198

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received translations into the main Romance Languages (Spanish (1968), French (1973), Italian (1978), and Portuguese (1986)) of his Tempus,203 and the application to French of the method has been translated into French.204 Last but not the least, German text-linguistics paid tribute to Weinrich’s Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache with a dedicated volume at the tenth anniversary of its publication. 205 In the following, despite recognising that Reliefgebung and topicalisation are ‘interrelated’, Gzella discards Reliefgebung as being a matter of ‘intuition’ (p. 71) and puts together topicalisation (he mentions the standard work of Knud Lambrecht’s Information Structure (1994) here) with the idea of time in language. This latter item leads to the discussion the work of Hans Reichenbach.206 Reichenbach is best known in linguistic circles for proposing a description of English tense based on Event, Reference, and Speech time.207 To this, Gzella adduces Erwin Koschmieder, who, 20 years before Reichenbach, proposed a similar theory208 based on the Slavic Languages. This is to say that, while Gzella has a critical understanding of tense-aspect theories, his assertions on discourse analysis are confusing to say the least. For the purpose of my critique of Weinrich’s reception in the study of Biblical languages, the most relevant of Gzella’s remarks are found in the section ‘Textpragmatische Funktionen der Verbformen’ or ‘Text-pragmatic functions of the verbal forms’. Gzella reviews that refute their content by their scope. There are reviewers whose toxicity does not deserve a response’. See H. Weinrich, ‘Statt einer Entgegung an Professor Pollak [Instead of a Reply to Professor Pollak]’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 84 (1968), 617. 203 H. Weinrich, Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt (4th) (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964/1985), 344. There is also a translation into Japanese (1982). Nine contributions of Weinrich have been translated into Japanese since 1973; see Weinrich’s WorldCat Indentities webpage at http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50043715/ (accessed on 15/05/2019). 204 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français. 205 M. Thurmair and E. M. Willkop, Am Anfang war der Text. Zehn Jahre ‘Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache’ (München: Iudicium, 2003). 206 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 71–75. 207 H. Reichenbach, Elements of Symbolic Logic (New York: Macmillan, 1948), 287–301. 208 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 77–84.

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acknowledges that some languages have usages (Gebrauchsweisen) which operate ‘beyond the boundaries of the sentence and have little to do with the conceptual categories of time reference, aspect and modality’. These usages can also be observed in Greek, Latin, and Romance languages along with the ‘Paradebeispiel’, ‘the textbook example’, of Semitic languages, ‘since they have available a relatively small number of usable verb forms for a whole panopticon of possible linguistic effects.’209 To be clear, by ‘linguistic effects’ Gzella obviously refers to the Reliefgebung, and this is where the first doubtful point occurs in this section fraught with many misunderstandings: he cites no substantive evidence from scholars that are subsequently mentioned (W. Labov, Talmy Givón, Hopper, or Stephen Wallace) that foregrounding—as usage [Gebrauchsweise] of language—is a ‘linguistic effect’ of the narrative genre. The following assertion has again no support: ‘the plausibility of terminology [used by the Biblical Hebrew scholars employing foregrounding] must not obscure the fact that the criterion of relevance of the distinction between the foreground and the background is fragile’. The added statement that ‘one must not treat them as equal’ (that is the imperfective/perfective and foregrounding) comes back full circle to the misconception that ‘Reliefgebung [foregrounding] is primarily a literary effect’.210 To be clear, the imperfective/perfective framework and the Reliefgebung one are distinct elucidations of tense syntax, respectively: one advocates a time-bound tense; the other rejecting this and replacing it with the text time, as Weinrich does. The middle ground is discourse analysis which, as Hopper and Thomson argue, acknowledges the imperfective/perfective opposition but only as one of the features of foregrounding among many others. Their work implicitly testifies that there is more to tense than Reichenbach’s time referencing. From this outlook, Gzella’s attack on Weinrich misses the mark. Gzella does tackle Weinrich’s Reliefgebung/foregrounding but a coherent and complete discussion should have discussed those elements that replace the triad past-present-reference of tense in Weinrich’s approach - the text time211 and the dimension of perspective (see point 1 below).

209 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 84–85. und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 86–87. 211 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 77–78. 210 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

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I now turn to yet another of Gzella’s misunderstandings—what he assumes to be the methodological source of Weinrich’s narrative and comment registers. Gzella perceives correctly that Weinrich’s main argument is that ‘tenses had nothing to do either with time or with aspect, but only with a linguistic situation [register], linguistic perspective and Reliefgebung’. The misreading occurs in the following: ‘Starting from the Latin consecutio temporum, he [Weinrich] divides between main and secondary tenses.’212 What Gzella implies is that Weinrich’s theory of narrative and comment registers is based on the Latin main and secondary tenses theory. This is not what Weinrich actually says. In his Tempus (1964), Weinrich included two short sections explaining how the method pertains to Latin and Greek and this is where he briefly reviews two types of divisions that the Latin verb has according to the scholars.213 On the one hand, Weinrich says, Latin tenses are divided based on stem: the present stem is reflected by dicit, dicebat, dicet (present, imperfect, future tense, respectively); the perfect stem has dixit, dixerat, dixerit (perfect, pluperfect, future perfect). In Weinrich’s words, ‘The distinction is based on the sound character [Lautgestalt] of the form and their similar paradigm’. The other division is in ‘Primary tenses’ (or ‘Haupttempora’: Praesens, Futurum, Futurum exactum, Perfectum praesens) and ‘Historical tenses’ (or ‘historischen Tempora’ or ‘Nebentempora’: Imperfectum, Pefectum historicum, Plusquamperfectum and Praesens historicum). Here, Weinrich notes that there are indeed two tense groups which may be assimilated to the commented and the narrated tense groups; however, what he calls commented and narrated tenses ‘are very different’ sorts of pairs.214 Now, Gzella’s misreading becomes clear. The method of Weinrich’s Tempus was not based on Latin tenses as they are only 212 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 87.

213 I note that Gzella does not seem to be aware of any of the subsequent work

of Weinrich besides the first and the second editions of his Tempus (1964 and 1971); see Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 87, note 95. Although it makes the object of debate for several pages, Weinrich’s Tempus is not mentioned in the bibliography of Gzella’s book (it should have been at p. 384) but is mentioned in the index of names (p. 395). 214 H. Weinrich, Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt (4th) (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964/1985), 294. The theory of primary/secondary tenses in Latin was supported by Charles Bennet, Syntax of Early Latin.

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mentioned at the end of this book. I argue repeatedly in this chapter that the base of the method is the analysis of real life texts (predominantly but not exclusively literary texts) from Romance languages and German. Consequently, the continuation of the above sentence by Gzella is not exact: ‘Starting from the Latin consecutio temporum, he [Weinrich] divides between main and secondary tenses. He allocates the secondary tense to the narrated world and associates it with all possible information about true or fictional events, whether they are in a literary or non-literary context’. Indeed, there is a narrated tense group but its theory is based on modern languages, not the Latin secondary tenses; conversely, it is the analysis of modern tense systems that supports the existence of the commented world tenses, they are not derived from the Latin primary tenses. If one reads the relevant passages (that is Tempus 1985, Chapter 11, section 2 ‘Tempus in Lateinischen’ or chapter 12 in the first edition of 1964), Weinrich simply notes that there is an existing framework in Latin that can accommodate his theory of narrated/commented world tenses and then he proceeds to explain how the phenomena observed by other Latin scholars (strictly, the various inconsistencies between the theory of Primary and Historical tenses and the actual employment of Latin tenses in the literature) receive their proper explanation the text-linguistic method. Weinrich’s analysis of Latin and Ancient Greek can be accepted or refuted, but one cannot take it to be a central piece of his methodology. The result for Gzella’s argumentation is that the mistaken derivation of comment/narrative tenses from the Latin primary amounts to a moot premise for the following statement: ‘however, the historical derivation [of the narrative and comment tenses] from the Romance consecutio temporum by no means satisfies Weinrich’s claim to a supra-linguistic validity’.215 If indeed Weinrich made such a claim, 216 it is obvious from his Tempus that the claim was based on the Romance languages and German, not on Latin. Weinrich’s objective was to spell out how the theory of the commented/narrated world tenses explains many of the inconsistencies of the theory of Latin primary/historical tenses, not to claim a presumed supra-linguistic 215 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 88.

216 Gzella does not mention a place where Weinrich claims this specifically.

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validity for his method. To be clear, that supra-linguistic validity of Weinrich’s method is given by the semantic-pragmatic methodology, derived from distinguishing common linguistic phenomena in a number of languages, not from a presumed diachronic basis in Latin. The following are other misinterpretations of Weinrich’s work. 1. That ‘this theory does not work without a concept of time, because through forward-looking and retrospective speech perspectives the categories of posteriority and anteriority are reintroduced through the back door’.217 This is not the case as Weinrich’s retrospective and the forward looking perspective do not constitute a calculation of a time as evident from Reichenbach’s theory. According to Weinrich, text time is created by the sequence of linguistic signs in communication, be it zero degree advancing the communication or retrospective/anticipation relating events that happened outside this advancement. This is why text time is isolated from the real time and certainly is in no position to say anything linguistically distinct about the time of the event in relation to, for instance, Reichenbach’s Speech time, Event time, and Reference time. Moreover, specifically regarding those tenses that mark the zero degree, they are linguistic signs which mark the tempo of this text time (if it is not interrupted by retrospection/anticipation): the presto tenses smoothly progress the plot; the lento one stall it by introducing events supplementing the plot. So, from the perspective of relievo, tenses do not say anything about the position of an event with regard to a real solar time as tense/aspect theories suggest. 2. In an attempt to compare the aspect and discourse-based theories, Gzella asserts: ‘the concept of aspect has proven to be viable, for example, at least in the field of the Slavic and the Greek verbal system, which clearly designate it by prefixes or stems, and cannot be replaced by a parallel of narrated [erzählter] and commented [besprochener] world.’ Weinrich considered aspect and time as failing to explain linguistic phenomena; there is no suggestion that the commented and narrated world (besprochene und erzählte Welt) are to be assimilated or constitute a variant of the theory of time and aspect in tense. The confusion of Gzella’s assertion is even more problematic as the narrated/commented component of Weinrich’s theory is the least open 217 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 88.

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to such interpretation of the three dimensions. Should one try such assimilation, it is the dimension of relievo that is similar to the aspect theories, as Gzella suggests later (see the next point). 3. In the following, discourse analysis and Weinrich’s text-linguistics are compared: ‘the consideration of Reliefgebung [as Weinrich describes it], does not bring anything new, since this phenomenon has already been grasped by American linguistics with greater analytical precision.’218 It is worth nothing that Weinrich and the American discourse analysis created different methodologies albeit starting from common ground, namely, the analysis of the plot. The American discourse analysis does not cover all the aspects of Weinrich’s approach as claimed by Gzella. Reliefgebung or relievo—which subsumes the core of the American discourse analysis of foregrounding—is not the only component of Weinrich’s model. Besides proposing his theory of relievo two decades before Hopper’s foregrounding, Weinrich integrated it with other equally substantial dimensions of language: perspective and register. These three dimensions work together to create Weinrich’s model of language. Gzella’s suggestion that Reliefgebung is the only thing there is in Weinrich’s method is misleading. Consequently, the conclusion ‘it can be taken for granted that Reliefgebung is by no means an alternative to time reference or aspect structures, but an addition that works on a completely different level of language’ does not stand: foregrounding or relievo of Weinrich is not an alternative for time reference or aspect; it is not a ‘linguistic effect’ but a selfstanding dimension of language which functions along with the other two dimensions (perspective or lack of perspective; comment and narrative registers). It is obvious from the above pages that Gzella’s assessment of Weinrich’s Tempus is marred by a number of untenable positions.

CONCLUSION: ABOUT FOREGROUNDING, THE COMMENT REGISTER , AND ALL THE KING’S MEN I conclude these three sections with some remarks on the following items: (1) the concept of foregrounding in studies of the syntax of Biblical languages and my own position on the matter, following Weinrich; (2) the neglected concept of ‘comment’; (3) and the reception of 218 Gzella, Tempus, Aspekt

und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen, 88.

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Weinrich’s approach in the study of Biblical languages. Finally, this section closes with an annotated glossary of his terminology. Foregrounding

I already mentioned the article of Robar on foregrounding and Biblical Languages. It provides me with the opportunity to restate my own view on foregrounding. Most Semitic languages specialists would relate to Robar’s general definition of this term: ‘that which brings structural coherence, the skeletal structure, backbone of ‘mainline’, that which is actually narrated in (iconic) sequential order. The rest, the commentary (including events narrated out of sequence) which puts flesh on the skeleton, is labelled background’.219 I agree with Robar that ‘not all foregrounded events will necessarily have perfective aspect, nor are all events with perfective aspect necessarily foreground’ and that ‘perfective aspect is not to be equated with foregrounding, but at best only prototypically [or there are prototypical features like transitivity, one agent, completed/incomplete events associated with foreground] correlated’.220 Weinrich does not buy into the aspectual assumptions about tense, so it makes sense not to impose on foreground a perfective versus imperfective constraint. With regard the wqetal, the TA equivalent of wayyiqtol, the same phenomenon occurs: wayyiqtol may display ‘overlapping’ actions without making them less foreground than those that are not overlapping. Weinrich has enclosed the idea of ‘temporal sequentiality’ in the zero degree development of the communication. His temporal sequentiality is not restricted to those communications that advance the narrative plot, but includes those presenting a more paced description of the details attached to the plot. Consequently, on this zero degree, we have a fast paced, presto development of the plot in foreground; alongside it, zero degree may further display a lengthier lento development in the background. Anything that does not Robar, ‘Grounding: Biblical Hebrew’, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, 151–152. 220 Robar, ‘Grounding: Biblical Hebrew’, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, 152 refers to Hopper and Thompson, ‘Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse’. 219

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interrupt the zero degree to relate retrospection/anticipation event is an advancement of the plot. It is also true that strict ‘temporal sequentiality is not a function of wayyiqtol’ as scholars have documented cases of overlapping wayyiqtol, and ‘interrupted storylines’.221 Here, Robar inserts a footnote which refers to an article by John Cook.222 Cook rightly observes that wayyiqtol is not really bound to a temporal sequential but it remains foreground even when it is not sequential. Following in the footsteps of Tanya Reinhart (there is an extensive excursus on her psycho-linguistic approach at pp. 255–257),223 Cook observes that temporal succession is not always marked in language (p. 253). In this context, I would delimit my own position with regard to the following affirmations of Cook. I agree that ‘Biblical Hebrew does not employ wayyiqtol exclusively to express foreground’224 and that ‘neither are departures from the wayyiqtol in narrative always to be construed as marking background information’. However, strictly regarding foreground, if wayyiqtol is not bound to temporal sequentiality—as he and other scholars have rightly proposed—there is no other way to avoid ambiguity than using another sort of bounding. I suggest that a more comprehensive description of BH and TA sentence should be used: one that takes into account further syntactic values not just foregrounding. In my application to these two languages, the approach of Weinrich leads to a much more specific linguistic description: for BH wayyiqtol and TA wqetal, that description is foreground relievo, narrative register, with zero degree perspective. This means that wayyiqtol and wqetal are the only ones, in their Robar, ‘Grounding: Biblical Hebrew’, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, 152–153. 222 John A. Cook, ‘The Semantics of Verbal Pragmatics: Clarifying the Roles of Wayyiqtol and Weqatal in Biblical Hebrew Prose’, Journal of Semitic Studies 49, No. 2 (2004). 223 Reinhart, ‘Principles of Gestalt Perception in the Temporal Organization of Narrative Texts’. 224 Cook, ‘The Semantics of Verbal Pragmatics: Clarifying the Roles of Wayyiqtol and Weqatal in Biblical Hebrew Prose’, 264. I do not refer here to those cases in which wayyiqtol may convey a retrospective meaning as obviously wayyiqtol should be able to have other meanings than foreground. 221

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respective language, which by default have this particular combination of functions. Conversely, if one argues a syntactic synonymy with wayyiqtol, that should include proof or some statement of why certain other sentence types have the same linguistic description under relievo, register and perspective. I am not arguing that Cook is wrong in these two points, but that his considerations of the supposed synonymy between wayyiqtol and xqatal are made on an incomplete analysis of wayyiqtol, which serves as basis for a further incomplete analysis of the other sentence types. So when Cook associates this wayyiqtol ‘foreground’ with presupposed ‘deviations from wayyiqtol’225, one has to check whether these deviations (presumably caused by ‘fronting’ or a ‘new discourse section’) are an exact reflection of the definition of wayyiqtol. Coherent syntactic discussion of anything should start from the premise that one syntactic function corresponds to only one BH sentence type. So, if there is indeed more than one sentence sharing the wayyiqtol function, as Cook suggests, then the reason for this needs to be made explicit in a comprehensive way, not simply with reference to foregrounding. From this methodological position, I disagree with Robar that ‘there is no hard morphological correlation between foreground/ background and a specific verbal form’ and that ‘wayyiqtol will most likely coincide with foregrounding out of the very nature of narratives. But qatal may begin foregrounded sections [...], as well as backgrounded sections’.226 My analysis of indirect speech passages suggests that there is a correlation between BH wayyiqtol, TA wqetal, and foreground on the one hand, and BH wqatal, TA wparticiple and background, on the other hand.227 Only in determinate cases, other

225 See the examples in Cook, ‘The Semantics of Verbal Pragmatics: Clarifying

the Roles of Wayyiqtol and Weqatal in Biblical Hebrew Prose’, 264. 226 Robar, ‘Grounding: Biblical Hebrew’, in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, 155. 227 For BH, wayyiqtol is the only foreground narrative zero degree sentence; only in connection with an existing narrative head can an xqatal of correlation and contrast have the same function; see Condrea, ‘Following the

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sentence types (for example, the xqatal when it follows and is connected with a ‘narrative head’ in wayyiqtol) would take up the foreground, narrative, zero degree function of wayyiqtol.228 Comment

Despite the fact that Weinrich’s identification of a ‘comment register’ set over against ‘narrative register’ represents one of the most important advances in modern linguistic studies, his ideas about the ‘comment register’ have been systematically and seriously misunderstood. Even among the handful of favourable reactions to Weinrich’s Tempus, there is neither serious appreciation of this term, nor rigorous analysis of its implications. I have outlined the significant influence of the term ‘foregrounding’ in both stylistics and linguistics. In stark contrast to this, virtually no scholarly attention has been paid in linguistics, or in other disciplines, to ‘comment register’ from the time it was first proposed by Weinrich up to the present day. Indeed, on those rare occasions when it has been considered, it has been misrepresented, and misread as being equivalent to direct speech: so much is clear from the work of Schneider and Niccacci. Weinrich and his readers

Gzella’s negative appraisal of Weinrich’s approach is largely typical of attitudes amongst students of Semitic languages to the latter’s work. The causes for this state of affairs are the superficiality in reading Weinrich’s work and in checking the facts of the matter. This is mostly evident in the fact that scholars do not go beyond reading Weinrich’s Tempus, despite the large number of his subsequent contributions to the topic. It is extraordinary that scholars like Buth venture to criticise Weinrich, while admitting that they have not read his work. Moreover, Gzella seems to believe that the work of Weinrich is a tool box from which one can pick and choose whichever tool is relevant. It is not. Relievo or Reliefgebung is a linguistic dimension which works and is in continuous interaction with the other two linguistic Blueprint II’. The same correlation verifies in TA, see the analysis of wqetal and wparticiple in this book. 228 Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint II’. This analysis of BH is based on earlier research on Targum Aramaic as evident in the chapters dedicated to wqetal and wparticiple in this book.

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dimensions of perspective and register. When performed, proper critical assessment of Weinrich’s work requires no less than consideration of all three dimensions of language, if it is not to be biased or misleading. In the application of Weinrich’s method to a specific language, either all three dimensions of language must be taken into account, or the application is invalid. The sense that Weinrich’s method is a tool box is pervasive. The one item thought to be the universal key to most linguistic issues in Biblical studies is relievo or Reliefgebung. Schneider and Niccacci’s BH syntaxes do exactly this in ignoring not only the basic meaning of the foreground/background opposition, but also mistaking comment/narrative registers for direct and indirect speech. Reintroducing the connection between tense and time into the process of thinking about BH sentences accentuates their abdication of the core principles of Weinrich’s method. This careless dismissal of Weinrich’s detailed and tightly argued work, combined with half-hearted acceptance of some of its terminology, has two deleterious consequences. First, it prevents future biblical scholars from taking a serious interest in Weinrich’s method. Second, those inclined to read Weinrich’s writings can easily fail to see that what he proposes is an explanation of tense-syntax. His analysis draws on real instances of language, is instructional and non-psychologic; furthermore, it excludes the long-standing prejudice that tenses are by necessity correlated with an aspectual value and the solar time. What does Weinrich’s approach stand for after all?

Understood and applied correctly, this is a semantic and pragmatic approach to language which removes the question of how time and aspect relate to tense. Instead, Weinrich argues in favour of text time which is nothing other than the actual sequence of linguistic signs during communication. The idea of text time requires a new way of looking at time in language. Because communication is linear, rather than referring it to an artificial solar time as classic theories suggest, tense is a reflection of the tempo of the human beating heart which marks, I believe, the passage of time (so there is a lento and a presto passage of time). Each sentence is a communicative event which takes forward the preceding event. Within this always forward movement of the

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communication, specific tenses mark the divergence of the tempo advancement to relate events that are recovered or expected. Essentially, with regard to time, tenses are only signposts that say ‘slower’, ‘faster’ or ‘backward or forward detour’, but always in a linear advancement of the communication. Slower and faster tenses are part of what is called relievo or foregrounding—they have no perspective; these are opposed by those tenses which do have perspective or they introduce a backward/forward detour. Once this complicated business of time is dealt with, Weinrich completes it with another original idea, the quality or the register of the communication which is either involved (commented) or distant (narrated). In sum, the following is a short glossary of terms for Weinrich’s approach.229 1. Register is an opposition of two types of instruction conveyed by the speaker/writer to the hearer/reader by which ‘the speaker suggests to the listener the frame of mind [in French: attitude] which suits him/her [the speaker]’.230 Register is either of comment or of narrative and these do not correspond to direct and indirect speech. a. The comment register is a syntactic value attached to a specific tense by which ‘the speaker gives as instruction to the hearer that they should choose an attitude of attentive and concerned participation with regard to the message received’.231 b. The narrative register is syntactic value attached to a specific tense by which the speaker instructs that ‘the text can be received with a specific calm distance. The listener can simply listen. […] one expects no immediate reaction to what has just been heard. To this extent, the narrative text, contrary to the comment text, is not equivalent to [requiring] an action [from the hearer]. The narrative register is the register of scaling down the tension.’232

This is based on Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français; the square brackets and bold letters belong to me. 230 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 124. 231 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 124. Weinrich’s italics. 232 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 124. 229

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2. Perspective or ‘temporal/tense perspective concerns the distinction between the text time and the time of the actancy (i.e. the action). The text time is the time that a text uses in its development proper. In the time of the text, each linguistic sign has its “now”’. Most importantly, ‘In written texts, the “now” of the writing and the “now” of the reading, while they are certainly separated in time, they are made simultaneous (“synchronised”) by the imagination of the reader. That is why, in the descriptions below, we can admit a simultaneous textual temporality between the speaker/writer and the listener/reader, regardless of the oral or written nature of the text.’ Communication either advances—no perspective present—or it has a recovered/anticipated perspective. The retrospective and the anticipative tenses instruct the listener that at this particular point in his/her reading time, (s)he has to return or skip to events before or after, respectively, the two immediately adjacent actions: ‘When the time of the act [action] is located before the time of the text [the actual point in the text where the listener is situated in one’s reading], the listener can turn back on the action indicated as on a piece of the past. But if the indicated action is situated after the time of the text, then the listener must look towards this action as pertaining to a future of expectation’. b. If not, ‘the speaker can then employ a neutral perspective (‘perspective zero’), which indicates to the listener that neither the retrospective nor the prospective are indicated.’233 a.

3. Relievo is a dimension of language which is more relevant to the narrative register ‘as, most often, the narrated world does not belong, or no longer belongs to the field of the immediate experience of the listener, who therefore needs to be oriented, in such a way that the narrated world loses the strangeness under which it presents itself to him [the listener].’ When is present, it has the semantic instructional feature of contrast between (‘rheme’) and that of (‘theme’); this means that the background provides the thematic information of the story, or that which is considered given and old information; by contrast, 233 Weinrich, Grammaire

textuelle du français, 121–122.

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foreground is the new, unexpected information that creates the rheme of the storyline. From this outlook, with background tenses, ‘the narrated world is presented with an appearance of normality, of a simple state ... and it [the narrated world] is described more or less in a detailed way. […] throughout the narrative, there are many opportunities to recap the situation in a descriptive way, as it has been modified step by step in the narrative stages, or to insert other useful information by which [the text] time is more or less drawn-out. These processes give the story a slower ‘lento’ type of narrative tempo’. b. With the foreground tenses, ‘the story sets in motion with what becomes action, intrigue, event.’234 a.

With these three dimensions of language (register, perspective, and relievo), Weinrich creates a strong association of one syntactic function (under these the three dimensions of language) to one tense. The result for the study of biblical languages is that if a complete syntactic analysis is proposed (under relievo, register, perspective), one can propose a specific, accurate translation into a modern language. Whereas syntactic studies on modern languages normally leave aside the problems of translation, or make translation a part of another discipline altogether (‘Translation Studies’), Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew syntaxes, I believe, need to treat syntax and translation together. Otherwise, the syntactic discussion is meaningless for specialists and non-specialists alike. Consequently, the syntactic analysis of the source language should be reflected in translation by syntactic structures in the target language. There is no point in assigning a particular syntactic function to a Biblical Hebrew sentence, only to translate it with the same past simple tense following, for instance, the Revised Standard Version. It is not a mistake to translate using the tense sequence as found in the RSV, should the syntactic analysis support it or there be stated nonlinguistic reasons to do so. It is, however, misleading to claim one type of syntactic analysis and translate with something that does not reflect the same syntactic reality in the target language. 234 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 130, and for , see

page 637.

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Moreover, I argue that Weinrich put forward a specific cycle of language analysis and, with regard to the analysis of a dead language, that cycle is complete only with translation. Weinrich’s cycle starts with reading larger portions of real-life texts and by marking what each of the linguistic signs accomplish in their sequence in the text, according to the ‘relevant semantic features’ outlined above; he then proceeds to correlate the basic distribution of these semantic features with each linguistic sign. For example, each linguistic sign of tense receives a description regarding the three major linguistic dimensions of register, relievo, and perspective. This is what he achieves in the case of French and German applications of his method.235 He does not need to provide translations as his applications already employ a real literary text and samples of oral language from databases of spoken communications.236 His readership is either French or a German, or a person who will understand fully what is said. However, in biblical languages, replicating the same cycle of text-linguistic analysis—that is without presenting a translation which reflects the analysis—is not possible. This is because the end result of Weinrich’s work is not only a syntactic discussion of tenses, but a complete disclosure of the meaning of the tense up to providing proper samples of decipherable text that support the analysis. Its applications to dead languages, like BH or Targum Aramaic, must or at least strive to do the same. That disclosure leads to tables of correlations between tense and text-linguistic function.

235 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français; Weinrich, Textgrammatik der

deutschen Sprache. 236 For French, Weinrich extensively uses the archive of spoken communication belonging to the ‘Centre de Recherche et d’Etude pour la Diffusion du Français’ (CREDIF) of Saint-Cloud, see Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 135. The samples Weinrich uses are recorded in Elisabeth Gülich, Makrosyntax der Gliederungssignale im gesprochenen Französisch (München: W. Fink, 1970), from p. 320 on. In a note above, I outlined Hopper’s position with regard to the ‘hypostasised’ instances of language which is very relevant for text-linguistics and discourse analysis.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

narrative zero degree

comment zero degree narrative retrospection narrative anticipation

comment retrospection

Relievo 237 Background imparfait

French238 German239 Italian240 English241

Foreground passé simple Präteritum passato remoto past simple

French German Italian English French German Italian English

présent Präsens presente present passé antérieur Plusquamperfekt trapassato prossimo past perfect

French German Italian

conditionel 243 würde-Konjunktiv244 condizionale presente condizionale passato conditional Passé composé Perfekt passato prossimo present perfect present perfect continuous

English French German Italian English

imperfetto past simple continuous ‘sta leggendo’ present continuous plus-que-parfait trapassato remoto past perfect continuous242

237 Not all combinations between dimensions are represented in each lan-

guage by a single tense; this is to explain the empty slots in the table. For example, as is evident in Weinrich’s Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache, German does not signal background through a tense; when occurring, background relievo is marked by other syntactic means (for example, a sentence with ‘denn’, cf. page 760). 238 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 122; for examples of conjugations of French verbs according to his syntactic method, pp. 584–629. 239 Weinrich, Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache. 240 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 79 241 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo. 242 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38. 243 In French, comment and narrative anticipation have no relievo or foreground/background distribution; Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 129: ‘The features of relievo do not combine with prospective’. 244 Weinrich, Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache, 208-209.

2. TEXT-LINGUISTICS AND SYNTAXES comment anticipation

French German Italian English

futur Futur futuro future

245 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38.

97

future continuous245

CHAPTER 3. WQETAL T HE METHODOLOGY OF NARRATIVE FORMS Tense theories have always considered that tenses are there to convey the element of time.1 The method of Harald Weinrich is distinctive in arguing that tense has no connection with time. Building on his theory of ‘Tempus-Metaphorik’2 or tense metaphor, I argue that narrative tenses, in general, and TA narrative tenses of wqetal and wparticiple in particular, are about the passage of time. W. Klein, Time in language (London/New York: Routledge, 1994), 16–31. Klein lists the three ‘conventional’ theories (of tense, aspect, and Aktionsart) which do include time in their explanation; he opposes these to Weinrich’s comment/narrative and Hopper’s foreground/background who associate a ‘discourse function’ to tense. In his interpretation, the ‘discourse function’ theories refer to ‘time as secondary meaning of tense’. Their primary meaning is ‘to mark different discourse types’, p. 20. Klein’s explanation of what Weinrich calls comment is lacking: comment does report with present perfect when it introduces recovered information. Under the register of comment, further tenses are found: present tenses and future which represent zero degree and anticipation, respectively. 2 This was hailed by Monika Fludernik as ‘his most innovative contribution’ by which ‘he here manages to add a semiotic functional perspective and also allows one to explain phenomena like free indirect discourse as combinatory metaphorical tense shifts’ M. Fludernik, ‘Narratology and Literary Linguistics’, in The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, ed. R. I. Binnick (Oxford, New York: OUP, 2012), 82. See W. J. M. Bronzwaer, ‘Review: Harald Weinrich, Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt (Second Edition, 1971)’, Poetics 2, No. 4 (1973), 110: he calls this ‘the most exciting aspect of Weinrich’s theories’. 1

99

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

In a few words, Weinrich’s theory of tense metaphor postulates that at the beginning of the text the reader has an ‘information status equal to zero’, which means that ‘all the possibilities are still open’,3 where all subsequent information is a ‘reduction of possibilities’.4 The tense transition is ‘the passage from one sign to the other in the course of the linear unfolding of the text’5 or from one verbal form to the next. The transition may be a homogeneous one (foreground form to foreground, recovered information to recovered information, or comment to comment verbal forms); or the transition may be a heterogeneous one (foreground to retrospection/anticipation, comment to narrative, etc.).6 The homogeneous transition is called ‘tense shift’, while the heterogeneous one is called ‘tense metaphor’.7 The latter key term is called ‘tense metaphor’ as it supposes a double (hence the metaphor) change within the dimensions, for example, relievo—from foreground to background—and linguistic perspective—from zero degree to either retrospective or anticipation. 3 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 217. The English translation of this passage belongs to Ricoeur, Blamey, and Pellauer [tr], Time and Narrative 2, 72. 4 Weinrich refers here to Y. Bar-Hillel, Language and Information (London: Addison-Wesley, 1973), p. 275–297. 5 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 218. 6 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 220–223. 7 In translating the German ‘Tempus-Übergang’, I followed the lead of W. G. E. Watson, who proposes the English ‘tense shift’. However, I translated ‘Tempus-Metaphorik’ with ‘tense metaphor’ compared to Watson’s proposal of ‘temporal metaphor’; see Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, §79, 111. The opposition supposed in the German original of Weinrich is between ‘tense shift’ (homogeneous transition) and ‘tense metaphor’ (heterogeneous transition); Weinrich, Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt (4th), 191. Using the adjective ‘temporal’ for ‘Tempus-Metaphorik’ obscures the common denominator which is tense. The confusion derives from the fact that while German displays two nouns (Zeit/Tempus) and two adjectives (zeitlich/temporal), English has two nouns (time/tense, respectively), but only one adjective (temporal). In Italian (as in many other Romance languages), things are even more confusing as there is only one noun for time/tense (tempo) and one adjective for ‘temporal/related to tense’, (temporale); see Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 9.

3. WQETAL

101

This idea of two entities working together to create a meaning is based on text: ‘a metaphor needs at least two signs (lexeme or morpheme), and as a result, every metaphor is part of the concept of text’.8 The theory of tense metaphor constitutes the premise of my proposal that narrative texts contain narrative time passage: two narrative tenses/TA narrative tenses together convey one meaning. The standpoint is that of the literary product, which is a set of purposefully arranged linguistic signs.9 Based on Weinrich’s tense metaphor understood simply as a sequence of two tense forms, my proposal is that the sequence of tense metaphors indicates the passage of time: two specific types of TA sentence, a sequence of wqetal and wparticiple sentence, produce a tense metaphor.10 Effectively, the tense metaphor is one entity marking the passage of time made up of two subsequent narrative tenses. From the point of view of the writer, a literary product is a message for his or her readers. Narrowing this down to a particular content, the Book of 1Samuel is a narration: it contains not only the message of the narrator—the circumstances of Samuel’s birth and his death intertwined with the establishment of kingship in Israel, focused on Saul and David, ending with the death of Saul—but also indicates that the events have a strict temporal sequence. The time passage in narrative is enclosed within this sequence of the narrative forms, that is in the orderly disposition of the narrative tenses/TA narrative sentences in the plot.11 This is because each narrative sentence enters into a metaphorical relationship with the next one: two subsequent narrative sentences should be read together as one entity. In turn, the sequence of tense metaphors creates ‘the

8 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 251. In TA, the linguistic sign means a combination of a word order (verb first or verb second) and tense (qetal, participle, yiqtul, imperative, infinitive, or no tense). 10 The meaning I attribute here to tense metaphor is less restrictive than the one proposed by Weinrich: the metaphor is created by the sequence of two tenses. 11 The sentence types I analyse as comment (those bearing the SVO/OVS word order) are not representations of the time passage. 9

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

illusion of the temporal movement’ (Hellen Dry).12 It is not individual narrative tenses or sentence forms that create that passage; it is the accumulated relations between two subsequent metaphors (or the sequence of the two metaphors), that induces the reader to perceive the time passage in the narrative world. The time passage or plot advancement may advance or may be stalled. Two features of narrative are essential in the coming analysis: the temporally ordered sequence of events and of listing. Robert Binnick calls them ‘rhetorical’ relations. They mark whether the sequence of events described in narrative is temporally ordered or not. His examples of the narrative and listing are, respectively: Bill sang a song. Jane thanked him on behalf of the audience. Bill sang a song. Jane played the piano.13 His terms ‘narrative’ and ‘listing’ are markers of two opposite phenomena which feature in what Weinrich calls narrative register. In some cases, the story contains events arranged in a fixed temporal order—the sequence contains the so-called temporal juncture (see below); conversely, in other cases, the story covers a series of events that do not imply this fixed temporal order. In the latter cases, the events are narratively listed and this sequence implies no temporal juncture between the events listed—the events could be arranged in any way without changing the meaning of the story as a whole. In the second example, the text does not say whether Bill sang first; it is also possible 12 H. Dry, ‘The Movement of Narrative Time’, Journal

of Literary Semantics 12, No. 2 (1983). Dry does not attribute the term foreground to a verbal form but to the sentence as a whole. Understood as contrast of foreground, background is that which is ‘merely talked of, expected, or hypothesized’ (p. 21). Foreground is the one ‘propelling’ the narrative. The traits of foreground are the presence of (1) perfect simple, (2) ‘aspect and adverbials such as “now”’ and (3) sequencing particles (pp. 48–49). Her conclusion asserts that ‘the set of sentences that [literary] critics have intuitively identified as “important”, “essential”, and “propelling” [the story] is actually equivalent to the set that triggers the illusion of temporal movement’ (p. 49). 13 R. I. Binnick, ‘Aspect and Aspectuality’, in The Handbook of English Linguistics, ed. B. Aarts and A. M. S. McMahon (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 262.

3. WQETAL

103

that it was Jane who played first. The first example implies an advancement of the plot—he sang, she thanks him afterwards; the latter does not imply any such advancement; both of them are narrative regardless. More specifically, the analysis of wqetal examines how particular uses of wqetal influence the advancement the time or plot in narrative. I discuss these features based on the research by William Labov and Joshua Waletzky,14 and of Paul Hopper (in the case of hendiadys). In a word, I argue that wqetal sentences have the ability to enter into a tense metaphor relationship and that they have particular shades of meaning which stall or advance the plot or the time of narrative. I They determined that in narrative some sentences ‘cannot be displaced across a temporal juncture without a change in the temporal sequence of the original semantic interpretation’, W. Labov and J. Waletzky, ‘Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience’, Journal of Narrative and Life History, No. 7 (1967/1997), 20–21. Simply put, the narrative genre contains sentences with fixed positions in the text. Two or more sentences may denote events that happened one after another in the reality described and changing their place would lead to change in the story. This means that they are in a ‘temporal juncture’ (p. 20–21). The temporal juncture leads to the following classification of sentences (p. 15–20): narrative clauses are clauses which cannot be moved from their position as this represents the order of events as they happened; they have a temporal juncture; free clauses are those which can be moved back and forth in the sequence of clauses with no impact on the meaning of the narrative; they are not part of a temporal juncture; coordinate clauses can switch places without changing the semantic value of the text; two or more sentences could be coordinate; restricted clauses represent clauses whose rearrangement in the text is restricted by other linguistic signs (‘they did not…. he did not either’). The scheme ‘a-then-b’ is a benchmark against which all the other types of sentences in the narrative are described (pp. 25–26). This is an evaluative type of classification which examines what the narrative sentence achieves in a text. The second type of classification proposed by Labov and Waletzky is the referential one which investigates the five possible positions of a sentence in the text: orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution, or coda. I discuss one of these positions, the orientation or prelude (see Chapter 6). Labov and Waletzky based their conclusions on extensive empiric evidence gathered by analysing oral interviews of people with different ages and social backgrounds with no higher education. The interviewees were asked to narrate a significant event in their life. 14

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

should clarify that the two theories of Labov and Waletzky and Weinrich are two complementary ways of looking at narrative sentences. While the former theory explains how a certain type of narrative ordering of the events (from fixed, to coordinated, free, and restricted) impact on the plot, the theory of tense metaphor pushes further the understanding of the narrative biblical sentence on two fronts. First, it explains how the plot encloses the advancement of the narrative time. The linear plot marks how the events depicted relate to their representation in the story; this is different from the impact this representation has on the reader. There is a composite nature of narrative: one which regards the plot and the other which concerns the advancement of the narrative time. On this last item, the illusion of the temporal movement is housed by the plot but it is created by the sequence of two wqetal considered as one entity, a metaphor. Second, the concept of the tense metaphor is the bedrock of further differentiation. As I shall explain in the case of the ‘wqetal of speech event’ sentence, when referring to a character speaking, the author has two choices at his disposal. In one case, the author can ‘reduce the speech to event’ as Gérard Genette explains—the readers are informed about the content of a presumed direct speech and one relies fully on the author to interpret the gist of what was said. The comprehension of the oral communication is mediated by the author. In the other case, a character can speak through a wqetal of the verb ‫( אמר‬to say) introducing a direct speech, which amounts almost to ‘physical’ presence of the character in the narrative. Following the theory of Julia Kristeva, because one adjoins a third item—of physicality—to the narrative advancing of the metaphor, the union of a wqetal sentence with a direct speech creates a temporal metamorphosis, by which the wqetal sentence converts from advancing the narrative time to relating the unmediated presence of the character speaking. The reader is able to judge directly the words of the character. The third section of this chapter is dedicated to the double sentence (a protasis-apodosis construction) which is headed by ‫והוה‬, the wqetal of the verb ‘to be’. This section seeks to entangle the various methodologic difficulties of the double sentence and proposes an elaborated outline of its syntactic functions which can be briefly summarised as: ‘bridging the plot’; opening a biblical episode because the double sentence has a prelude position; and connecting the

3. WQETAL

105

retrospective information of the protasis to the foregrounded information of the plot.

WQETAL AND N ARRATIVE T IME The wqetal sentence represents the narrative, foreground, and zero degree in Targum Aramaic; it may have four meanings: (1) narrative wqetal carries temporally sequenced events or events in temporal juncture; 15 (2) coordinate wqetal—the events in coordination may have happened in no particular order; (3) wqetal signalling non-sequential/incomplete action wqetal—their extension goes beyond the subsequent narrative forms; (4) wqetal hendiadys—two wqetal for one event.16 The (1) narrative wqetal is the predominant form in narrative. The order of these wqetal forms in narrative corresponds to the order of events as they happened in the story described. When wqetal narrative is used, the sequence of the events in the literary product coincides with that of the reality; furthermore, they indicate the advance of time or plot in narrative. The wqetal forms (1) as narrative, (2) coordinate and (4) hendiadys share two specific traits, sequentially and completion or refer completed information in sequence. In narrative, a verbal form is considered complete whenever its action finishes before the beginning of the next verbal form.

15 Labov and Waletzky believe that only the sentences with temporal juncture

are narrative. My understanding of what narrative means follows Weinrich. The temporal juncture and the four types of clauses outlined in the preceding footnote are ways of articulating the shades of meaning that the narrative non-involved communication may have. 16 I determined these four types of wqetal by analysing those episodes in 1Samuel which contain at least four wqetal forms in sequence (1Samuel 7:2– 17; 10:17–27; 11:1–10; 16:14–23; 17:12–18:5; 19:1–24; 21:2–16; 23:1–24:1; 24:2–23; 28:1–25; 31:1–13). The sections 11:1–10 and 17:12–54 constitute the first panel of their respective episodes.

106

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC Normal wqetal narrative

Wqetal narrative The wqetal is the preferred form for structuring events that take place one after another. The grammatical subject may change rapidly (10:20–21: Samuel, the tribe of Benjamin, Samuel again, family of Matar, etc.) or be the same for longer stretches of text (10:25: Samuel). Usually, the subject is stated once at the beginning of the wqetal line; when ambiguous, the subject is reiterated so as to prevent the confusion (10:25d: Samuel). 1Samuel 10:20–21; 2517 20

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וקריב שׁמואל ית כל שׁבטיא‬ ‫דישׁראל‬ ‫ואתאחד שׁבטא דבית בנימין׃‬

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wlaqetal wloqatal wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ואתאחדת זרעית מטר‬

‫ וקריב ית שׁבטא דבית‬21 ‫בנימין לזרעיתיה‬

‫ואתאחד שׁאול בר קישׁ‬ ‫ובעוהי‬ ‫ולא אשׁתכח׃‬

Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of the House of Benjamin was singled out. He brought the tribe of the House of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of Matar was singled out. Then Saul the son of Kish was singled out. But when they sought him, he could not be found

‫ומליל שׁמואל עם עמא ית‬ ‫נומסא דמלכותא‬ ‫וכתב בספרא‬

25

Then Samuel discussed the royal rights with the people, and he wrote them in a book

‫ואצנע קדם יוי‬

and deposited it before the LORD. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each to his home.

‫ושׁלח שׁמואל ית כל עמא גבר‬ ‫לביתיה׃‬

17 The translation in the tables follows Staalduine-Sulman. My modifications

are signalled by italics; other changes are reported in the notes.

3. WQETAL

107

In the sequence of 17:52–53, the flow of wqetal sentences starts from the moment when Israel rises up and continues with five wqetal which denote complete action in sequence—they shout, follow the Philistines, the Philistines are defeated, Israel returns and takes their spoil. The connection between every two subsequent wqetal forms adds to create the tense metaphor or the advancement of narrative from one point to another. 1Samuel 17:52–5318 52

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וקמו אנשׁי ישׁראל ויהודה‬

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ונפלו פלשׁתאי קטילין‬ ‫באורח שׁערים ועד גת ועד‬ ‫עקרון׃‬ 53 ‫ותבו בני ישׁראל מלמרדף‬ ‫בתר פלשׁתאי‬

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ויביבו‬ ‫ורדפו בתר פלשׁתאי עד‬ ‫מעלנא דגי ועד תרעי עקרון‬

‫ובזו ית משׁריתהון׃‬

And the men of Israel and Judah rose and shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as the entrance of the valley and the gates of Ekron, the Philistines fell killed on the way of Sha-ararim, as far as Gath and Ekron. And the sons of Israel came back from pursuing the Philistines, and they plundered their camp.

The order of each wqetal in the episode is fixed, enclosed by the ‘temporal juncture’ (as found in Labov-Waletzky’s framework): the second wqetal in sequence cannot be moved before the first without changing the meaning of the story. The beginning of one wqetal supposes the end of the preceding one. Any change in the order would render the whole narrative unintelligible: Israel could not have followed the Philistines (52c) before rising against them (52a) or take their spoils (53b) before the Philistines have been defeated (52d); Israel returns from pursuing the Philistines and then plunders their camp (53a). The temporal juncture of the normal narrative wqetal does not allow a temporal displacement. This means that the sequence of the events is not left for the reader to interpret. Furthermore, in contrast 18 I deleted ‘so that’ in 52c.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

with the wqetal hendiadys, with the coordinate wqetal or with the other possible type of listing events (wqetal incomplete), the advancement of the narrative time and of the plot is unhindered. In the case of these other types of wqetal, the reader may interpret the order events as being flexible (either of the two could be first without impact on the story, as it is the case with the sequence of wqetal coordinate) or that the event of the current wqetal continues over the coming forms (see the wqetal incomplete). In a word, the sequences of normal narrative wqetal add up to create a linear narrative time and, in contrast with the types of wqetal described in the next three sections, have no inclination for stalling the development of the plot. Coordinate wqetal—complete action The label ‘coordinate’ wqetal refers to interchangeable wqetal forms, which means that reversing the order of one with the other has no impact on the meaning of the text.19 The coordinated forms assent to a looser story in which either of the two events could have come first. I examine the passage describing the rituals accomplished by the people at Mizpah. 1Samuel 7:6a–f

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ואתכנשׁו למצפיא‬

So they gathered themselves at Mizpah, ‫ ושׁפכו לבהון בתיובא כמיא‬and poured out their hearts ‫ קדם יוי‬like water, in repentance before the LORD. MT contains an extra wayyiqtol: ‘they drew water and poured it out before the LORD’ wqetal ‫ וצמו ביומא ההוא‬And they fasted on that day, wayyiqtol wqetal ‫ ואמרו תמן‬and said there, wayyiqtol qetal ‫‘ חבנא קדם יוי‬We are guilty before the qatal LORD.’

A theoretical description of the coordinate clause is found in Labov and Waletzky, ‘Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience’, 14–15 and 20–21. 19

3. WQETAL wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ודן שׁמואל ית בני ישׁראל‬ ‫במצפיא׃‬

109

And Samuel judged the sons of Israel at Mizpah.

The sequence in 7:6bcdef is preceded by the gathering of the people at the holy site. In this geographical context, the actions of pouring the soul, fasting, confessing and being judged by Samuel are events whose limits are clear: they did them after they came together (7:6a) and before Philistines decide to attack (7:7). The coordinate feature of the passage developed with wqetal derives from the fact that they display no temporal juncture: the people (or Samuel, see 6f) fulfil these actions simultaneously, and hence it is impossible to create a timeline. The effect on the narrative is that of stalling or immobilising the action: we as readers contemplate their acts of repentance like a picture. The name of this tableau may be ‘Liturgical acts of repentance’; all to be imitated when one repents. The wqetal of 7:6f ends this tableau of atonement with a circular return to Mizpah, a place mentioned twice in this verse. The temporal juncture is preserved with those narrative sentences that precede and are subsequent to the coordinated wqetal sentences. The sequence of coordinate wqetal is almost hidden within the narrative wqetal advancing the plot. The change from temporal to coordinate wqetal is seamless as there is neither a change in subject nor of anything else between the wqetal forms or 7:5a–6a (a sequence with temporal juncture) and 7:6bcdf (the coordinate wqetal forms). Both these sets of actions have the same actors, the people and Samuel. However, the reverse change is not so: there is a change in subject. The Philistines hear and attack in 7:7. One further example is 1Samuel 31:9–10 describing the defilement of Saul’s body. This is a list which records some of the things done to the body and leaves the door open to suppose that they did not stop at that. The passage shows a chiastic structure (abcb’a’): they cut his head and strip his armour (ab); the objects of defilement are sent around (c); the armour is put in the temple of Astaroth (b’), the head on the walls of Beth-shan (a’). The same phenomenon occurs. The change from wqetal narrative to coordinate is seamless (see the Philistines are the subject in 31:8–9); however, the converse change is marked by a change in subject to the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead. It is they who redeem the body and bury it properly (31:11a).

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The passage of time is stalled with the wqetal coordinate forms. They conserve a temporal disposition with the forms outside their pairing, but the reader pauses because he/she can add other elements to the list—in the examples above, another act of repentance or defilement. What is listed represents the gist of the story, leaving the reader to fill it with other possible events within the same lines. The non-sequential or incomplete wqetal A number of examples of wqetal point to its use for incomplete events. The first sign of these occurrences is that the verb conveys the ideas of constancy (of a feeling or physical trait) and existence with the verb ‫( הוה‬to be or to belong). In the following example, the fact that Saul is standing (23c) or his quality of being the tallest (23d) are not replaced or do not end with the coming wqetal of ‫( ואמר‬24a). He is still standing and he is still the tallest when Samuel speaks. 1Samuel 10:23–24a20

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ ורהטו‬23 ‫ודברוהי מתמן‬ ‫ואתעתד בגו עמא‬ ‫ורם מכל עמא‬ ‫מכתפיה ולעילא׃‬ ‫ ואמר שׁמואל לכל‬24 ‫עמא‬

And they ran and led him from there. And he stood among the people he was taller than all the people from his shoulder upward. And Samuel said to all the people

This type of wqetal does not advance the narrative, which means that it does the opposite; it becomes a way of prolonging the duration of the narrative. To ‘being the tallest’ other qualities may be added (being handsome, having strong arms, etc.) inducing the increase of duration without actually advancing the plot of the episode. If this is so, this type of narrative wqetal does more than just refer a state; it lists these traits, qualities, and states. One item is sufficient to make up a list. The wqetal narrative (type 1) is a list of events in which time is essential, as they are arranged in sequential temporal order. When this 20 I deleted the word ‘when’ in 23c.

3. WQETAL

111

list is voided of its temporal trait, it remains a simple list with two impacts on the narrative containing them: non-sequentiality of events (the events do not have a fixed sequence or a temporal juncture) and the advancement of the plot is stalled. The list produces a time prolongation on the respective moment in the plot. In 28:20c, after falling to the ground (also described with a narrative prolonging hendiadys in 20ab), the subject Saul is afraid, a state which does not end with the following verbal form (conjunction-xnegation-qetal)—he had no strength in him. Only, the narrative wqetal in 21a advances the time of the episode with the diviner’s reaction; there is no sign that Saul’s fear has ended. wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol conjunctionx-la-qetal conjunctionx-lo-qatal conjunctionla-qetal conjunctionlo-qatal wqetal wayyiqtol

1Samuel 28:20–21a21 20 Then Saul hurried ‫ואוחי שׁאול‬

‫ונפל מלי קומתיה לארעא‬ ‫ודחיל לחדא מפתגמי שׁמואל‬ ‫אף חילא לא הוה ביה‬

and fell full length upon the ground, he greatly feared the words of Samuel. There was no strength in him,

‫ארי לא אכל לחמא כל יממא‬ ‫וכל ליליא׃‬

for he had eaten no food all day long and all night

‫ ואתת אתתא לות שׁאול‬21

And the woman came to Saul

A similar wqetal attributes the same feeling to David in 21:13ab, with regard to Achish, marking the same non-sequential effect: wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol 21 I deleted ‘for’ in

1Samuel 21:11–14a ‫ וקם דויד‬11 And David rose

‫וערק ביומא ההוא מן‬ ‫קדם שׁאול‬ 20c and ‘when’ in 21a.

and fled that day from before Saul.

112

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

wqetal ‫ ואתא לות אכישׁ מלכא‬He went to Achish the king of wayyiqtol ‫ דגת׃‬Gath. 12 wqetal And the servants of Achish said ‫ואמרו עבדי אכישׁ‬ wayyiqtol ‫ ליה‬to him Direct speech: The servants of Achish know David as being more admired than Saul wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

13

‫ושׁוי דויד ית פתגמיא‬ ‫האלין בלביה‬ ‫ודחיל לחדא מן קדם‬ ‫אכישׁ מלכא דגת׃‬ 14 ‫ושׁני ית מדעיה‬ ‫בעיניהון‬

And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. So he changed his intelligence in their sight

The four wqetal forms of 21:11abc–12a recount David’s flight from Saul to Achish of Gat—they are narrative wqetal advancing the plot. The dialogue in verse 12 expands the narrative time by recounting that David is recognised as the hero of Israel. Narrative restarts in 13a and advances the plot from 12a in the sense that David acknowledges their opinion (‘David placed these words in his heart’). 13b states his reaction as being afraid, a feeling which expands over the next wqetal forms when he changes his behaviour to feign insanity and save his life. Other wqetal could have been added to describe his fear, equally not advancing the time of the narrative and creating a non-temporal list of events. This actually happens in 1Samuel 28:5: 1Samuel 28:522

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ וחזא שׁאול ית משׁרית‬5 ‫פלשׁתאי‬ ‫ודחיל‬

Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid

‫וזע לביה לחדא׃‬

and his heart trembled greatly.

After describing Saul’s fear in 5b, the narrator adds ‘and his heart trembled’ in 5c—from the narrative, one cannot say that one happened before the other (and hence they do not advance the narrative). This pair cannot be labelled as a hendiadys, because one sentence may be read without the other, in the sense that each of them is able to create 22 I deleted ‘when’ in 28:5a.

3. WQETAL

113

meaning by itself. The feeling expressed can be also that of love as in 16:21c or convey the permanent duty of somebody as in 16:21d, again to the same non-sequential effect. In both cases, the action of the following wqetal does not end or replace the action of 21c or 21d: 1Samuel 16:21–22a

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

21

‫ואתא דוד לות‬ ‫שׁאול‬ ‫ושׁמישׁ קדמוהי‬ ‫ורחמיה לחדא‬ ‫והוה ליה נטיל זינין׃‬ 22

‫ושׁלח שׁאול לות‬ ‫ישׁי למימר‬

And David came to Saul, and served before him. And Saul loved him greatly, and he was23 his armour-bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying,

The main difference between the non-sequential wqetal and the coordinate one is that while they both refer a list, in the case of the former type, the existence or the ascribed quality is not ‘consumed’ or replaced by another one, but remains as a constant event. The non-sequential action with ‫והוה‬ In Targum Aramaic, there is nothing to prevent the wqetal of ‫הוה‬ from taking any of the functions outlined in this description (narrative, coordinate, non-sequential/incomplete, and hendiadys). However, at least in Targum 1Samuel, ‫ והוה‬is concerned with only one function, the non-sequential. My analysis surveys its semantic connotations: (i) existence, (ii) possession, and (iii) assigning a quality/qualification. 24 23 I replaced ‘become’ with ‘was’; see also the next section on ‫ והוה‬and its non-

sequential use. 24 The semantic delimitations are based on the general discussion of predication in English proposed by V. Mathesius and L. Dušková [tr], A Functional Analysis of Present-Day English on a General Linguistic Basis (The Hague: Mouton, 1961/1975); existence: 118–119; possession: 119–120; assigning quality/qualification: 114–115.

114

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

(i) I begin with the straightforward case of wqetal in 11:8b, an example of ‫ הוה‬meaning ‘existence’ (the number of David’s men).25 1Samuel 11:826

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol nominal clause nominal clause

‫ ומננון בבזק‬8 ‫והוו בני ישׁראל‬ ‫תלת מאה אלפין‬ ‫ואנשׁ יהודה תלתין‬ ‫אלפין׃‬

he counted them at Bezek, the men of Israel were three hundred thousand and the men of Judah thirty thousand.

The plural form of ‫ והוו‬marks no advancement of narrative from 8a to 8b: stating the number of Saul’s soldiers does not involve a plot progression. It is the same before and after the count, and stays the same for the coming wqetal forms. Two other examples of non-sequential wqetal in 7:13–14 convey existence of a more abstract object, ‘the plague/stroke’ in 13c27 and ‘peace’ in 14d:28 1Samuel 7:13–15a

wqetal wayyiqtol wlaqetal wloqatal wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal29 wayyiqtol

‫ ואתברו פלשׁתאי‬13 ‫ולא אוסיפו עוד למיעל‬ ‫בתחום ארעא דישׁראל‬ ‫והות מחתא דיוי‬ ‫בפלשׁתאי כל יומי‬ ‫שׁמואל׃‬ ‫ ותבא קרויא דנסיבו‬14 ‫פלישׁתאי מן ישׁראל‬ ‫לישׁראל מעקרון ועד גת‬

So the Philistines were shattered and did not again cross the border of the land of Israel. And the stroke of the LORD was on the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath;

25 Similarly 1:4; 14:25; with wqetal plural: 13:2; 22:2. 26 I deleted ‘when’ in 11:8a from the translation of Staalduine-Sulman. 27 See ‫ הוה‬in wqetal with ‫‘( מחתא‬the strike/destruction’): 4:10; 5:9; 14:14. 28 See with ‫‘( קרבא‬the war’) in 14:52.

‫דנסיבו‬ ‫( פלשׁתאי מן ישׁראל‬Staalduine-Sulman: ‘which the Philistines had taken from Israel’). 29 This wqetal includes the subordinate sentence (conjunction-qetal):

3. WQETAL wxqetal wxqatal wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וית תחומהון שׁיזיב‬ ‫ישׁראל מידא‬ ‫דפלשׁתאי‬ ‫והוה שׁלמא בין ישׁראל‬ ‫ובין אמוראי׃‬ 15 ‫ודן שׁמואל ית‬ ‫ישׁראל כל יומי חיוהי׃‬

115

and Israel delivered them from the hand of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.

Both these wqetal forms state the existence of the subject, with no impact on advancing the plot; also, there is no temporal juncture between 13c and 14a, and their preceding and succeeding wqetal forms. However, the flexibility to move within the narrative sequence is limited to these two wqetal forms; by contrast with 13c and 14a, the wqetal and the xqetal sentences in 14ab have a fixed position in narrative. This is evident if one compares the following table: The order of events in the Targum

13c: there is the plague of the Lord over the Philistines 14a: Israel delivered their former cities from the hands of the Philistines 14b: their territories (of these cities) return to Israel 14c: and there is peace between Israel and the Amorites

The other order of events (possible because it does not change the story) 14c: there is peace between Israel and the Amorites 14a: Israel delivered their own cities from the hands of the Philistines

14b: their territories (of these cities) return to Israel 13c: there is the plague of the Lord over the Philistines

The wqetal and xqetal forms in 14ab are bound to each other as 14a contains the antecedent substantive ‫( קרויא‬the cities) for the 3 person plural suffix of ‫( תחומהון‬their borders) in 14b.30 This is to say that each wqetal should be analysed individually. A further meaning that the root ‫ הוה‬acquires in context is ‘being something for someone’. This is not the same as becoming. In the previous section I discussed the non-sequential wqetal forms of 16:21c: 30 At the text-linguistic level, the xqetal narrative (14b) depends on its wqetal

head (14a); see Chapter 5.

116

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

‫ ורחמיה לחדא‬Saul ‘loved him [David] very much’. The same non-sequential function has the following non-sequential wqetal of ‫הוה‬.31 1Samuel 16:21cd–22a

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ורחמיה לחדא‬

And Saul loved him greatly,

‫והוה ליה נטיל זינין׃‬

and he was his armour-bearer.

22

And Saul sent to Jesse, saying,

‫ושׁלח שׁאול לות‬ ‫ישׁי למימר‬

Staalduine-Sulman renders 21d with ‘he became his [Saul’s] armourbearer’ which is not incorrect as David was not his armour-bearer before 16:21. Nevertheless, this is not the lexical meaning of ‫הוה‬, which translates literarily ‘to be’: ‘he was his armour-bearer’ (Harrington-Saldarini’s translation). The point is important because after 21a (a narrative wqetal advancing the narrative plot), the rest of the verse contains non-sequential wqetal forms listing David’s status (he served, he was loved by Saul, and was his armour bearer)—none of these actions are ended by the next verse. Translating ‫ והוה‬with ‘became’ gives the impression that there is a temporal progression from David 21b (‘he served’) to 21d (‘he became his armour-bearer’) which is not the case. The non-sequential wqetal in 21d is only a delimitation of his serving and it marks no plot advancement. The same non-sequential function of wqetal ‫( והוה‬so not as ‘become’) verifies in 25:42f: ‫‘ והות ליה לאתו‬and she was for him wife’ (Harrington-Saldarini). The use of a participle in 16:21d (see above) is suggestive for how participles should be understood in relation to the wqetal of ‫הוה‬. The sequence ‫ והוה‬followed by participle does not enter into a ‘habitual or iterative/frequentative’ syntactic combination, as Tarsee Li suggests.32 It is true that the participle ‫ נטיל‬is found in conjunction with a direct object; however, the meaning of this participle is substantival (‘he was his armour-bearer’ (16:21d)), not verbal ‘he was bearing his armour’. I do not think that that which scholars call conventionally ‘participle’

31 Also 22:2c: ‫עליהון לרבא‬

‫‘ והוה‬And he was chief over them’ as in HarringtonSaldarini. 32 Li, T., The Verbal System of the Aramaic of Daniel: An Explanation in the Context of Grammaticalization (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 81.

3. WQETAL

117

in these two Semitic languages acts in a similar fashion as the participle of modern languages. Instead, when occurring in the presence of ‫והוה‬, the participle is either a self-standing sentence as protasis (in a protasis/apodosis double sentence, see section ‘The Double sentence…’ in this book), or it has a substantival value. The case of 19:7 The interpretation of participle as being a noun applies to 19:7 where there is a wqetal form of ‫ והוה‬with participle: ‫ והוה משׁמישׁ קדמוהי‬Following Li’s interpretation, 19:7 would signify ‘he [David] was serving before him [Saul]’ (as evident in Harrington-Saldarini and Staalduine-Sulman’s translations). However, in terms of English text-linguistics, Weinrich assumes that the past continuous tense used in these translations (‘was serving’) is the narrative tense of background not of the foreground, as the wqetal of ‫ והוה‬signals here. My translation takes into account that this foreground ‫ והוה‬requires a foreground English tense which is the past simple. The ‫ והוה‬form (‘was’) simply enters into a predicate and nominal predicate relation with the subsequent substantival participle. As the MT version of 19:7 shows ‘he [David] was in his [Saul’s] presence [‫( ’]ְלָפ ָניו‬NRSV) and the context is not clear with regard to David’s role in Saul’s presence, the Targum makes it clearer ‘he was servant’ or ‘he was in service’. (ii) The wqetal of ‫ הוה‬indicates possession in 1:2d: 1Samuel 1:2d

wqetal

‫והוו לפננה בנין‬

And Peninnah had sons

(iii) The same non-sequential/incomplete function is verified with ‘assigning’ the quality of being silent to Saul in 10:27e: 1Samuel 10:27–11:1a

wxqetal intyiqtul wqetal wlaqetal wqetal

‫וגברי רשׁעא אמרו‬27 ‫במא יפרקננא דין‬ ‫ושׁטוהי‬ ‫ולא אתו למשׁאל‬ ‫בשׁלמיה‬ ‫והוה כשׁתיק׃‬

But evil men said, ‘How can this one save us?’ And they despised him and did not ask about his well-being. But he was like one who is silent. Episode ends

118 wqetal

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC ‫ וסליק נחשׁ מלכא דבני‬1 ‫עמון‬

And Nahash, the king of the sons of Ammon, went up

Saul continues to be silent in the next episode starting in 11:1, where he reacts to a danger from the Philistines. This same non-sequential/incomplete function is confirmed by the use of ‫ והוו‬in the same way at 14:49a (be the son of) and 21:6 (be clean). Assigning a quality is the meaning of four combinations of ‫והוה‬ and participle. The passage of 18:14 displays no difficulty of translation between the MT ‫ ַוְיִהי‬with participle hifil and a ‫ והוה‬and participle hafel of the Targum (hence a literal translation):33 the participle contains that quality which is being attributed to David, that of being successful. Remaining occurrences represent Targum’s resolution of a perceived difficulty in translating the Hebrew base text. The Targum introduces the root ‫ הוה‬followed by a participle hafel of ‫‘ רוח‬to be empty’ as rendering a (passive) nifal of the MT in 1 Samuel 20:25d. 1Samuel 20:25d

wayyiqtol wqetal

‫ַוִיָּפֵּקד ְמקוֹם ָדּ ִוד׃‬ ‫והוה אתרא דדויד‬ ‫מרוח׃‬

and David’s place remained empty And David’s place was empty

The MT verb ‫‘ פקד‬to remain empty’ in nifal34 is connected to David’s place who is missing from the community—this is a more dynamic way of conveying the message.35 The Targum adds ‫ והוה‬and inserts a

Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel, 390 translates: ‘And David was successful …’. 34 William Holladay suggests the meaning ‘remain empty (seat)’ for the parallel passage of MT 1Samuel 20:18 (nifal of ‫ פקד‬with ‫מוָֹשׁב‬, seat). The MT 20:25 shows the same nifal of ‫ פקד‬with ‫ְמקוֹם‬, ‘place’; see W. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids/Leiden: Eerdmans/Brill, 1988), 296. 35 The English translations of the MT have ‘David’s place was empty.’ (NAS, RSV, NRSV); the French (TOB) and Italian (IEP) translations seem more adequate to the original: ‘La place de David resta vide’ and ‘il posto di Davide rimase vuoto’. 33

3. WQETAL

119

passive participle form (afel ‘open; vacant’36) which acts as an adjective for David’s seat. The effect is turning this dynamic sentence into a static one: ‘David’s place was empty’, as Staalduine-Sulman translates. In 4:1, the Targum completes the meaning of the sentence with appropriate participle form where MT contains an ambiguous message. 1Samuel 4:137

wayyiqtol wqetal

‫ַוְיִהי ְדַבר־ְשׁמוֵּאל ְלָכל־‬ ‫ִיְשׂ ָרֵאל‬ ‫והוה פתגם שׁמואל‬ ‫מרעא לכל ישׁראל‬

And it was the word of Samuel to all Israel And the word of Samuel was pleasing to all Israel

Targum anticipates that Samuel’s words will be well received so it adds the participle ‫‘ מרעא‬pleasing’, transforming an existence clause (‘And it was the word of Samuel to all Israel’) into an assigning quality (‘And it was pleasing the word to all Israel’). In the case of 1Samuel 18:9, the Targum reads the qere—the participle of the verb ‫ עין‬to eye: ‘Saul eyed David’ (NRSV) or, maybe as John Maucheline interprets ‘kept his eye upon’, ‘watched’38. The quality assigned to Saul is being ‘hidden in wait’: ‘Saul was hidden in wait for David’ (my translation).39 wayyiqtol wqetal

1Samuel 18:9 ‫ע ֵון ]עוין[ ֶאת־ ָדּ ִוד‬ ֹ ‫ַוְיִהי ָשׁאוּל‬ ‫ֵמַהיּוֹם ַההוּא ָוָהְלָאה׃‬ ‫והוה שׁאול כמין לדויד מיומא‬ ‫ההוא ולהלאה‬

So Saul eyed David from that day on. Saul was hidden in wait for David from that day on.40

The point of this discussion again is to assert that the wqetal of ‫הוה‬ does not enter into a verbal relation with the participle as is the case with modern languages. Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim (London: Luzac&Co., 1903), 1457. 37 The translation is mine in both cases. The targum adds the word ‫מרעא‬, ‘pleasing’. 38 J. Mauchline, 1 and 2 Samuel (London: Oliphants, 1971), 139. 39 Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, 646. 40 I avoid the translation of Staalduine-Sulman ‘Saul was lying in wait for David from that day on’ as, according to Weinrich, the use of the English past continuous tense marks background. 18:9 is a foreground wqetal which supports a substantival participle. 36

120

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Wqetal hendiadys The hendiadic wqetal sequences convey the same event with two predicative verbal forms, which means that the verbs cannot really be set one after another on a timeline. A familiar biblical phrase of this type is ‘And Peter opened his mouth and said’ (Acts 10:34, RSV) translated also as inchoative, ‘Peter began to speak to them’ (NRS). If one attempt to interpret or translate them separately or literally, the coherence of the passage comes into question as redundancy occurs. Niccacci implies that these types of clauses (his example is 2Samuel 12:27: ‫ וישלח … ויאמר‬translated as ‘he sent in order to say’) should be translated using a subordinated clause; in his later improved BH course, he calls this an ‘idiomatic case’.41 This idiomatic sequence impacts on narrative: the hendiadys prolongs the plot as the narrative receives an extra wqetal form. Presumably, its purpose is to give more weight to what is said, or about to be said in the case of wqetal introducing a direct speech. I compare two instances with the verb ‫‘( נסיב‬to take’): 1Samuel 21:13a

wqetal

‫ושׁוי דויד ית פתגמיא‬ ‫האלין בלביה‬

And David took these words to heart

and: 1Samuel 7:12ab

wqetal wqetal

‫ונסיב שׁמואל אבנא חדא‬ ‫ושׁוי בין מצפיא ובין שׁינא‬

Then Samuel took one stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen

In the first example with wqetal narrative, the agent (David), object (the word), and the place (in his heart) find their place in the same sentence. The hendiadic sequence of the second example contains the agent (Samuel) and the object (stone) in the first wqetal, delaying its geographical position to the second wqetal. Deferring the place where

Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 127; A. Niccacci, Sintassi del verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press [SBF course support], 2011, §95. 41

3. WQETAL

121

the stone is to be placed produces a prolongation of the event over two verbal forms and hence, a prolongation of time in narrative.42 Hendiadys is the subject of two articles by Paul Hopper.43 He defines it as ‘a single conceptual idea realized by two distinct constituents’. That hendiadys portrays one event is the main precondition for distinguishing it from two coordinated clauses describing two events.44 In hendiadys, the first clause is ‘semantically dependent’ and a ‘preparation for the second clause’ (Hopper’s example is ‘I finally woke up and remembered the procedures’). Hopper identifies hendiadys constructions as such because: (1) ‘no independent assertion seems to be intended’; (2) the first clause is ‘a recognizable (‘slang’) collocation’; (3) ‘the first clause is not meant literally’.45 Hopper also observes that certain hendiadyses have an ‘inceptive’ mark (they describe the beginning of the action). All of the following cases in 1Samuel show the beginning of an event as a reaction to something happening earlier. The hendiadic construction starts with ‫אתב‬, ‫קום‬, ‫אזל‬, ‫יחי‬, or ‫נסב‬. These are some examples with each: 46‫ואתיב‬ wqetal wqetal

1Samuel 16:18ab ‫ ואתיב חד מעולימיא‬One of the young men answered ‫ ואמר‬and said

A similar comparison is possible between 17:49 (‫ ואזל‬in a hendiadic construction) and 17:16 (a simple ‫)ואזל‬. 43 P. J. Hopper, ‘Dispersed Verbal Predicates in Vernacular Written Narrative’, in Directions in Functional Linguistics, ed. A. Kamio (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1991/1997). A short discussion of hendiadys (for English) is present in P. J. Hopper, ‘Hendiadys and Auxiliation in English’, in Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse, ed. J. L. Bybee, M. Noonan, and S. A. Thompson (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 2001), 146–147. 44 Hopper, ‘Hendiadys and Auxiliation in English’, in Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse, 146 and 153. 45 Hopper, ‘Dispersed Verbal Predicates in Vernacular Written Narrative’, in Directions in Functional Linguistics, 7–8. 46 See also Targum 1Samuel 21:5 and 21:6. 42

122

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

47‫ואזל‬

1Samuel 17:13

wqetal wqetal

‫ואזלו תלתה בני ישׁי‬ ‫רברביא‬ ‫ואזלו בתר שׁאול‬ ‫לאגחא קרבא‬

The three eldest sons of Jesse went, they went after Saul to wage war;

48‫ואוחי‬

1Samuel 17:48

wqetal wqetal

‫ואוחי דוד‬ ‫ורהט לסדרא לקדמות‬ ‫פלשׁתאה׃‬

David ran quickly to the battle line, toward the Philistine

49‫וקם‬

1Samuel 21:11

wqetal wqetal

‫וקם דויד‬ ‫וערק ביומא ההוא מן‬ ‫קדם שׁאול‬

David rose and fled that day from before Saul.

Though for the previous examples one could imagine a physical lifting of the stone or of David’s body and the movement, this is not possible with sentences operating at an abstract level: 1Samuel 11:4

wqetal wqetal

‫וארימו כל עמא ית‬ ‫קלהון‬ ‫ובכו׃‬

and all the people lifted up their voice and wept.

There is a certain pattern emerging. With the exception of the last example, these sentences convey the idea of movement. They include the actions of fleeing, travelling from one place to another, or a physical act of by an agent on a patient, and answering. Ultimately, hendiadys is a protasis-apodosis construction. Both members work organically, as they cannot exist one without the other. Protasis introduces or

47 Targum 1Samuel 17:48. 48 Targum 1Samuel 28:20. 49 Targum 1Samuel 23:13, 16, 24; 24:5, 9; 26:2, 5; 27:2.

3. WQETAL

123

restates an object/subject and apodosis says something about it. In the case of protasis deletion, the apodosis works with the whole but its subject or object might be missing (see the impact of deletion of the first wqetal in 16:18 and 7:12, respectively). If the apodosis is deleted, the protasis is left hanging (21:11: And David got up and ?). Moreover, looking at the plot, the hendiadic sequences delay the advancement of the plot as the event starts in the first sentence and ends with the second. Hopper confirms this rhetorical impact of prolonging the narrative time: the purpose of the hendiadys is ‘to hold the attention of the listeners in a complex sequence of ideas’ and ‘to focus attention on her words and attribute importance to them by spreading them over two prosodic periods’.50 In the context of Firbas’ Functional Sentence Perspective (Prague School), hendiadys is a discourse element which follows the linearity principle—the rheme usually is found towards the end. By putting the rhematic information in the apodosis (and thus delaying its insertion), the hendiadys increases the prominence of the information with the effect of expanding the narrative. In a word, the hendiadys acts as FSP instrument at the level of discourse.51 Wqetal of speech event or of metamorphosis The narration of 1Samuel includes a ‘physical’ presence of the characters through direct speech. Whenever a character speaks, the reader encounters the ‘I’ of a character. In most cases, the words of the characters are conveyed through a wqetal form (usually from the root ‫)אמר‬. I call it ‘wqetal of speech event’ that narrative form introducing the words of the character. This type of wqetal retains in most cases the essential trait of being narrative, which means that there is a temporal juncture with the preceding wqetal. Essentially, the wqetal of speech contributes to the metaphorical time passage like the others, advancing the narrative plot towards the end. However, it has the supple-

Hopper, ‘Hendiadys and Auxiliation in English’, in Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse, 167–168; this refers to a quote by a female speaker. 51 Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication. 50

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mentary function of making possible the physical presence of the character in the narrative. Time passage was a concern for a number of literary critics, including Gérard Genette52 and Julia Kristeva.53 They happen to look at the same body of evidence (the works of Marcel Proust) but with a different perspective. The former is interested in the isochrony54 between the real time of the events described (fabula) and the time it receives in the literary work (sujet). The latter examines how the body becomes part of narrative. Kristeva’s discussion of the ‘new form of temporality’ in Proust,55 I believe, marks a new understanding of Weinrich’s ‘Tempus-Metaphorik’, tense metaphor. Her argument starts from the idea that ‘time in fact persists as the only surviving imaginative value which can be used by the novel to appeal to the whole community of readers’,56 or time has a universal value which speaks to everybody. Her definition of time in the novel is applicable to any narrative text. There are two types of time passage in narrative: the metaphoric time passage (already discussed above) and the metamorphosis. Time is this bringing together of two sensations which gush out from the signs and signal themselves to me. But since bringing things together is a metaphor, and sensation implies body, Proustian time, which brings together the sensations imprinted in Genette, a literary critic and linguist, wrote widely on Proust’s narrative and developed his own textual linguistic account of the verb in French. See more on his place in the discipline of narratology in J. C. Meister, ‘Narratology,’ ed. Peter Hühn and et al, The Living Handbook of Narratology (Hamburg: Hamburg University; URL: http://www.lhn.unihamburg.de/ article/narratology [consulted 26/03/2016], 2011, revised 2014). 53 See a short summary in W. Fowlie, ‘Review: ‘Proust and the Sense of Time’ by Julia Kristeva’, The Sewanee Review 102, No. 1 (1994). 54 OED 15/03/2015: isochronous ‘a. Taking place in or occupying equal times; equal in metrical length; equal in duration, or in intervals of occurrence, as the vibrations of a pendulum; characterized by or relating to vibrations or motions of equal duration’. 55 J. Kristeva and S. Bann [tr], Proust and the Sense of Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 3. 56 Kristeva and Bann [tr], Proust and the Sense of Time, 4–5. 52

3. WQETAL

125

signs, is a metamorphosis. It is all too easy to rely on just one word of the title and conclude that this is a novel about time. Proust uses this as his intermediary in the search (A la recherché) for an embodied imagination: that is to say, for a space where words and their dark, unconscious manifestations contribute to the weaving of the world’s unbroken flesh, of which I is a part. I as writer; I as reader; I living, loving and dying. 57

Kristeva’s definition of time confirms that the tense metaphor is the synthesis of two ‘sensations’ or for narrative text, the sequence of two sentences depicting advancement of the plot. In narrative, the perceiving of the time marking sentence becomes an event of narrative58 (tasting, feeling cold, moving, seeing etc.) so that they can be observed by a third party; Kristeva asserts that the persisting item is time, as ‘time is this bringing together of two sensations which gush out from the signs and signal themselves to me’ and, I add, the passage in reading from one tense to another marks time. The succession of two tenses, as signals of events happening, count toward creating one metaphor after another within our consciousness, a tense metaphor which encloses the time passage from the first tense (event) to the second. When the metaphor is connected with a bodily sensation, metamorphosis occurs. In the context of tasting a madeleine, the 57 Kristeva and Bann [tr], Proust

and the Sense of Time, 5. The italics belong to Kristeva. She puts together in this passage her own experience of tasting a madeleine offered by her mother and that offered to Proust by his Aunt Léonie. This refers to the madeleine memory of Marcel Proust, famously described in the opening chapter of À la recherché de temps perdu. 58 The event is defined by Genette in terms of narrative itself: (1) ‘narrative statement, the oral written discourse that undertakes to tell of an event or a series of events’ (this explains the event as basic unit of a narrative); (2) the technical term in narratology as ‘the succession of events, real or fictitious, that are the subjects of this discourse’; (3) ‘A third meaning, apparently the oldest, has narrative refer once more to an event: not, however, the event that is re-counted, but the event that consists of someone recounting something: the act of narrating taken in itself’. Cf. Genette, Narrative Discourse (Figures III: Discours du récit), 25–26. This note was suggested by Ilai Rowner, The Event: Literature and Theory (Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 14.

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metamorphosis represents the experience of (bodily) tasting (metaphoric), which is brought together with time as these two elements occur one after another: the first taste from Aunt Léonie’s madeleine in author’s time, our taste of the madeleine, and the moment of reading. This particular type of experience in Biblical literature, I argue, occurs only with the speech event or with those sentences which introduce direct speech. Returning to how the plot is affected, the speech events lead to slowing down the narrative elapse of time as the words of the characters replace the narrative plot.59 When it comes to direct speech according to Genette: ‘there is no difference between the statement present in the text and the sentence purportedly spoken by the hero other than what derives from the transition from oral language to written. The narrator does not narrate the hero’s sentence; one can scarcely say he imitates it; he recopies it, and in this sense one cannot speak here of narrative’.60 I resume my analysis of wqetal by using Genette’s classification of the oral interactions that the narrative genre usually displays. He assumes that there are three types of oral interactions (only types 1 and 3 are found in the passages featured here from Targum 1Samuel):61 (1) dialogue or direct speech proper that is an ‘“imitated” discourse’: it denotes the ‘discourse fictively reported as it supposedly was uttered by the character’; (2) ‘narrativized discourse’ or ‘discourse treated like one event among others and taken as such by the narrator himself’ (Genette’s example is ‘Agamemnon was angry and bade him [Chryses] depart and not come again lest ….’) meaning reported speech in narrative. There is no example of a ‘narrativized discourse’ in the 10 episodes from Targum 1Samuel I chosen as test case of this chapter; It is also possible that the characters narrate in direct speech, which means that the narrator hands over the narration of the plot to the characters. This is to explain why direct speech does not equate to comment. Direct and indirect speeches are forms which the communication takes; the quality of the communication is either of narrative or of comment as described by Weinrich; see more in Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’. 60 G. Genette and Jane E. Lewin [tr], Narrative Discourse (Figures III: Discours du récit) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972/1983), 169; Genette’s italics. 61 Genette and Lewin [tr], Narrative Discourse (Figures III: Discours du récit), 169–170; Genette’s italics. 59

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(3) ‘reduction of speech to event’ (Genette’s example is ‘Agamemnon refused and dismissed Chryses’) which is the ‘pure form of narratized speech’ or the way in which comment proper is transformed into narrative proper. In the following, I briefly examine the (1) direct speech and (3) the ‘reduction to speech to event’ in TA. The wqetal introducing a dialogue or the wqetal of speech event

Speech events in Aramaic narrative (or in Biblical narrative in general) are introduced normally with the root ‫ אמר‬in its predicative use with qetal or participle. The wqetal forms of ‫( מלל‬4:20), ‫( קום‬19:6), and ‫פקד‬ (18:22) are rare possible ways of introducing a direct speech. If the wqetal of ‫ אמר‬is not used to introduce a speech event then, the Aramaic of 1Samuel uses the infinitive ‫ למימר‬at the end of wqetal sentences from other roots. These roots may be ‫( חוי‬to announce: 19:2, 23:1, 24:2), ‫ חוי‬in hitpael, (to be shown: 19:19), and ‫( קום‬pael: to swear or to make a covenant: 28:10). The ‘reduction of speech to event’ wqetal

The narrator may decide to provide a narrative summary for instead of direct speech. Compare 19:1a and 19:2a: wqetal

wxqetal wqetal

1Samuel 19:1–4 ‫ ומליל שׁאול עם יונתן בריה‬1 And Saul spoke with Jona‫ ועם כל עבדוהי למקטל ית דוד‬than his son and with all his servants to kill David, ‫ ויהונתן בר שׁאול אתרעי בדויד‬but Jonathan, son of Saul, de‫ לחדא׃‬lighted much in David. ‫ וחוי יהונתן לדויד למימר‬2 And Jonathan told David, saying,

Direct speech: Jonathan informs David about the plot wqetal

‫ ומליל יהונתן על דויד פתגמין‬4 ‫תקנין קדם שׁאול אבוהי‬

wqetal

‫ואמר ליה‬

And Jonathan spoke good things about David before Saul his father, and said to him,

Direct speech: Jonathan defends David in front of Saul

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The narrator consolidates the viva voce conversation containing Saul’s plot against David into the wqetal of ‫( מלל‬19:1). By contrast, the same passage comprises a two-fold oral reaction to it. First, the reader hears how Jonathan orally relates his friendship to David, a passage introduced with an infinitive ‫( למימר‬19:2)—this is a fine example of a speech event wqetal. Second, in 19:4a, ‫ מלל‬and ‫ אמר‬come together: the wqetal of ‫מלל‬ acts as a temporal contraction of ‫ אמר‬as it summarises with ‘good words’ (‫ )פתגמין תקנין‬how Jonathan defends David in front of his father; the subsequent wqetal ‫ אמר‬actually records Jonathan’s defence of David. The wqetal in 19:4a is another example of ‘reduction of speech to event’, so a normal wqetal, similar to that of 19:1a. I conclude that the roots meaning to speak or to announce are versatile: they perform as a proper introduction of direct speech (see ‫מלל‬ in 4:20), but they also have the telescoping function of rendering direct speech into indirect speech62 or as Genette calls this phenomenon, ‘reduction of speech to event’. Besides the other example of ‫( קום‬24:23), this telescoping capacity belongs to the roots of ‫( חוי‬11:9; 17:31; 19:7, 18, 21; and 23:25), ‫( שעי‬to narrate, 11:5), and ‫( שמע‬to hear (speaking), 17:31). Conclusion

How is the metaphorical sequence of narrative different from narrative metamorphosis? Recounting two events without body involvement is one metaphoric displacement which is able to convey various durations of time. To take the example of the narrative sequence such as ‘a king died, his son became king, he lived happily ever after’, the capacity of narrative for representing elliptical time is unlimited. In this example, the reader misses the events preceding the death of the father or the great things that his son accomplished. This is the normal way of advancing the narrative plot until the story is completed. It is an example of a metaphorical time passage from the first metaphor— the ‘the king died’ and ‘his son became king’—to the second metaphor—‘his son became king’ and ‘he lived happily ever after’. As Kristeva shows, the Proustian storyline creates narrative metamorphosis with his portrayal of the taste of Aunt Léonie’s madeleine. 62 See more on indirect speech in M. Fludernik, The Fictions

the Languages of Fiction (London: Routledge, 1993).

of Language and

3. WQETAL

129

However, there is modest evidence that the Bible uses tastes, tactile sensations or any other types of descriptions of sensory perceptions which would have the same effect on the readers as would Proust’s literature. The latter does not only build on the fact that, for example, the recipe for this cookie is still around and one may assume that its taste can be replicated; but also on the striking way in which the experience of tasting is presented. The few indicators of sensation present in biblical Hebrew writing (narrative) do not easily lend themselves to this type of metamorphosis. The notable exception is the direct speech of the characters. When the narrator makes the characters talk, I argue that the grammatical signs are no longer signs of narrative metaphors; instead, these sequences are metamorphoses with a bodily presence of the character. This metamorphosis of reading someone’s direct speech proposes to the reader a level of experience other than that of narrative—of actually being a witness, a ‘make-believe’ of the reader being present at the scene and re-living the experience through the senses, which means hearing the character speak for themselves. This is why Kristeva brings up the I-origo of the reader involved in writing-reading the notion of ‘I living, loving and dying’. The point of the narrative metaphor (with time passage) and of metamorphosis (with time passage and speech) is to scale down the narrative ideas of time, and of time and body, respectively, into the world of the reader. Explicating the theory behind the ‘speech event’, those wqetal or wparticiple sentences that introduce direct speech are a narrative metamorphosis. This derives from the fact that, reading the sentence with the functional sentence perspective in mind, any sentence with ‘he/she said’ needs a proper rheme or grammatical object to complete its meaning. This means that the wqetal/wparticiple of ‫( אמר‬or those instances where the wqetal bears an infinitive of ‫ אמר‬introducing direct speech) has a grammatical bond with the notional content of the dialogue. Direct speech completes the meaning of the wqetal of speech event. Moreover, the speech event wqetal/wparticiple creates through its rheme the metamorphosis of the character appearing to us as speaking in viva voce. This chapter has insisted that every two narrative forms mark the passage of time in narrative. Each wqetal acts as the tick of a metronome. This simple machine provides a tempo for musical pieces. It is

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

not by chance that Weinrich calls the foreground and background presto and lento, respectively. The foreground of the narrative is the presto tempo advancing the plot and this chapter has endeavoured to explain how it works. The background creates the advancement of plot in a lento manner; this is further discussed in the section dedicated to the Aramaic wparticiple sentence.

T HE DOUBLE SENTENCE OR ‫ והוה‬AS MACRO-SYNTACTIC SIGN

The preceding section has presented a general discussion of wqetal. I have argued that the wqetal form of the verb ‫‘( הוה‬to be’) has a nonsequential function with three meanings: existence, possession, and assigning a quality. The current section deals with those oft-occurring instances in which the form ‫( והוה‬the 3rd-person singular wqetal of ‫ )הוה‬heads a double sentence, a protasis-apodosis sentence. The theory of this function may be traced back to Alviero Niccacci who suggested that ‫ויהי‬, ‫ועתה‬, ‫והנה‬, and ‫ והיה‬are elements which keep together ‘segments of the text’. 63 Their technical name is ‘macro-syntactic sign’ (abbreviated MS). According to Niccacci, ‫ ויהי‬introduces ‘a new element within the narrative sequence, usually a circumstance, without interrupting the main line of communication’. 64 By this, he means that, because the ‫ ויהי‬form is narrative foreground, its protasis and apodosis are in foreground relievo and narrative register, regardless of their actual form. The basic assumption of the coming discussion is that ‫והוה‬ has the same macro-syntactic function as BH ‫ויהי‬: it is a narrative foreground form which braces a protasis-apodosis structure. The first two parts of this section chart the changes necessary for the MS to work better within the text-linguistic reading of biblical texts. I begin by bringing into the discussion the framework of the Prague School. Each element of the double sentence—the MS, the protasis, and the apodosis—operates as transition, theme, and rheme, respectively. In the following part, I explain that a syntactic restriction is mandatory: the apodosis should have the same morphological value

Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, §12, p. 33. ‘Segments of text’ means parts of a sentence or sentences. 64 Niccacci, Sintassi del verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica, §28c. 63

3. WQETAL

131

as the MS, meaning wqetal. Subsequently, the bulk of this section examines: • two cases of double sentence with an extensive protasis; they illustrate the primary function of the double sentence: connecting the lengthier description of the protasis with the apodosis narrating the main event; • two further functions of the double sentence: closely joining the retrospective event(s) of the protasis with the foreground of the apodosis; and prelude or providing the starting point for a new episode; • emphasis seems to be a valid explanation for some of those cases in which the apodosis does have a verb second word order—xqetal. The double-sentence and the relation transition-theme-rheme

Niccacci makes the general point that ‫ ויהי‬stands as predicate for the protasis and apodosis, which together constitute the subject.65 Nonetheless, there is no example in the literature of such a structure. 66 If one interprets this ‘predicate-subject’ relation as a functional one, then this could mean that ‫ ויהי‬is the rheme and the remaining part, the theme.67 The facts of the matter deny this possibility: the rheme is the content that makes the communication worthwhile; and that content sits in the apodosis rather than with ‫ויהי‬. Yet, the framework of the Prague School provides the right analysis. ‫ ויהי‬works as a transition for its protasis-apodosis construction. According to Jan Firbas, the transition is the ‘mediator’ between the information contained in the theme and that contained in the rheme. The vehicle of the transition is always the verb’s tense and mood 65 Niccacci, Sintassi del verbo

ebraico nella prosa biblica classica, §127.2, 186–187. Niccacci’s conclusions are based on a comparison between constructions with and without a preceding ‫ ;ויהי‬see A. Niccacci, ‘Sullo stato sintattico del verbo HĀYȂ’, Liber Annuus 40 (1990). I choose to examine the plot first and then scrutinize the contribution that the double sentence makes to the plot. 67 Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 71. 66

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

values.68 I explain how this works. The functional roles of theme-transition-rheme are apparent in a sentence type called ‘Presentation of a Phenomenon’:69 there is a part that acts as Setting, a thematic role, while another part acts as Phenomenon to be introduced, which is the rheme. The predicative verb is the transition between the thematic and rhematic parts. 70 The example of 24:5–6 covers the narrative events concerning a close encounter between David and Saul, God’s anointed; what David subsequently felt is introduced with ‫והוה‬: 1Samuel 24:5ef–7a71

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וקם דויד‬ ‫ופסק ית כנף‬ ‫מעילא דלשׁאול‬ ‫ברז׃‬

e Then David arose f

and stealthily cut off the hem of Saul’s robe.

Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 70–71. His description of the transition follows three levels of language: at syntactic level, the transition establishes ‘a link between the subject and the predicate’; at semantic level, it is a connection ‘between the language event and the extralinguistic reality’; at functional level, the transition is a ‘link between the Th[eme] and the non-Th[eme]’; p. 89. 69 It introduces a subject which has prominence because it is new or for some other reason. The other type proposed by the Prague School is the ‘Quality attributing’ sentence which attaches an action to a subject; see the argument of Quality-scale and Presentation-scale sentences in Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 6. 70 The basic assumption of the Prague School is that the information prominence, that which differentiates theme from rheme, normally increases as the sentence progresses towards its end. In the sentence I met George, the communication is perspective from the known subject/theme I and the predicate/transition met to the element that is new/not given or the object/rheme George. For the listener/hearer, George is the most informative word of the sentence, followed by met, and I. Alternatively, I acts as ‘foundation’ for the ‘core element’ George. 71 With one exception, the English translations of Targum in this section modify the wording of Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel. Modifications are denoted by italics. 68

3. WQETAL MS Transition

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ והוה‬6

Protasis Setting

temporal

‫בתר כין‬

133 a And it happened72 afterward

Apodosis Phe- wqetal ‫ וחשׁ דויד‬b that David was trounomenon wayyiqtol ‫בלביה‬ bled in his heart, conjunction-qetal ‫ על דפסק ית‬c because he had cut conjunction-qatal ‫כנפא דלשׁאול׃‬ off Saul’s hem 7 wqetal And he said to his ‫ואמר לגברוהי‬ wayyiqtol men, Direct speech: Neither David or anybody else would touch Saul, the Lord’s anointed.

The ‫ ויהי‬of MT 1Samuel 24:6 has almost no semantic information to give besides the syntactic sign: this is a sentence with a perfect tense in first position, which syntactically means foreground narrative. The semantic load of the double sentence gains more weight with the insertion of the circumstantial protasis as setting (‘after this’), although this is only a deictic reference to an earlier event. The main information is given in the apodosis (the Phenomenon), ‘David was troubled in his heart’. The Phenomenon completes the communication with the new event in the narrative sequence: after cutting Saul’s garment, David feels remorse. The double sentence has the form of a ‘Presentation of a Phenomenon’ sentence. The protasis encompasses setting information which subsides into a thematic role. The apodosis has the form of a narrative register sentence, verb first or VSO, and contains the Phenomenon/rheme which is the core knowledge of the construction. Its syntactic layout indicates that the apodosis advances the plot. The MT ‫ ויהי‬and TA ‫ והוה‬have the underlying sense of existence which gives the familiar meaning of ‘and it happened’. The function of ‫ והוה‬as transition is to advise the reader that the sentence defers the main event to the apodosis.

Harrington–Saldarini begin their translation of 24:6 with: ‘And it happened afterward that …’; Harrington and Saldarini, The Aramaic Bible 10: Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets. 72

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The above analysis illustrates the standard analysis of this construction, very much within the lines of Niccacci, in which the MS is followed by one element in the protasis and an apodosis. Similar to this case —MS, protasis introducing a temporal setting, apodosis with the main event—Targum 1Samuel contains the following double sentences: 9:26; 11:11; 16:6 (its protasis is ‫‘ במיעלהון‬when they entered’; the same word initiates the longer protasis of 18:6); 20:27 (the protasis is identical with 11:11: ‫‘ ביומא דבתרוהי‬on the day after’); 20:35 (its protasis ‫‘ בצפרא‬in the morning’ occurs again as part of the protasis of 25:37); and 25:38. Besides the ‘regular’ double sentences listed here, the other cases discussed in this section have additional (one or more) features which set them apart: protasis longer than a sentence; retrospection; prelude position; and emphasis. Methodological reflections on the macro-syntactic sign

Niccacci contends that MT’s inserting the ‫ ויהי‬as MS converts the protasis, usually a background construction, into an ‘an essential and integrant part of the narrative’,73 meaning into foreground. A closer inspection of the passage analysed above (24:6) leads me to argue that the MS has greater significance. First, the use of MT’s ‫ ויהי‬represented by Targum’s ‫ והוה‬seems frivolous. By reading the story without ‫והוה‬ ‫( בתר כין‬the MS and its protasis), the reader receives a message with an unbroken foreground line: David rises and cuts off Saul’s garment (see wqetal forms in 5ef), and David feels remorse (6b).74 Thus, ‫ והוה‬is inconsequential as the plot stays the same with or without this adverbial phrase. Second, the wqetal in 6b is not the only possible apodosis. The Niccacci, Sintassi del verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica, §28c, my translation. Background is represented by all sentences but wayyiqtol. 74 That the MS and its protasis might be omitted is a legitimate possibility as it actually happens in the instance of Targum 1Samuel 5:10: Sperber records two Babylonian manuscripts (MS. Or. 2371 and 1471) which do not contain the MS and its protasis ‫‘ והוה כד אתא ארונא דיוי לעקרון‬And it happened when the ark of the LORD came to Ekron’; in these two manuscripts, the wqetal in 5:10a continues with wqetal 10c (so their text would translate as ‘they sent the ark of the LORD to Ekron and the Ekronites cried out’); see the critical apparatus for this verse in Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic: Volume II - The Former Prophets according to Targum Jonathan, 104. 73

3. WQETAL

135

subsequent wqetal in 7a is another decent alternative, leaving verse 6 to be protasis. These two observations are indications that ‫ והוה‬is there to do more than turn a temporal adverb into foreground narrative. In my interpretation, ‫ והוה‬in 6a is a syntactic passageway between 24:5f and 24:7a, the latter being the apodosis: on the one hand, it keeps the appearance of a narrative zero degree by supporting a longer retrospective protasis in 6abc;75 on the other, it connects the events that make up the plot in 5f–7a.76 The translation according to this analysis is: ‘And it happened, afterward David had been troubled in his heart because he had cut off the hem that was Saul’s, that he said to his men’.77 These observations constitute, I think, enough evidence to propose a revaluation of the function of ‫ והוה‬as macro-syntactic sign. The revaluation should begin with testing the various possible lengths of the protasis to avoid ascribing to ‫ והוה‬a frivolous usage. Moreover, it is essential to put forward a methodological limitation for the double sentence. The casual approach towards the double sentence, evident in the first analysis of 24:6, does not handle context and syntax well. Contextual indications like the one just discussed are overlooked; syntactically, the unbinding relationship between the MS and its apodosis leads to a somewhat loose portrayal of the apodosis. It is not clear what Since the sequence 5ef and 7a produces a continuous plot line (meaning zero degree), the intervening events in 6bc are retrospective (meaning recovering information) with regard to 7a. It is because of what is considered ‘previous action’ with regard to 7a (David ‘had cut’ and ‘had been troubled’) that David decides to refrain from further hostile actions against Saul. In my translation, I marked this syntactical interruption with the use of past perfect. Introducing retrospective information in protasis is one of the functions of the double sentence; see the unit on retrospection below. 76 The same ambiguity in terms of apodosis is found in Targum 1Samuel 18:29– 30. The two options for apodosis are ‫‘( אצלח דויד‬David was successful’) and ‫‘( וסגי שׁמיה לחדא‬his name was very great’). Harrington and Saldarini’s translation of this passage treats David’s success and good name as coordinated. I support the other option, visible in Staalduine-Sulman’s translation, which regard his success and good name as correlated (my changes are in italics): ‘and it happened, whenever they [Philistines] came out, as David was more successful than all the servants of Saul, that his name was highly esteemed’. The word ‘so’ was omitted from Staalduine–Sulman’s translation. 77 The translation modifies the tenses and punctuation of Harrington-Saldarini’s translation. 75

136

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

the apodosis does, especially because, according to Niccacci, it may take any form from wayyiqtol to nominal sentence. The methodological change I put forward is that value of the wqetal sentence type of ‫ והוה‬should be always reinforced by a wqetal in apodosis. This is because the ‫ והוה‬is not there only to introduce into the narrative line the information in the protasis, but most importantly to keep the flow of narrative between the preceding wqetal forms and its apodosis (see above: 24:5ef→7a). The apodosis should be supporting the narrative line of foreground by having a wqetal structure. Otherwise, too much narrative weight is placed on initial wqetal since, as far as Niccacci is concerned, this MS in wqetal alone may turn a double sentence into narrative register. However, I contend that, should a double sentence have an extended protasis, the wqetal of MS by itself cannot over-ride the tense and word order of the following sentences. For example, the MS ‫ והוה‬cannot transform by itself into narrative foreground a longer sequence of participles, xparticiple or xqetal forms in protasis (see the discussion of 1Samuel 25:20 and 7:10 below). In sum, the double sentence becomes a syntactic bridge: the MS in wqetal is one head of the bridge which unsurprisingly requires another wqetal head of the bridge—its apodosis in wqetal. The main function of the double sentence: Bridging a gap in the plot

In this section, I contend that the apodosis should concord in tense and word order with its macro-syntactic sign. The examples below bring support for the argument that the umbrella of the protasis should be extended until a suitable wqetal for apodosis occurs. The MS has the function of bridging the gap between two sides of the plot: the preceding event in the plot and the event presented in the apodosis. In between lies the protasis containing circumstantial information. Also, ‫ והוה‬does not act as auxiliary verb when it happens to be followed by a participle form. 1Samuel 25:20 I examine the passage of Targum 1Samuel 25:19–21. Tarsee Li would interpret the ‫ והוה‬in 20a as working together with the subsequent

3. WQETAL

137

participle form, as a progressive/habitual construction.78 In contrast with that, the analysis following the lines of Niccacci would argue that, after the MS, the double sentence continues with the protasis in 25:20a followed by the apodosis in 20b.79 However, there are two disruptions of cohesiveness that make these interpretations less tenable. 1Samuel 25:19–21a80

wqetal ‫ ואמרת‬19 And she said to her young wayyiqtol ‫ לעולימהא‬men: Abigail gives orders for her servants to go before her to meet David MS wqetal ‫ והוה‬20 a And it happened, wqatal81 Protasis xparticiple as she [Abigail] was rid‫היא רכיבא על‬ xparticiple ‫חמרא‬ ing82 on the ass wparticiple ‫ ונחתא בסטר‬b and was coming down by wparticiple ‫טורא‬ the side of the mountain ‫ והא‬c and behold, Li, T., The Verbal System of the Aramaic of Daniel: An Explanation in the Context of Grammaticalization, 80–81. 79 Read within the perspective of Niccacci, the narrative in 25:20c would continue with another double sentence as ‫ והא‬is MS; ‫ והא‬supports a protasis in 20c and apodosis in 20d. The TA ‫ והא‬is the equivalent of the BH ‫ ; ְוִה ֵנּה‬see for Niccacci’s list of MS at the beginning of this section. 80 This modifies the translation of Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel, 441. 81 The Hebrew original displays in 20a a wqatal (waw-perfect) form as MS— this is the narrative background form of BH; see Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint II’. The apodosis is 20d. The sequence in the MT is awkward: to an MS in wqatal background (20a), the text proposes an apodosis in wayyiqtol foreground (20d). By rendering the BH wqatal (narrative background) with a TA wqetal (narrative foreground), the TA translator properly connects 20a with 20d (both foreground) and smooths over the relievo of the story. Instead of the foreground-background-foreground oscillation (19a-20a-20d, respectively) present in the original, the Targum translation has a fluent disposition of tenses in 19a, 20a, 20d, all wqetal. 82 To explain, I translated the participle forms with past continuous (the English background tense) because of the background function that wparticiple fulfils in TA (see the chapter on wparticiple). 78

138

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC wxparticiple wxparticiple

Apodosis wqetal wayyiqtol

wxqetal wxqatal

‫דויד וגברוהי‬ ‫נחתין‬ ‫לקדמותה‬ ‫וערעת יתהון׃‬

David and his men were coming down toward her, d that she met them83.

‫ ודויד אמר‬21

Now David has84 said

The first disruption is the lack of agreement between the masculine ‫ והוה‬and the feminine participle ‫רכיבא‬, which means that these two elements do not perform together a progressive/habitual function. The second is the wqetal in feminine singular in 20d (‫)וערעת יתהון‬ which points toward ‘Abigail’ as theme. The frequent change in theme (19a–20ab: Abigail; 20c: David; 20d: Abigail; 21a: David) is a cohesive issue which, from Niccacci’s point of view, is difficult to explain. In biblical literature, short extents of text rarely change themes. After ‘David and his men’ occur as theme of 25:20c, a properly cohesive plot should have related a story in which David meets Abigail, not the other way around as it happens in 20d. This would have been a regular use especially because in 21a, it is theme ‘David’ who addresses Abigail. The reading which resolves these contextual issues assigns the role of apodosis to 20d. The first argument in favour of this analysis is that the passage regains its cohesiveness. The foreground line following the actions of theme ‘Abigail’ starts 25:14a and ends with this apodosis in 20d. Now, I arrive at another issue. While ‫( והוה‬20a) is a VSO sentence, belonging to the narrative register, the sentences in 20a and 20c are xparticiple forms which belong to the comment register (verb second sentences, SVO).85 How is it possible for the syntactic layout of the protasis to retain a SVO word order and still consider the overall double sentence as narrative? 83 The conjunction ‘and’ was changed into ‘that’. 84 According to my subsequent analysis, the TA xqetal sentence is a comment

retrospective sentence equivalent to the English present perfect (following Weinrich). Staalduine-Sulman puts for 21a: ‘Now David had said’; this is the narrative retrospective tense. English translations of the MT (KJV, RSV, NAS, and NRSV) render the BH xqatal with the same past perfect: ‘Now David had said’; See for the analysis of 25:21a the section 'The xqetal sentence in 1Samuel', part C in Chapter 5. 85 See Chapter 5.

3. WQETAL

139

Imposing the restriction that the apodosis should be a wqetal sentence, I think, answers one part of the question. Since 20d (‫)וערעת‬ is the nearest wqetal sentence which concords with 20a, it becomes the rightful apodosis. The second part of the answer comes from recognising that, because it is not essential to the plot advancement, the protasis remains free from the limitations that the transmission of the plot would require: (1) word order; (2) a more rigid succession of themes. Because the protasis has no constraints with regard to word order, it may use any tense (qetal, participle, verbless phrases) and word order (SVO or VSO) available. The sentences in 20abc constitute the extended pictographic protasis, while 20d is the event-filled apodosis. Second, it may permit exchange of themes frequently, if the protasis presents the circumstance of more than one actor or object. What is the impact of this interpretation? The main role of the ‫ והוה‬becomes more conspicuous: it creates a description out of the three circumstances in the protasis and connects it with the main event. In a particular setting in which Abigail was riding down the mountain and David and his men were coming down to meet her, it is the woman who met the men (20d).86 Syntactically, despite its comment word order, the protasis is narrative because the MS and the apodosis together create a narrative frame/bridge which encloses the comment-like protasis. 1Samuel 7:10 It is important to state that ‫ והוה‬is unlikely to enter into a syntactic relation as auxiliary with the subsequent participle, even in those cases in which they concord. In 7:10, I explain what each element does in this double sentence. The ‫ והוה‬form (as MS) keeps the protasis (10ab) together with the apodosis (10c) and converges the information of the former towards the latter. The protasis is descriptive and exhibits the two themes, Samuel, representing Israel, and the Philistines. Because it is wqetal, the MS requires a concordant wqetal in its apodosis which is found in 10c. This apodosis advances the narrative plot of 7:9d: the Lord receives Samuel’s prayer and then thunders against the Philistines in 7:10c.

There is at least one other example of the structure MS ‫ והוה‬with protasis of the form xparticiple, ‫ והא‬and participle with apodosis in Targum Genesis 42:35. This suggests that it is likely to be a fixed structure. 86

140

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC 1Samuel 7:9d–11

wqetal wayyiqtol MS wqetal wayyiqtol Protasis xparticiple xparticiple xqetal xqatal

Apodosis wqetal wayyiqtol

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וקביל‬ ‫צלותיה יוי׃‬ ‫ והוה‬10 ‫שׁמואל מסיק‬ ‫עלתא‬ ‫ופלשׁתאי‬ ‫אתקרבו‬ ‫לאגחא קרבא‬ ‫בישׁראל‬ ‫ואכלי יוי בקל‬ ‫רב ביומא‬ ‫ההוא על‬ ‫פלשׁתאי‬ ‫ושׁגישׁנון‬ ‫ואתברו קדם‬ ‫ישׁראל׃‬

d a

b

c

d e

and the LORD accepted his [Samuel’s] prayer. And it happened as Samuel was sacrificing up the burnt offering, and the Philistines drew near to wage war against Israel; that the LORD thundered with a great voice that day against the Philistines and confused them; and they were shattered before Israel.

Again, in contrast with what is potentially a frequent change of theme in the plot (9d: the Lord; 10a Samuel; 10b: the Philistines; 10c: the Lord), the MS creates a narrative bridge in wqetal between 9d and 10c—the foreground line retains the same theme, the Lord. The bridge between MS and the apodosis reaffirms that the double sentence as a whole is narrative, despite the ‘comment-like’ word order of the x-verb sentences of protasis (their word order, SVO, signals the comment register, not the narrative one, VSO). Like the xqetal in 10b, the xparticiple 10a is a standalone sentence. The TA xparticiple sentence is predicative and, hence, it creates an imperfective, habitual or any other type of durative event on its own. Additional proof of that is the plethora of examples where the xparticiple sentence creates meaningful communication without an auxiliary. From this analysis, it stands to reason that in those cases of extended protasis, the double sentence generally aims to bring together two themes (characters or items); they are united in the protasis and go in parallel. The apodosis picks up the main theme and the narrative progresses again. Further examples of extended protasis are: Targum

3. WQETAL

141

1Samuel: 1:12abc–13abcd (with apodosis in 13d); 3:2–4a (with apodosis in 4a); 10:11 (apodosis is 11d: ‫‘ ואמר עמא גבר לחבריה‬and the people said, each man to his neighbour’; Harrington-Saldarini’s translation); 13:10 (10c is apodosis); and 14:19abcd (apodosis in 19d). Further functions: retrospection and prelude

Retrospection Within the narrative register, the foreground may alternate with (1) a background sentence (in TA that is wparticiple; in BH that is wqatal). The same foreground may be exchanged in communication by (2) an event that is recovered; or by (3) an anticipative event that is inserted in the plot before its normal position as an imminent event. While there are too few examples of (3) in Targum 1Samuel to say anything conclusive87 and case (1) is analysed in the section focused on wparticiple, I turn my attention to case (2), retrospection in TA. The retrospective example is 23:6.88 ‫ והוה‬comes after a long line of sequenced wqetal of zero degree, all advancing the narrative plot: from when David and his men go to Keila (5c) to the moment when he saves Keila from the Philistines (5e). 1Samuel 23:6–7a89

MS Protasis

wqetal wayyiqtol conjunction-qetal conjunction-infinitive

Apodosis xqetal xqatal wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ והוה‬6

And it happened

‫כד ערק אביתר‬ ‫בר אחימלך לות‬ ‫דויד לקעילה‬

when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had fled to David to Keilah, he had brought the ephod down in his hand. Now it was told Saul

‫איפודא אחית‬ ‫בידיה׃‬ ‫ ואתחוה‬7 ‫לשׁאול‬

87 See section ‘Comment anticipation and background ...’ in Chapter 5.

For further analysis of this particular example see also the section ‘Double sentences with emphasis’ in the current chapter. 89 Staalduine-Sulman’s translation; the italics mark my modifications. The translation by Harrington-Saldarini does not contain the retrospective meaning (evident above)—their version is: ‘Abiathar fled … he brought …’. 88

142

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Abiathar’s flight with an ephod from Saul to David has been previously recounted in 22:20–22 and does not continue the sequence of 23:5a–e. Hence, verse 6 contains recovered information which means that this is part of the previous episode rather than the current one. There is a contradiction between the syntactic signals and the meaning of the passage. On the one hand, the MS ‫ והוה‬in 6a formally indicates wqetal zero degree—its syntax says that verse 6 continues the preceding wqetal; on the other, the information in verse 6 does not continue 5e. This is also evident in the fact that the continuation of 5e (wqetal: David saves Keila) is found in 7a, Saul is informed that David is in Keilah. There is no mention of the ephod until verse 9 which is a clear indication that 6a is not connected with verse 7 or 8. It is important to remark that the double sentence in 23:6 is unique in Targum 1Samuel in that the entire construction is retrospective. With regard to the rest of the double sentences with protasis in conjunction-qetal, only the protasis is retrospective in the following examples: 4:5 (protasis in ‫כד‬-qetal); 4:18 (with ‫כ‬-qetal); 5:9 (with ‫בתר‬ ‫ד‬-qet) 5:10; 8:1; 10:9; 17:48; 18:1; 18:6; 23:6; 24:2; 24:17; 25:37; 30:1. The MS and apodosis are foreground narrative contributing to the plot. The function of the double sentence is to join the retrospective protasis, as setting information, to an apodosis that continues and advances the foreground of the previous wqetal form. It is only the protasis which is retrospective because the meaning of the ‫‘( כד‬when’) with qetal sentence is essentially retrospective.90 This type of sentence is found in the following passages without an MS: 1:24; 8:6; 11:6; 13:1; 14:27; 17:55; 17:57.91 Here, I discuss the 90 By extension the conjunction-qetal is retrospective, although this proposal

is reserved for a future discussion on the text-linguistic functions of subordination in TA. 91 To be clear, I list which event these instances of ‫כד‬-qetal recover: 1:24a : the weaning of the baby was already mentioned in 1:23f so 24a is recovered information with regard to 24b; 8:6b: Israel already requested a king in 8:5; 11:6a: 11:5d already introduced that Saul was told about Jabesh; 13:1b : Staalduine-Sulman shows that the Targum resolves the syntactic problem of the MT as: ‘As a one year old child, in whom there is no guilt, was Saul, when he became king’. Because the text introduces first that Saul was

3. WQETAL

143

occurrences of ‫כד‬-qetal sentence with and without the macro-syntactic sign ‫והוה‬: 17:55, 57 versus 18:1–3a and 30:1–3, respectively. 1Samuel 17:54–5792

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal w-conjunction-qetal w-conjunction-infinitive qetal qatal

54

‫ונסיב דוד ית רישׁא‬ ‫דפלשׁתאה‬ ‫ואיתייה לירושׁלם‬ ‫וית זיניה שׁוי‬ ‫במשׁכניה׃‬ 55 ‫וכד חזא שׁאול ית‬ ‫דויד נפיק לקדמות‬ ‫פלשׁתאה‬ ‫אמר לאבנר רב‬ ‫חילא‬

And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem: but he put his armour in his tent. When Saul had seen David go forth against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army

Direct speech: Saul asks who David is. wqetal ‫ואמר אבנר‬ wayyiqtol Direct speech: Abner does not know.

And Abner said

wqetal ‫ ואמר מלכא‬56 wayyiqtol Direct speech: Saul sends Abner to find out.

And the king said

w-conjunction-qetal w-conjunction-infinitive wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol nominal clause nominal clause

‫ וכד תב דויד‬57 ‫מלמקטל ית‬ ‫פלשׁתאה‬ ‫ודבר יתיה אבנר‬

And when David had returned from killing the Philistine, Abner led him,

‫ואיתייה לקדם שׁאול‬

and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand.

‫ורישׁא דפלשׁתאה‬ ‫בידיה׃‬

an innocent man and then the time when he became king, the latter is to be considered as retrospective information (‘he had become king’); 14:27: 14:24 contains the moment when Saul charges the people with the oath; 17:55 and 17:57 are discussed in the body of the text. 92 Staalduine-Sulman’s translation; the italics indicate my modifications.

144

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

With the wqetal 17:54b, the plot of this episode has developed up to the time when David takes the head of Goliath to Jerusalem. Subsequently, the story returns to two essential points of the battle to reveal Saul’s reactions: with 55a, the beginning (he asks who the brave boy about to fight Goliath is); with 57a, the conclusion of the battle (via Abner, Saul invites David to a meeting). These retrospective sentences are also motivated by a later development in the plot: they explain the relation between David and Saul so the reader understands how and why the former entered into the latter’s service (18:2ab). Saul has observed David’s bravery as he was going into the battle (verses 55–56) and appreciated the win against Goliath (57) enough to take him into his service. David still has the head of Goliath when he meets Saul (as stated in 57d) which is a further indication that 57a is retrospective information. After 55a and 57a, the foreground zero degree (so not retrospection) resumes with wqetal in 55b and 57b, respectively (see my translation with past perfect and past simple in the table above). As a caveat: the contrary interpretation—that the wqetal forms in 55bd, 56a and 57b could pick up the retrospective function of their respective ‫כד‬-qetal sentence—is untenable. I think this particular interpretation should be limited to the double sentence headed by ‫( הוה‬see the clear retrospective meaning of the sequence ‫כד‬-qetal followed by wqetal forms in 30:1-3 below). Neither 55a, nor 57a is preceded by a macrosyntactic ‫ הוה‬and its absence should result into a giving the ‫כד‬qetal→(w)qetal sequence in 55ab and 57ab a distinctive analysis from 30:1-3. Moreover, as it shall become obvious immediately, 55bd, 56a and 57bc are part of a foreground narrative sequence which is established as a build-up (along with 58c) for the momentous events of the foreground wqetal forms in 18:1a (the MS of ‫ הוה‬introduces a double sentence), 18:3a (the apodosis of 18:1a), and 18:4a. In other words, the syntax of the passage suggests that the culmination of David’s victory against Goliath is not the entrance in the service of Saul (which is recounted as an incidental circumstance in the protasis of 18:2a). Instead, David’s victory achieves much more: he becomes the closest friend and ally of Jonathan by ‘cutting of a covenant’ with him (18:3a, the apodosis, see for this analysis below) and by receiving from him his robe and other personal objects (18:4ab) as a sign of this covenant. So, the function of the wqetal in 55bd, 56a and 57bc is to gradually foreground the build-up of this closer friendship with Jonathan who will be instrumental for David’s

3. WQETAL

145

subsequent survival. The ‫כד‬-qetal sentences of 55a and 57a are single retrospective temporal points from where the foreground of the story resumes after the battle with Goliath. The last part of this episode (ending in 18:5) displays another ‫כד‬qetal in 18:1b, this time within a double sentence. The question is whether: • ‫כד‬-qetal in 18:1a has the meaning of retrospective information: ‘when he (David) had finished speaking with Saul’, as Staalduine-Sulman’s translation suggests; she uses the English past perfect tense, which, according to Weinrich, is the tense of recovered information. In this interpretation, the narrator implies that Jonathan’s feelings predate David’s conversation with Saul (17:58); • Jonathan’s friendship for David follows the dialogue between David and Saul, as Harrington and Saldarini put it: ‘And Saul said to him ‘Whose son are you, young man?’ And David said: ‘The son of Jesse …’ And when he finished speaking with Saul, the soul of Jonathan was tied in love with the soul of David’. Because a ‫כד‬-qetal sentence is used, I think the former is the right answer. From the disposition of events in 17:58–18:2, it is not possible to create a clear image about the temporal sequence of events. Consequently, I examine a similar syntactic situation to 18:1–3, that of 30:1– 3; the latter has a clear sequence of events. 1Samuel 18:1–3a

MS wqetal wayyiqtol And it happened,

1Samuel 30:1–393

‫והוה‬

Protasis

conjunctionqetal conjunctioninfinitive

MS wqetal wayyiqtol And it happened,

‫והוה‬

Protasis

‫כד שׁיצי למללא עם‬ ‫שׁאול‬

‫כד אתא דויד וגברוהי לצקלג‬ ‫ביומא תליתאה‬

The translation and the sign ‘–’ follow Staalduine-Sulman in both columns; my modifications are indicated by italics. 93

146

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

when he had finished speaking with when David and his men had come to Ziklag on the third Saul, day— wxqetal ‫ונפשׁא דיהונתן‬ ‫ועמלקאי אתנגדו על דרום ועל‬ wxqatal ‫ציקלג‬ ‫אתחבבת בנפשׁא דדויד‬ the soul of Jonathan had been tied in the Amalekites had marched love to David’s soul, out against the South and against Ziklag; wqetal ‫ורחמיה יהונתן כנפשׁיה׃‬ ‫ומחו ית ציקלג‬ wayyiqtol and Jonathan had loved him as his own they had struck Ziklag soul; 2 wqetal ‫ודבריה שׁאול ביומא‬ ‫ואוקידו יתה בנורא׃‬ wayyiqtol ‫ההוא‬ and Saul had taken him that day and had burnt it with fire w-la-qetal ‫ ושׁבו ית נשׁיא‬2 ‫ ולא שׁבקיה למתב לבית‬wqetal w-lo-qatal ‫ אבוהי׃‬wayyiqtol ‫דבה מזעירא‬ ‫ועד רבא‬ and had not allowed him to return to and they had taken captive the his father’s house; women who were in it, both small and great; 3 wqetal ‫וגזר יהונתן ודוד קים‬ w-la-qetal ‫ולא קטלו אנשׁ‬ wayyiqtol ‫ בדרחים יתיה כנפשׁיה׃‬w-lo-qatal Apodosis that Jonathan94 and David made a cov- but they had not killed anyone, enant, because he loved him as his own soul wqetal ‫ ושׁלח יהונתן ית מעילא‬4 ‫ודברו‬ wayyiqtol ‫דעלוהי‬ And Jonathan sent his robe, that was they had led them off upon him, wqetal ‫ויהביה לדוד ולבושׁוהי‬ ‫ואזלו לאורחהון׃‬ wayyiqtol ‫ועד חרביה ועד קשׁתיה‬ ‫ועד זרזיה׃‬

94 I deleted the preceding ‘and’.

3. WQETAL and gave it to David, and his clothes, and even his sword and his bow and his girdle wqetal ‫ ונפק דוד‬5 wayyiqtol And David went out

147

and had gone their way—

‫ ואתא דוד וגברוהי לקרתא‬3 Apodosis

that David95 and his men came to the city,

There is no doubt that after the wqetal in 30:1a (MS), the narrative turns to retrospection. Between 1b–2abcd, the narrative recovers the events occurring prior to David’s arrival in Ziklag: while he is away, the Amalekites attack and spoil of the city. The sequence of events has temporal order: the Amalekites strike and burn with fire, they take the women; they do not kill but take captives, and go away. All this happens before David’s arrival, so it is clear that: this is an extensive protasis; and this protasis is of a retrospective type. Apodosis cannot be the ‫כד‬-qetal sentence in 30:1b because it has a subordinated form. Nor can the subsequent wqetal sentences be apodosis because they introduce a retrospective in reference to the actual apodosis 30:3a: ‘David and his men came to the city’. Also, the phrasing of 3a repeats the information in 1a (see the words in bold letters); in the apodosis, though, the MS (1a) and the apodosis (3a) concord in wqetal. These two passages have the following matching schema: • the MS with ‫( והוה‬18:1a // 30:1a); • protasis beginning with ‫כד‬-qetal (18:1a // 30:1a); • one xqetal form (18:1b // 30:1b) again part of protasis followed by a sequence of wqetal forms; • the apodoses are 18:3a and 30:3a. As shown, the difference between the foreground information advancing the plot and the recovered information is clear in 30:1–3a. Because they share the same pattern, these double sentences should have the same syntactic interpretation: MS and apodosis contain foreground information; the protasis recovers information prior to this moment in the plot. The results of this reading are most telling with regard to the dynamic of the double sentence in 18:1–3a.

95 I deleted the preceding ‘when’.

148

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The protasis in 18:1b–2b sets up the retrospective scene for the apodosis (3a). The former explains that a proper friendship has been for some time established between the two characters and that it was very profound (1bc); it further conveys that this relationship had space to grow while David began and was in Saul’s service (2ab). Overall, the protasis suggests that their friendship had grown in such a way that they cut a covenant together, an event suitably related in the apodosis. The apodosis is the event that moves along the plot toward completion following mainly one theme, David: David declares he is the son of Jesse (58c, wqetal) → Jonathan and David cut a covenant (18:1a MS and 18:3a apodosis both in wqetal) → Jonathan grants David some of his clothes (18:4a, wqetal; theme ‘Jonathan’ is employed) → the episode ends with David’s success against Israel’s enemies (5acd). This syntactic interpretation leads to the translation outlined in the table; I modified the tenses in Staalduine-Sulman’s translation following the guidance of Weinrich for English narrative retrospective which is conveyed with the past perfect.96 The discussion in this part leads to the following conclusions.97 1. Sentences of the form ‫כד‬-qetal have a retrospective function; the presence of a ‫ והוה‬as macro-syntactic sign does not affect its retrospective meaning. 2. The concordance between the macro-syntactic form in ‫והוה‬ and its apodosis is necessary and contributes to a narrative in which themes and events are put together to form a coherent account. 3. When continuing a retrospective ‫כד‬-qetal sentence, the wqetal has a retrospective meaning (18:1c–2a and 30:1b– 2acd).98 96 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 103. applies to the double sentence in Targum 1Samuel 4:5ab: the protasis in ‫כד‬-qetal is retrospective, the apodosis starts the foreground zero degree (following Staalduine-Sulman, with my italics): ‘And it happened when the ark of the covenant of the LORD had come into the camp, that all Israel gave a mighty shout’. 98 In at least two other cases (Targum 1Samuel 24:17 and 17:48) the sequence of events is unclear so one is not able to say whether the sentence of the form 97 The analysis

3. WQETAL

149

4. Comparing the occurrences of the ‫כד‬-qetal sentence with and without a preceding ‫והוה‬, I assume that those instances with ‫ והוה‬consent to longer sequences of retrospective sentences (18:1–3a; 30:1–3a), whereas a single ‫כד‬-qetal sentence marks an isolated addition of a retrospective event to plot (17:55a; 57a). Prelude The double sentence may occur in prelude position. This means that it is the first sentence of a given episode. Because it starts with a wqetal (‫ והוה‬as MS), the new episode is in temporal sequence with the end of the previous episode. In some cases, these double sentences have a retrospective protasis in ‫כד‬-qetal (see 8:1, 18:6, 24:2) and proceed with an apodosis starting the narrative. When the episodes needs more detail to be understood, the protasis is extended as in the example of 30:1–3 (the episode begins with a retrospective account of the attack of the Amalekites). Other examples of double sentence in prelude position are found in: 1:20; 7:2; 18:6 (protasis 6ab; apodosis 6c); 18:10; 28:1; 31:8. Double sentences with emphasis: the apodosis in xqetal

The principle of the double sentence is that the tense value and word order of the MS should be reflected by the apodosis. The question is why some double sentences do have an xqetal in apodosis. Employing an xqetal instead of wqetal to convey narrative register is not unheard of. I argue elsewherethat this type of sentence may indicate the narrative register whenever it has a head in wqetal to which it is semantically bound by a relation of contrast or some kind of correlation or restriction. The change in word order creates semantic contrast.99 ‫כד‬-qetal is retrospection. In view of the function that ‫כד‬-qetal has in 30:1–3, I assume that these examples have a retrospective protasis (24:17a and 17:48abc) and a zero degree apodosis (24:17b and 17:48d, ‫‘ ואוחי דוד‬and David hurried’). The sentence qualified as retrospective should be translated with what Weinrich identifies as retrospective narrative tense in modern language—in English that is past perfect. 99 See Chapter 5, section ‘Narrative contrast/correlation: xqetal’.

150

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

However, the xqetal found in apodosis in the three examples discussed under the current heading can hardly be motivated by contrast. Instead, they seem to be the result of emphasis. The double sentence of 18:19ab100 is part of an episode describing the circumstances of David’s marriage to Michal. Prior to that, Saul entices David by promising him the hand of his eldest daughter, Merab. I examine more closely the context of the xqetal in apodosis of 19b. 1Samuel 18:17–19101 17 a ‫ואמר שׁאול לדויד‬

wqetal prelude Then Saul said to wayyiqtol David: Direct speech: Saul speaks about David as an b–e eligible son-in-law wxqetal ‫ ושׁאול אמר‬f For Saul thought wxqatal Direct speech: Saul intends in reality to kill g–h David by the hands of the Philistines wqetal ‫ ואמר דוד לשׁאול‬18 a And David said to wayyiqtol Saul, Direct speech: David doubts that he could b–e marry Merab MS wqetal ‫ והוה‬19 a And it happened, wayyiqtol Prota- conjuction‫בעדן דמטא‬ when102 the moment sis qetal ‫אתיהבא דמירב בת‬ arrived that Merab, conjuction‫שׁאול לדוד‬ daughter of Saul infinitive would be given to David,

The double sentence cannot be extended after 19b (focused on Merab) because 20a cannot be its apodosis—the story introduces an unrelated topic, Michal’s love for David. 101 The translation belongs to Staalduine-Sulman; the italics indicate my modifications. 102 I deleted the preceding ‘so’. 100

3. WQETAL Apodosis

wxqetal wxqatal

‫והיא אתיהיבת‬ ‫לעדריאל דממחולת‬ ‫לאתו ׃‬

151 b

that, however, it was she who was given for a wife to Adriel, who was from Meholath.

Because the verb in third person feminine ‘was married’ (19b) cannot refer to anyone else, the feminine pronoun ‫ היא‬represents a restatement of the theme ‘Merab’, mentioned in the protasis (19a). This doubled reference to Merab indicates emphasis.103 One could argue that 19b has a semantic contrast: in precedence of 19b, the context suggests the idea that David was to be the future husband of Merab. By narrating that Merab was given to Adriel, the narrator sets up a contrast between David’s expectation and what actually happens. However, the experience of the Prague School indicates that emphasis is more likely to be the initiating factor of this change.104 This is all the more so, in light of the other xqetal forms in apodosis discussed below, which lack any contrastive suggestion.105 The same functional principle of emphasis is at work in another two examples of double sentence with apodosis in xqetal, 23:6b and 23:27a. I have already discussed the double sentence in 23:6ab above: it recovered information explaining how David had access to an ephod before he became king. Because there is no contrast to be found in this 103 The insertion of the pronoun when there is enough deictic evidence (here

the verb in 3rd person singular feminine) contradicts the principle of economy of language: ‘Economy Principle: Minimise grammatical structure and movement operations (i.e. posit as little structure as possible, and move as few constituents as possible the shortest distance possible)’. A. Radford, Linguistics: An Introduction (Cambridge/New York: CUP, 2009), 301. 104 Vilém Mathesius enumerates the ‘principle of emphasis’ among those influencing word order; J. Firbas, ‘Some Thoughts on the Function of Word Order in Old English and Modern English’, SMFPUB A5 (1957), 73. Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 118: ‘The principle of emphasis orders the words in a way that strikes the recipient as more or less out of the ordinary. This is due to the fact that the same words can appear in an order that does not create such an impression of unusualness.’ 105 The translation (see the table) accounts for both these meanings, contrast (see ‘however’) and emphasis (‘it is she that’).

152

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

context, the only remaining explanation is that the xqetal in 6b is emphasis. The word ‫‘ איפודא‬the ephod’, the ‘x’ element, is a prominent object in the course of the subsequent narrative (see 23:9). Through the ephod, while in the city of Keilah, God tells David that Saul would come and besiege the city and that its inhabitants would turn David over to Saul (see 23:10–12). The double sentence in 23:6 indicates that the ephod (the grammatical object of the sentence) is a prominent item by using an xqetal instead of the regular wqetal in 6b. Firbas presents an example of how a grammatical object (here ‘the ephod’) can be made prominent in English through word order: ‘This lesson time will teach to all alike’.106 The situation in TA is similar because the xqetal in 23:6b is the consequence of a fronted grammatical object: ‘And it happened when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had fled to David to Keilah, that the ephod he had brought down in his hand.’ The other case of xqetal in apodosis is found in 23:27a107—this time the grammatical subject ‘the messenger’ is in emphatic position: ‘And it happened when David was anxious to get away from Saul, as Saul and his men were lying in wait against David …, that there came a messenger to Saul, saying’. 108

Firbas explains that the emphatic word order is a deviation from the predominant English grammatical word order (SVO); the example is ‘Time will teach this lesson to all alike’; see Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 122–123. 107 In 27b, the direct speech begins so the xqetal in 27a is apodosis. One would be wrong to suggest that the reason for having an xqetal in apodosis in these two cases (23:6 and 23:27) is retrospection. The context of the two apodosis sentences in xqetal, 23:6b and 23:27a is essentially different. The latter has a different syntactic layout (it lacks ‫כד‬-qetal in protasis) and meaning (it has no retrospective information). Essentially, they do not have retrospection as a common denominator. 108 This modifies the translation of Staalduine-Sulman. I suppose that the same analysis applies to the MT 1Samuel 13:27a; the emphatic arrangement is aptly mirrored in its KJV translation: ‘But there came a messenger unto Saul’. 106

3. WQETAL

153

Conclusion

The double sentence headed by a wqetal form of ‫ הוה‬conveys information with the following features: narrative register, foreground relievo, and zero degree.109 At the functional level, while the MS works as a transition, the function of the theme and rheme are distributed within the protasis and apodosis, respectively. My general argument is that the apodosis should concord with the MS in tense (qetal) and word order (verb first or VSO). The main consequences are that the circumstantial protases are longer and that the foreground line displays an increased cohesiveness since the string of the main theme runs smoothly within the plot. The morphology of qetal and participle and the word order combinations that they achieve in sentence (xqetal and xparticiple) are delicate. The register of xqetal and xparticiple sentences is indeed comment not narrative; 110 yet, they occur more than once as protasis constructions. This demonstrates that the concordance between MS and its apodosis is even more indispensable. The apodosis is there to reaffirm the narrative register of the double sentence. Simply placing a ‫( והוה‬narrative foreground) in front of two or more xparticiple or xqetal sentences does not turn them into narrative foreground. I have not discussed the other impact of this change. Subordination receives a substantial addition. In BH and TA, one main sentence usually has no more than one or two subordinated sentences. The MS seems to have the purpose of filling this void: it connects a higher number of sentences of the protasis to the single sentence of apodosis. It is evident that the apodosis should, in principle, carry information about the main character; the protasis relays the circumstances of two or more characters and objects with the purpose of building a consistent image of the other character(s)/object(s).

109 In other words, the double sentence is a distant recounting of a story (nar-

rative register), in contrast with the involved communication (the comment register). The narrative has a presto tempo, which means the wqetal forms advance the story rather than stall it; this is in contrast with the lento advancement of the wparticiple sentences. The plot is not disturbed with recovered and anticipated information which means that the story advances in zero degree. 110 See Chapter 5 of this book.

154

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Besides the main function of keeping the narrative line flowing, the double sentence has two further functions: connecting retrospective information of the protasis to the apodosis; and the referential function—it acts as the prelude of the episode. I have showed that the double sentence carries retrospective information whenever the protasis has the form ‫כד‬-qetal. I have only briefly mentioned that a double sentence has a referential function in 30:1–3 and some other cases. In prelude, the double sentence preceded by ‫ והוה‬is no different from any other wqetal in prelude: it marks that the new episode picks up the narrative thread from where it was left off at the end of the preceding episode, not its beginning or middle. 111 As to any rule, there is an exception. The apodosis should allow for emphatic disposition of information which is aptly marked by the change in word order from wqetal to xqetal (see the analysis of 1Samuel 18:17–20). The following section looks into the other sentence type that communicates the narrative information, the wparticiple.

The prelude function for all sentence type is discussed in Chapter 6, sections 3 and 4. 111

CHAPTER 4. WPARTICIPLE Classical grammars describe the participle as a tense marking repetition or habitual action and duration. Max Margolis says that the participle indicates (1) ‘duration’, (2) ‘a continuous state in the past’, (3) ‘imminent or certain futurity’.1 Franz Rosenthal thinks that the participle conveys (1) ‘action that is simultaneous with the main action’; (2) sometimes, it is a narrative tense, and it (3) ‘may also be used to indicate continuous and habitual action’. 2 My approach looks at coherent stretches of text (meaning ‘biblical episodes’, see chapter 6) with the goal of delimiting the extent to which wparticiple contributes to the development of the plot. From this perspective, the durative or habitual/repetitive nuances derive from the text-linguistic function of wparticiple as narrative background form. What does that mean theoretically? Following Weinrich’s proposal regarding the division of narrative zero forms in foreground (see passé simple in French) and background (imparfait),3 wparticiple is the other zero-tense form besides wqetal. The ‘zero degree’ is another phrase for marking the fact that the advancement of the narrative continues with wqetal and wparticiple. Negatively, zero degree is the lack of perspective, which means that the zero degree tenses—in TA, these are the foreground wqetal and background wparticiple sentences—do not recover or anticipate information. Max Leopold Margolis, A Manual of the Aramaic Language of the Babylonian Talmud (München: Beck, 1910), 79. 2 Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1961), 55. 3 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’; Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 64. 1

155

156

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

I explain the narrative and background functions of wparticiple. Wparticiple is narrative because it is used in most of the functions of wqetal. Like wqetal, the wparticiple occurs in non-sequential and hendiadic structures and there are cases where the wparticiple of ‫ אמר‬introduces a speech event (2:15c, 16e and 5:7c). It may be used as macrosyntactic sign, hence supporting larger narrative constructions like the double sentence. In a few cases, sequences of wparticiple recount temporally ordered events—that is the events are set in temporal juncture—which prevents a wparticiple from being switched with the previous one. As foreground is particular to the wqetal sentence, the background function is the one text-linguistic function particular to the wparticiple. Following Weinrich’s theory of background,4 I found that the text-linguistic functions attached to wparticiple are: descriptions, introducing secondary characters or further circumstances, and the so-called referential function of beginning (prelude) and ending an episode. The second section of this chapter examines these text-linguistic functions of wparticiple and how they contribute to making wparticiple a narrative form alongside wqetal. The first shorter section of this chapter explains the difference between foreground and background as it found in Weinrich’s method.

T HEORETICAL DISCUSSION OF FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND

In a word, while wqetal foreground advances the narrative time of the plot, wparticiple of background contributes to a lesser extent to advancing the plot; that is the meaning of the presto and lento tempos attributed to these two sentence types, respectively. The text-linguistic function of the wparticiple sentence and the apparent meaning of repetition/duration are two different things. The grammatical form of wparticiple (or participle in the first position of the sentence) is responsible for signalling background zero degree narrative. The predominance of the meanings of 4 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38.

4. WPARTICIPLE

157

repetition/duration is a by-product of the fact that the grammatical form of wparticiple is background zero degree narrative.5 However, the more important element in this discussion is the real impact that wparticiple has: creating the narrative background function. I structure my treatment of the foreground/background around two basic principles expressed by Weinrich. (1) ‘Foreground is that which the narrator wants to be understood as foreground’.6 This first principle does not mean auctorial arbitrariness. It actually says that, while the foreground/background functions do come with a certain number of constraints, the author makes the final decision. Weinrich’s explanatory words on the foreground/background are not by chance said about the French ‘imparfait de rupture’ and ‘introductory imparfait’. They represent two of the main text-linguistic constraints that drive the narrative plot, respectively: the need for a moment of pause in the advancement of the plot; and the need for a plot to begin and end in an orderly fashion so that the reader knows it is beginning or ending. In any case, Weinrich is positive that zero degree of the French passé simple and imparfait are foreground and background, respectively. When faced with the question of what they mean theoretically, he proceeds to say what they do differently: ‘They [the two French tenses] give, indeed, relievo to a narrative expressing it cyclically in foreground and background. In narrative, imparfait is the tense of background and passé simple the tense of foreground’.7 The relievo is the name Weinrich gives to the circular changes in the way the plot is conveyed: sometimes it advances, sometimes it is stalled; sometimes it focuses on outlining a plot, sometimes it describes the scene where the plot takes place. Information about the plot is provided in both cases. Weinrich’s theory of relievo assumes that language has these simple 5I

assert this based on Weinrich’s treatment of past continuous, the English narrative background tense (see discussion below). A proof of that is the fact that wqetal in its non-sequential function may also have the same durative/habitual content, as seen in the cases of non-sequential wqetal forms in 10:23d; 28:20c; 28:5b; 16:21bcd. If it is possible for a wqetal of foreground to have a durative/habitual meaning, these traits are not essential to background or foreground; background tends to convey habitual/durative more. 6 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129. 7 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 128, his italics.

158

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

tempos that regulate how plot is conveyed. They are not to be understood as positional (centre-stage versus background-stage information) and it has nothing to do with the importance (more or less important information). It is exclusively a matter of how plot advances in the narrative register. He also asserts that the opposite proposition that the information considered foreground or background should necessarily be conveyed with passé simple and imparfait, respectively, is not always verified: ‘there are no immutable laws, besides the fact that they are fundamentally mixed with one another’.8 So, the type of information does not have any bearing on why some sentences display a foreground and others a background tense. The question is then, besides the author, what is it that exerts that constraint on the foreground/background disposition? I begin to answer this question from Weinrich’s statements on what a foreground narrative tense should contain: the information presented needs to be ‘that for which the story is told, that which is registered in summary, that which the title summarises or could summarise, that which by its nature compels people to suspend their work for some time to listen to a story, whose world is not that of the day to day world’. All this is placed under Wolfgang Goethe’s label of the ‘unheard-of event’9, or the ‘inaudible’.10 While I do use this idea because it is easier to analyse the biblical literature, it is important to note that Weinrich does not tie being foreground (passé simple) to the property of being part of the temporal sequence of the plot. As evident in this quote, he does tie the word foreground to ‘summary’; usually what is recounted with foreground will make its way into a summary of the narrative plot.11 I justify my methodological move by the evidence that, at least in the case of biblical literature, the temporal advancement of the plot 8 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 128. Weinrich refers to Goethe’s words: ‘What is a novella but an unheard-of event that has occurred?’, the translation belongs to S. R. Guerrero-Strachan, ‘Récit, Story, Tale, Novella’, in Romantic Prose Fiction, ed. G. Gillespie, M. Engel, and B. Dieterle (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 2008) from J. W. von Goethe and J. P. Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1982). 10 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129. 11 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 61–62. 9

4. WPARTICIPLE

159

can be related to these two forms of wqetal and wparticiple. The safest way of delimiting however, between the two is indeed the opposition proposed by Weinrich: summary versus non-summary; ‘un-heard of’ versus those that are not so. In the quote above, Weinrich asserts that the interplay of foreground and background creates the narrative relievo. Background is defined by its opposition to the above-mentioned ‘unheard-of event’. Background extends to be ‘that which is not never-heard-of, that which by itself would not compel people to pay attention, that which nevertheless helps the listener in this act by facilitating his orientation in the narrated world’.12 Apart from being a sign of orientation, all the other properties of background are negatives of foreground. Orientation refers to the referential position of the sentence in the prelude/beginning of an episode or in its end. It is of importance that while the negative segment of the definition regards its opposition to foreground, the positive segment provides a theoretical support for his rather practical observations of the French ‘imparfait de rupture’ and ‘introductory imparfait’, mentioned above. These two definitions of foreground and background may seem a little bit in want of a more concrete description. It is not hesitation from Weinrich’s part; it is his way of teaching by doing. In what follows, Weinrich argues that ‘giving relievo with regard to a background and a foreground is the sole and the unique function that the opposition imparfait/passé simple has in the narrated world’13, a definition which is repeated with regard with past continuous, the English background narrative form: ‘[w]ithin the form he was singing there is no aspect; especially durative or ‘progressive’. […] [the form he was singing] may indicate equally either a punctual or a durative event, provided that this event happens in the background of narrative. Consequently, if we want to indicate its function [of the form he was singing] in a comprehensive way we must say about it that it is the English tense of background in the narrative world’.14 Two ideas are stated. First, these labels of repetition/duration are not a faithful representation of what the French imparfait tense or 12 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 131; his italics. 14 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 168. The words between brackets belong to me. 13 Weinrich, Tempus.

160

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

background in general does; it is not the tense that provides these meanings. It is safe to assume that these meanings may came from context (adverbs of repetition, duration), the semantic load of the verb or by any other means but not the tenses themselves. Second, elucidating the syntactic value of a sentence according to all the three dimensions of language (register, relievo, and perspective) is the comprehensive way of doing language analysis. Here, I think it is important to recall the first principle: the decision of what to insert in the foreground and background rests with the narrator. The writer narrates at will something as ‘un-heard’ and ‘not un-heard’, or foreground and background, respectively. The theory so far outlined does not seem entirely straightforward; so it will perhaps be helpful to look more closely at what Weinrich says that background accomplishes in literary works. Analysing Dino Buzzatti’s La fine del mondo, he shows that imperfetto, the Italian background tense, is the fabric of ‘descriptions’, ‘illustrations’, ‘facts which regard secondary characters’, ‘further circumstances’, ‘place indications’, ‘opinions’, and ‘reflexions’15; to them, Weinrich adds elsewhere ‘all other matters which the narrator wants to move into the background’.16 Again, Weinrich replaces the old labels of repetition/duration with a more substantial strategy that derives from the overall usage of imparfait/imperfetto in the text, in short from a textlinguistic perspective. These new labels connect syntactic analysis with the function that tenses (in TA sentence types) have in real life texts. Still, what is the theoretical proposition underpinning this replacement? It is their ‘positional value’ in the text understood as an ‘intelligible and consistent’ sequence of sentences. This view of background concords with a second assertion of Weinrich which I think makes all the difference for our account: (2) ‘The choice of verbal tense relies on the positional value of these phrases in the ensemble of the narrative, only and on nothing else’.17 I take that the application of this assertion to TA refers to the ‘positional value’ of wparticiple (background) with regard to wqetal (foreground): in general, the latter advances the narrative register; 15 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 159. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 129. 17 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 151, author’s italics. 16 Weinrich, Tempus.

4. WPARTICIPLE

161

when it pauses from advancing the plot, the same narrative register describes, illustrates, adds further information, opinions. And for that it turns to wparticiple. The bulk of the next section examines how these new labels of background ably delimit the functions of wparticiple and how its narrative features harmonise with the wqetal in their syntactic narrative duet.

FUNCTIONS OF PARTICIPLE Description and introduction of secondary characters

In this section, I argue that wparticiple is a narrative form based on two traits, already identified as being specific to wqetal narrative: being used in non-sequential sequences and in hendiadic pairs. These uses imply sequences of wparticiple which have a non-sequential meaning or the action is not considered as completed. The examples are: • 7:16 describes Samuel’s travel during his time as prophet; • the wparticiple in 14:16cd describes how the Philistine camp withered away in front of Jonathan; • in 21:14bc, David feigns madness in front of Achish, the Philistine king; • later David becomes an asset for Achish; and 27:9 illustrates the way the former completed his job as plunderer of the nearby enemy peoples. I begin by marking the seamless exchange of wqetal with wparticiple and back, a further confirmation of the narrative quality of wparticiple. Before the wparticiple in 1Samuel 21:14cd,18 the progress of the plot is already delayed in 21:13ab with two non-sequential wqetal forms (‘David placed these words in his heart and he was very much afraid from before Achish’)19 followed by two in temporal juncture in 14ab moving on the plot—David changed his behaviour to feign madness. A similar example is 7:14c–15: the narrative exchanges wqetal with wparticiple. 19 Harrington-Saldarini’s translation. 18

162

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC 1Samuel 21:13–15a20

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wparticiple wayyiqtol wparticiple wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ושׁוי דויד ית פתגמיא האלין‬13 ‫בלבה‬ ‫ודחיל לחדא מן קדם אכישׁ‬ ‫מלכא דגת׃‬ ‫ושׁני ית מדעיה בעיניהון‬14 ‫ואשׁתמם בידהון‬ ‫ומסריט על דשׁי תרעא‬ ‫ומחית ריריה על דקניה׃‬ ‫ואמר אכישׁ לעבדוהי‬15

And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. So he changed his intelligence in their sight and feigned himself mad in their hands. He would make marks on the doors of the gate and would let his spittle run down his beard. Then Achish said to his servants

At the syntactic level, the wqetal and wparticiple pairs (13ab and 14cd, respectively) display the same non-sequential trait lacking the temporal juncture between them: one is not able to discern which of the two wqetal and wparticiple are first in their own pair. Within the wparticiple pair, none of the actions (David marking the doors and his running down of spit) come first. This means that both the wqetal and the wparticiple forms are zero degree: they do not contain retrospective or anticipative information. Two observations are in order. In contrast with the translations of Harrington-Saldarini and Staalduine-Sulman, I would reflect the syntactic change from wqetal to wparticiple in translation. Instead of foreground past simple, I propose a past continuous background tense for the wparticiple in 14cd; the construction with ‘would’ (cf. the table) is a suitable alternative. Second, the background wparticiple in 14cd translates foreground wayyiqtol forms of the BH. This is possible because both the pair of wqetal and wparticiple (TA) and that of wayyiqtol and wqatal (BH) are narrative and zero degree. This example The translations in the right hand side column belong to Staalduine-Sulman; my changes in italics. 20

4. WPARTICIPLE

163

shows that when they have a non-sequential use, wqetal/wparticiple are even interchangeable. They create the relievo or the foreground (wqetal) and background (wparticiple) opposition.21 However, the equivalence BH wqatal and TA wparticiple is strict as in 27:9. TA wparticiple represents the normal translation of the BH wqatal. 1Samuel 27:8–10

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol conjunctionnominal clause conjunctionnominal clause wparticiple wqatal w-la-participle w-lo-yiqtol wparticiple wqatal wparticiple wqatal wparticiple wqatal wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וסליק דויד וגברוהי‬8 ‫ואתנגדו על גשׁוראי‬ ‫וגזראי ועמלקאי‬ ‫ארי אנין יתבת ארעא‬ ‫דמיעלמא מעלנא‬ ‫דחגרא ועד ארעא‬ ‫דמצרים׃‬ ‫ומחי דויד ית יתבי‬9 ‫ארעא‬ ‫ולא מקיים גבר ואתא‬ ‫ושׁבי ען ותורין וחמרין‬ ‫וגמלין ולבושׁין‬ ‫ותאיב‬ ‫ואתי לות אכישׁ׃‬ ‫ואמר אכישׁ‬10

a Now David and his men went up, b and marched out against the Geshurites, the Gizrites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land, which was from of old the entrance of the Heger unto the land of Egypt. a And David used to strike the inhabitants of the land b and he would leave neither man nor woman alive, c but captured the sheep, the oxen, the asses, the camels, and the clothes, d and would came back to Achish. e a And when Achish asked

One might ask why it is that TA uses wparticiple for background narrative instead of the waw-perfect sentence as BH does (see BH wqatal)? The answer touches on the meagre pool of tenses in these two languages. The possible tense combinations in TA are three: 21 Similar

to 21:14cd is the case 14:52b where BH wayyiqtol is translated with TA wparticiple.

164

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

wparticiple, w-perfect (w-qetal), w-imperfect (waw-yiqtul). TA wqetal already expresses the foreground narrative, as argued in the previous chapter—this form is not eligible, for reasons of ambiguity; also, the w-yiqtul is very rarely used in indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel; wparticiple remains the only narrative background, as the only other TA verb-first sentence which does translates BH wqatal. Again, the tense alternation between wqetal and wparticiple should be reflected in the translation of 27:9. Harrington and Saldarini and Staalduine-Sulman’s renditions waver in this verse. Neither of the two is constant in rendering the wparticiple background of David’s incursion—all are wparticiple forms. The translation should heed the relievo imposed by the alternation wqetal in 27:8ab (see Staalduine-Sulman who rightly uses past tense: ‘David and his men went up, and marched out against …) to wparticiple22 (27:9a–e) and back (29:10), see the table above. A further similarity with wqetal narrative is the use of wparticiple in hendiadic pairs. Besides the one evident above in 27:9de, a common sequence is that with the two roots of ‫( אזל‬to go) and ‫( סגי‬to increase).23 These two roots in participle create the meaning of continuity: an increase in destruction (14:16) or in number (14:19);24 and continuous travel (7:16ab).25 To take the first two examples, the xparticiple-wparticiple sequence describes a narrative event in the background: the growing destruction of the Philistines and their subsequent resurgence. The impression of plot advancement is not given by the participle forms but by the narrative wqetal which are interposed between 16 and 19 (17a: The normal usage of wparticiple is background narrative zero degree so it corresponds to English past continuous or other similar phrases like ‘used to’ and ‘would’. 23 Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, 953: ‘to swell, rise, grow, spread increase, thrive’. 24 In rare cases, the roots ‫ אזל‬and ‫ סגי‬are used in hendiadys for the comment register as in 2:26ab. Because the wparticiple in 26b continues the xparticiple form in 26a, a comment form, the former is also a comment form; see Chapter 5. 25 Staalduine-Sulman translates the two participle of the roots ‫ אזל‬and ‫סחר‬ with one sentence (7:16ab): ‘And he used to go on a circuit year by year to …’. 22

4. WPARTICIPLE

165

‘and Saul said’; 17e: ‘and they numbered’, 18a: ‘and Saul said’) which indeed are in temporal juncture. 1Samuel 14:16–17a, 19

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וחזו סכואיא לשׁאול‬16 ‫בגבעתא דבית בינימין‬

xqetal xqatal

‫והא‬ ‫המון משׁרית פלשׁתאי‬ ‫אתבר‬

participle wayyiqtol wparticiple waw-adverb wqetal wayyiqtol MS wqetal MS wayyiqtol temporal sentence xparticiple wparticiple waw-adverb

‫אזיל תבריה‬

And the watchmen of Saul in The Hill of the House of Benjamin looked, and behold, the multitude of the Philistine camp has been broken;26 and its breaking was growing more and more.

‫וסגי׃‬ ‫ואמר שׁאול לעמא‬17

Then Saul said to the people

‫והוה‬19

And while Saul was speaking with the priest,

‫עד דמליל שׁאול עם כהנא‬ ‫והמונא דבמשׁרית‬ ‫פלשׁתאי אזיל מיזל‬ ‫וסגי‬

the multitude, which was in the Philistine camp, was growing more and more

Passing to the second text-linguistic function attributable to wparticiple—‘facts which regard secondary characters’ (see Weinrich above)— I single out the wparticiple 14:19bc (‫)המונא דבמשׁרית פלשׁתאי‬: ‘the multitude which was in the Philistine camp’ (Staalduine-Sulman’s translation) is presented again as increasing ever more after the description in 14:1cd show them to be broken. In contrast with its passive role in 14:16, the multitude of the Philistine camp becomes a character which reacts to the attack. The wparticiple sequence in 17:41 confirms the capacity of participle to perform as a hendiadic pair. After a sequence of wqetal forms For the analysis of this sentence see Chapter 5, the comment retrospective xqetal sentence. 26

166

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

in vs 40, showing David’s preparations for battle, the plot re-introduces Goliath with wqetal in 41a (‘the Philistine came’), followed by an odd participle (it is rare because a waw is usually pre-posed) and wparticiple in 41bc.27 1Samuel 17:41

wqetal wayyiqtol participle participle wparticiple wqatal wxparticiple nominal clause28

‫ואזל פלשׁתאה‬41 ‫אזיל‬

And the Philistine came as he was coming and drawing near to David,

‫וקריב לדוד‬ ‫וגברא נטיל תריסא‬ ‫אזיל קדמוהי׃‬

there was a man bearing the shield coming before him.

I argued in the description of wqetal that hendiadys is a protasis/apodosis construction in which the information is distributed over two sentences. Because of the intrinsic relation imposed by the hendiadys, the protasis is 41bc, leaving 41d to be apodosis. Correspondingly, the hendiadic wparticiple forms prolong the narrative plot and look towards the last sentence of the verse which justifies the entire construction. It is meant to enhance the contrast between Goliath and David. On top of the fact that David looked physically inept and underequipped in comparison to Goliath (protasis: participle-wparticiple), the latter had also someone bearing his shield (apodosis: xparticiple). Both translations of Staalduine-Sulman and Harrington-Saldarini show the difficulty of the passage. Their renditions reflect the continuity of these three participle combinations (Harrington-Saldarini: ‘coming and drawing near’, ‘the man bearing the shield was coming before him’) for 41bcd.29 However, the xparticiple (SVO) in

These verbal roots occur in a hendiadic pair later in 17:48 as wqetal: ‫ואזל‬ ‫וקריב‬. 28 The participle ‫ אזיל‬is added by the Targum, hence the change in translation from the verbless nominal clause (BH) to xparticiple (TA). 29 As a note, in 41d, Staalduine-Sulman prefers the foreground simple past against the background xparticiple of the Targum. 27

4. WPARTICIPLE

167

41d occurs because of an emphatic disposition of information.30 Amplifying the effect of the protasis-apodosis at the syntactic level, this emphatic word order reinforces at sentence level the contrast between David’s lone fragility and Goliath’s power coming with an escort. If that is the case, the translation should employ the phrase ‘there is’ to put into proper emphasis this man bearing the shield: ‘The Philistine came; as he was coming and drawing near to David, there was a man bearing the shield coming before him’.31 Further circumstances

Circumstances complete the story by providing details about the wider context. That wider context may be formed, for example, by the information in 2:19c which says that that each year Hannah made her son a new coat to bring him at their annual visit to the temple. This circumstance is introduced with a wparticiple. The sequences of wparticiple contain an evident zero degree disposition of information which means a lack of retrospection/anticipation. In 19:23abcd, for example, as they promote the narrative register (David ‘went thither, to the Talmud School in Ramah; and a prophetic spirit … dwelt upon him’), the wqetal forms in 23ab are continued by two non-sequential examples of wparticiple in 23cd which recount, again in the narrative register, the circumstances ‘he went, praising as he went’.32 A distinct flavour of non-sequential narrative event pervades this entire verse. There are usages of wparticiple which display further narrative facets of wparticiple, temporal juncture and the participle of ‫ הוה‬as 30 This xparticiple has an emphatic word order introducing a new Phenome-

non. The functional layout is that of a Pr-sentence: Phenomenon—‘a man’; Transition—‘was coming’; Setting—‘before him’ (see note 100, page 244). The emphatic word order is due to the fact that the x element (‫גברא נטיל‬ ‫ )תריסא‬is context independent—it is the first time it appears in the passage. This clarifies why the xparticiple in 17:41d does not represent the usual comment register; this is relevant as, in Chapter 5, I argue that xparticiple means comment register. 31 Further discussion of xparticiple will follow in the appropriate section. The translation with the emphatic ‘there is’ corresponds to how Firbas proposes to render this sort of case; Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 122. 32 This is Staalduine-Sulman’s translation.

168

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

macro-syntactic sign. Both this juncture and the macro-syntactic sign based on ‫ הוה‬are indelible marks of the narrative register as exemplified by the wqetal. As they occur in participial sentences, wparticiple is also a narrative zero degree form. I substantiate these two narrative traits of wparticiple by examining 16:23 and 13:21–22. The evidence of 16:23 (a verse which closes the episode 16:14–23) attests to a sequence of wparticiple accounting for routine actions in temporal order one after another. The impact of the wparticiple sequence is to produce a minute repetitive narrative. 1Samuel 16:23

MS wparticiple MS wqatal conjunction-participle conjunction-infinitive wparticiple wqatal wparticiple wqatal wparticiple wqatal wparticiple nominal clause wparticiple wqatal

‫והוי‬23

‫וטאיב ליה‬

And whenever an evil spirit from before the LORD was dwelling upon Saul, David used to take the lyre and played it with his hand; so it was refreshing to Saul, and doing him good33

‫ומסתלקא מניה רוח‬ ‫בישׁא׃‬

and the evil spirit would depart from him.

‫כד שׁריא רוח בישׁא‬ ‫מן קדם יוי על שׁאול‬ ‫ונסיב דוד ית כנרא‬ ‫ומנגין בידיה‬ ‫ומתרוח לשׁאול‬

The sequence of wparticiple happens to be introduced by a wparticiple of ‫הוה‬, in its macro-syntactic function—it marks the switch from the wqetal foreground (22a) to background, both being of the narrative register. The protasis marks the circumstance in which Saul needs soothing care; the construction is oriented towards the event of David taking up the lyre (23b wparticiple) to play (23c). The fact that wparticiple is a zero degree narrative with temporal juncture is evident in the sequence 23bcd: David takes the instrument and plays, Saul feels This sentence is not translated by Staalduine Sulman; I inserted the translation of Harrington-Saldarini. 33

4. WPARTICIPLE

169

better, the evil spirit departs. Saul’s improved state of mind is temporally subsequent to David’s playing. The effect of these wparticiple forms is to create a habitual ending of the episode.34 Again, their actual function is narrative zero degree background; any habitual meaning is a derivative result. 1Samuel displays one further attestation of ‫ הוה‬wparticiple as macro-syntactic sign in 13:22. 1Samuel 13:21–23

wparticiple

[nominal clause]

MS wparticiple MS wqatal w-la-participle w-lo-qatal

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫והוי להון שׁופינא‬21 ‫לחרפא ביה פגמת כל מן‬ ‫דברזל לעשׁפיה ולסכת‬ ‫פדניא ולמצלת קצריא‬ ‫דלה תלת שׁנין ולכלביא‬ ‫ולאנצא זקת׃‬

‫והוי‬22 ‫ביומא דקרבא‬ ‫ולא משׁתכחא חרבא‬ ‫ומורניתא בידא דכל‬ ‫עמא דעם שׁאול ועם‬ ‫יונתן‬ ‫ואשׁתכחא לשׁאול‬ ‫וליונתן בריה׃‬ ‫ונפק אסטרטיג‬23 ‫פלשׁתאי למגזת מכמס׃‬

And they had the file to sharpen on it the dullness of every iron utensil — for the chisels and for the pin of the yokes and for the fork of the fullers, which had three teeth, and for axes — and to point the goad. So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and with Jonathan, but for Saul and Jonathan his son they were found. And the praetor of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmas.

The content of the sentences 2135 and 22ab indicates a non-sequential reality because the lack of a spear or sword in the army is expanded over the coming sentences 22c–23. As a closing note on wqetal and 34 See the same effect in the pairs of wparticiple in 14:52bc.

13:21, the sense of the wparticiple with ‫‘( הוה‬to be’) is belonging or possession; the only other instance where ‫ הוה‬has the sense of possession Targum 1Samuel is 1:2d which shows a wayyiqtol in the Vorlage. It is evident that the Targum is sensitive to the difference in the BH original: it translates the wayyiqtol in 1:2d (‫ ) ַוְיִהי ִלְפ ִנ ָנּה ְיָל ִדים‬with wqetal (they both mean ‘Penninah had children’); the wqatal in 13:21 (‫ ) ְוָהְיָתה ַהְפִּצי ָרה‬with wparticiple. 35 In

170

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

wparticiple in their non-sequential usage, this is a rather unique grammatical instance of perfect syntactic synonymy (one meaning, two syntactic forms) in Aramaic where different verbal forms have the exact same meaning. Expressing opinions is a further circumstance as in the case of the wparticiple ‫ ואמרין‬of speech event in 5:7c ‘the people of Ashdod […] were saying’. The wparticiple sentence as prelude

Prelude is the very first sentence which initiates an episode in the biblical literature.36 One of its functions is to act as orientation by providing the necessary details for the upcoming narrative line of wqetal forms. It is a fact that, at least in Targum 1Samuel, there is no prelude form in wparticiple or no wparticiple form initiates an episode.37 The few wparticiple that I analyse here occur immediately after or in closer proximity of a prelude form and before the wqetal form starts the foreground exposition of the plot. The wparticiple of 16:14b is found in the prelude part of the episode and follows a prelude xqetal in 14a initiating the episode 16:14–23 (David becomes Saul’s lyre player). 1Samuel 16:14–15a

wxqetal xqatal wparticiple wqatal wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ורוח גבורא מן קדם‬14 ‫יוי דהות עם שׁאול עדת‬ ‫מניה‬ ‫ומבעתא ליה רוח‬ ‫בישׁא מן קדם יוי׃‬ ‫ואמרו עבדי שׁאול‬15 ‫לי ה‬

And the mighty spirit from before the LORD who had been with Saul, has departed from him; and an evil spirit from before the LORD was tormenting him. And Saul’s servants said to him

36 See more in Chapter 6. 37 See Annex 1

containing the division into episodes of Targum 1Samuel and their prelude forms.

4. WPARTICIPLE

171

The wparticiple 16:14b acts as a Semitic replica of the introductory imparfait, attested by Weinrich in the French literature.38 His examples are from Maupassant’s short stories in which background information with this type of French imparfait changes to passé simple when the plot development fully commences.39 In 16:14b, the Targum uses a prelude/introductory wparticiple to register information which is less necessary for the understanding of the plot, and, at the moment when the narrative progression is resumed, wparticiple is changed with wqetal (15a). Passing to a second set of examples, the syntax of the beginning of a biblical book is not always straightforward. Most episodes in 1Samuel begin with a wqetal form and follow a calm wqetal/wparticiple alternation with rare interjections of x-verb and nominal clause. By contrast, the initial episode of the book (1:1–19) is a continuous hustle and bustle of all sentence types. In this context, whenever wparticiple occurs, it is to mark or reassert that the story has not properly started. The reader still receives prelude information. 1Samuel 1:3, 6–7, 9–1140

wparticiple wqatal

wxparticiple

wparticiple wqatal xparticiple

‫ וסליק גברא ההוא‬3 ‫מקרתיה מזמן מועד‬ ‫למועד למסגד‬ ‫ולדבחא קדם יוי‬ ‫צבאות בשׁילו‬ ‫ותמן תרין בני עלי‬ ‫חפני ופנחס‬ ‫משׁמשׁין קדם יוי׃‬ ‫ מצהבא לה ערתה‬6 ‫אף מרגזא לה בדיל‬ ‫לאקניותה‬

And that man used to go up from his city, periodically from festival to festival, to bow down and to sacrifice before the LORD Ṣebaoth at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were serving before the LORD. And her rival used to provoke her, also to anger her because of her jealousy,

For the analysis of the xqetal of comment in 16:14a, see Chapter 6, section ‘Further sentence types in prelude position’. Vulgate uses for 14b: ‘et exagitabat eum spiritus nequam a Domino’ 39 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 150–152. He refers to Guy de Maupassant, Contes et nouvelles, Vol I, 109–113. 40 This is Staalduine-Sulman’s translation. 38

172

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

conjunction-qetal ‫ארי אתמנע מן קדם‬ conjunction-qatal ‫יוי מנה ולד׃‬ w-adverb-yiqtul w-adverb-yiqtol xparticiple

‫ וכין יעביד שׁנא‬7 ‫בשׁנא‬ ‫בזמן מסקה לבית‬ ‫מקדשׁא דיוי‬ ‫כין מרגזא לה‬

because from before the LORD offspring was withheld from her. And so he did year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the LORD’s sanctuary, she used to anger her.

adverb-participle adverb-yiqtol wparticiple ‫ ובכיא‬And she was weeping wayyiqtol w-la-participle ‫ ולא אכלא׃‬and would not eat. w-la-yiqtol wqetal ‫ ואמר לה אלקנה‬8 And Elkanah, her husband, wayyiqtol ‫ בעלה‬said to her 8bcde: direct speech—Elkanah comforts Hannah wqetal ‫ וקמת חנה בתר‬9 And Hannah rose, after she wayyiqtol ‫ דאכלת בשׁילו ובתר‬had eaten in Shiloh and after ‫ דשׁתיאו‬they had drunk

This recurrent prelude marking of wparticiple is exemplified by 1:3a, 6a, and 7d—they come into view just before the narrative foreground line begins in 1:8a with wqetal. This wqetal effectively ends the prelude and makes the previous sequence a prelude construction. The entire sequence of forms from 1:1–7 acts as orientation or prelude within the Book of 1Samuel. None of the five wqetal forms present advance the plot. First, the three wqetal forms in 1:1a; 1:2d; 1:4a are non-sequential wqetal forms of ‫ ;הוה‬these forms and the other two in 4bc create an account which is closer to a background communication (as 2:12–17 analysed below), mainly because of the xyiqtul form in 7a which includes an expression indicating a repeated action, ‫שׁנא‬ ‫בשׁנא‬, ‘year by year’. Furthermore, the remaining forms in x-verb41 word order of 1–7 indicate that the ‘unheard-of’ event has not yet been inserted—the narrative foreground line has not started. What is the significance of this syntactic interpretation for the story? It means that the narrator inserts a long prelude unit explaining 41 The sentences with the word order x-verb belong to the comment register,

not the narrative.

4. WPARTICIPLE

173

about a family with one man and his two wives. The two women compete to offer their husband children, but only one is successful. This is all told in verses 1:1–6. Verse 7 narrows down on Hannah and her suffering. The event of going to the temple each year and the pains this causes to Hannah are not unique, are not something ‘unheard of’. All this happened ‘year by year’. By contrast the wqetal in 8a begins the ‘unheard of’ event or the event that changes everything: in one particular year, when Samuel’s story begins, the man consoles his wife in a rather different manner from other years (‘Is not my good will to you more than ten sons?’, Harrington-Saldarini’s translation) that Hannah decides to do something about it. She gets up (9a with wqetal) and, while praying in the temple (verse 10), and makes an oath (11ab wqetal again narrative foreground) should she become pregnant ‘to hand over the child … serving before the Lord’. In a word, the wqetal forms in 8a, 9a, 11ab are the ‘unheard’ events that start the foreground narrative. With this, I have attempted to provide what Weinrich calls a ‘global structure of narration’42 which takes into account both the content of foreground and background: background generally presents description, circumstances etc.; foreground covers the plot. The narrative naturally proceeds from a predominant background narrative in the first seven verses, only to switch to foreground narrative thereafter. In terms of content, foreground is represented by the passé simple in French (or in Aramaic by wqetal) ‘because it is the tense of the main event’. 43 The way narrative advances also requires a special attention: while the distribution of foreground/background tenses is up to the narrator, he or she does have constraints. By using background predominant forms in the prelude of the book, Targum 1Samuel testifies that TA too sometimes obeys the same rules according to which the introduction and the conclusion of a text have a ‘special position’ as Weinrich says.44 In order to determine that ‘special position’ of introduction/prelude and conclusion, I returned to the concept of the 42 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 149. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 149. 44 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 145. 43 Weinrich, Tempus.

174

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

‘unheard-of event’ or ‘one narrates when one knows of something unusual’45 as it happens from 1:8a onward. For the purpose of granting us access to it, the narrator inserted an ‘exposition’ which ‘makes known the world that is about to be narrated and invites the reader or the listener to proceed in to this foreign world’46—this is done with background forms. After this introductory exposition, the narration initiates the ‘main event’ (see above), with the narrative nucleus,47 the ‘main action’,48 or simply foreground. End-of-episode (postlude) wparticiple

In this section, I shift my attention to the end of the episode. According to Weinrich, the narrator sometimes employs a rupture into the narrative, exemplified by the French imparfait de rupture49, which ‘closes the story by returning us to the real world’.50 It has a ‘conclusive nuance’ (as explained by Gustave Flaubert’s L’Éducation sentimentale)51 and achieves ‘a decrease of the dramatic tension’,52 which ‘slows down the story’ (see Spanish imperfecto).53 In these cases, the imparfait/imperfecto/imperfetto or the Aramaic wparticiple54 have the corresponding function of leading the reader from the narrative world: it ‘suggests to the reader that the dramatic thread of the story is at the end and that 45 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 163. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 127. 47 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 127. 48 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 145 and 162. 49 Weinrich recognises this form in a number of instances in French, Italian, and Spanish literature (Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 149–166). In English the situation is different as ‘in the English language background and foreground have a different distribution than in the Romance languages’ and hence the tense of ‘he is singing’ and the English participle occur less frequently than in their counterparts in the Romance languages, Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 168. 50 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 153 51 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 152 52 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 156. 53 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 161. 54 I avoid adopting the term ‘of rupture’ as this ‘rupture’ does not always come at the end of episode. I will use ‘end-of-episode’ or ‘concluding’ wparticiple. 46 Weinrich, Tempus.

4. WPARTICIPLE

175

the characters return again to their daily world, constituted of events which are not worthwhile narrating’. 55 I discuss two examples which accommodate this position. The episode in 16:14–2356 narrates the events that follow the anointing of David as king: after the introduction of the crisis at Saul’s court (16:14: an evil spirit torments Saul), there is a sequence of 13 wqetal forms (starting in 16:15) interrupted by dialogue passages (introduced by wqetal speech events). Up to 16:21a inclusive, the narrative plot advances towards the end detailing the way in which David becomes Saul’s lyre player. The wqetal 16:21bcd do not advance the plot, but rather list the successes of David (he served, he was liked, he was his armour bearer) and none of them is bound by temporal juncture: they may be exchanged among themselves. The temporal juncture occurs again in 16:22 (wqetal of speech event) where Saul requests Jesse to allow David to remain at the court. No answer is reported, but the wparticiple sequence in 16:23 showing David’s work there as lyre player is enough to understand that Saul’s order was accepted (23ab: the evil spirit comes upon Saul, David plays, 23cd: Saul feels refreshed, the spirit leaves). The syntactical question is: how does it come about that the sequence of coordinate events in 21bcd is in wqetal and in 23 the same kind of events are in wparticiple? This is where Weinrich’s argumentation comes to the rescue. The former sequence in 21bcd is part of the foreground narrating the main events of the story: Saul needed someone to soothe him, they looked around, and David came and was a good servant. By contrast 23 is not part of that main sequence, as it adds further details about David’s singing. As the narrative episode comes to an end in this verse, the narrator signals this by slowing down the narrative with wparticiple (other events could have been added to this list: that this happened usually before/after having lunch, etc.). They prepare the reader to exit the narrative world showing that there is a resolution to the crisis described in the prelude. 55 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 171.

56 See the syntactic analysis and translation of 16:23 above.

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The second case, the wparticiple forms in 7:16, is not so straightforward. Because 7:17d displays narrative wqetal57, the episode actually ends recounting main events. Nevertheless, this is not an impediment for considering the sequence in verse 16 an end-of-episode. The wqetal in 17d serves as transition between episodes the episodes of 7:2–17 to 8:1–22. If one was to complete a summary based on the wqetal forms, as Weinrich does to test his theory of foreground, 58 the main events in the two episodes make sense together with this transition: ● 7:2–14: in a sentence, Samuel and Israel defeat the Philistines (as it results from the sequence of wqetal); ● 7:15: wqetal—Samuel judged Israel; ● 7:17d: wqetal—Samuel built a altar there (in Ramah); ● 8:1: wqetal double sentence—Samuel’s sons become judges over Israel; ● 8:3bcd: three wqetal forms—list of his sons’ sins (money, bribe, injustice, respectively); ● 8:4: wqetal—the elders gathered and came to Ramah; ● 8:5: wqetal speech event—they ask for a king. The summary makes sense without the background wparticiple forms I omitted (7:16: Samuel’s visit to the three cities, Ramah was his home city). It is indeed, the narrator’s choice to put information in foreground or background; and here he chose to give a background meaning to Samuel’s visits in the three cities in 7:16 (with wparticiple) and foreground (with wqetal) to the fact that he built an altar in his home city, as evident in 17d. The place of this altar is where in 8:4 the elders of Israel request a king. There are a few other occurrences of wqetal in final position which replicates this effect of ending the episode by providing a foreground connection with the next episode. In 13:23, the wqetal (the Philistines retreat through Michmash) is part of the foreground which connects 13:17 (three companies of Philistines went to raid the land) Staalduine-Sulman’s translation of 7:16 and 17d: ‘7:16 And he [Samuel] used to go on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah; and he was judging Israel, all these places. […] 17d he built there an altar before the LORD.’ 58 See above for the connection between summary and foreground in Weinrich’s work. 57

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and the next episode, where Jonathan attacks (see the wqetal speech event in 14:1) by going through the same location of the Michmash pass, as shown in 14:4–5. However, it is evident that decreasing the dramatic tension towards the end is equally significant, and the preferred syntactic tool for that subsiding narrative is the wparticiple. As Weinrich points out about the imperfective forms, wparticiple slows down narration and provides conclusion by the way of taking back the characters (and us) to daily life events, to a routine (all with wparticiple): ● 16:23: the sequence of David’s lyre playing: evils spirit, playing, Saul’s refreshed state. ● 7:16: Samuel’s daily practice as judge; ● 14:52: Saul’s habit of picking up every man able to fight; ● 18:15b and 16b: Saul’s increasing fear of David, as the latter proves himself in battle more and more; 2:12–17—a ‘background’ episode

The episode of 2:12–17 describes the sins of the sons of Eli in contrast with Samuel’s good standing recounted in the next episode (2:18–21). Following the patter of the other episodes, one expects that the narrative foreground in wqetal would eventually take over the advancement of the plot; however, the wqetal appears only in 2:16a and 17a. The aim of the writer is to present the usual behaviour of Eli’s sons, not to advance the narrative of the plot. If one were to suppose that it is possible for narrative episodes to be divided between foreground/background ones, this episode would be a background one. The summary of the episode is built around the wparticiple forms introduced by 12a. ● 12a: declarative nominal clause—the sons of Eli are evil; ● 13c: wparticiple repetitive—when the offer is presented, the servant (of the two priests) would come; ● 14a: wparticiple—he would dip (the fork) into the pan; ● 14b: xparticiple—he would take everything that (emphatic arrangement of the sentence; otherwise this would be a wparticiple too); ● 15bc: two hendiadic wparticiple forms (15c is speech event)—he would say that the priest accepts only raw meat (the direct speech is the rheme of the 15c);

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16a: wqetal narrative—the man bringing up the sacrifice asks the servant of the priest to wait; 16e: wparticiple speech event—the servant would threaten to take it by force; 17a: wqetal of ‫ הוה‬as non-sequential/incomplete with ‫—הוה‬their sin was great. 1Samuel 2:12–1959

nominal clause nominal clause la-qetal lo-qatal casus pendens casus pendens casus pendens casus pendens wparticiple wqatal conjunction-participle conjunction-infinitive nominal clause nominal clause wparticiple wqatal

xparticiple xyiqtol

‫ ובני עלי גברין‬12 ‫רשׁיעין‬

And the sons of Eli were evil men.

‫לא הוו ידעין‬ ‫למדחל מן קדם יוי׃‬

They did not know how to fear from before the LORD And this was the priests’ due from the people — any man who slaughtered a sacrifice: the priest’s servant would come, while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand, and he would set it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot;

‫ ונומסא דכהניא‬13 ‫מן עמא‬ ‫כל גבר דנכיס‬ ‫נכסתא‬ ‫ואתי עולימא‬ ‫דכהנא‬ ‫כמבשׁל בסרא‬ ‫ומשׁיליא דליה תלת‬ ‫שׁנין בידיה׃‬ ‫ וקבע ליה‬14 ‫באיורא או בדודא‬ ‫או בקדרא או‬ ‫במליסא‬ ‫כל דמסיק משׁיליא‬ ‫נסיב כהנא לנפשׁיה‬

all that the fork brought up the priest would take for his living.

59 The translation of Staalduine-Sulman accommodates fully the background

value of the original TA wparticiple, with the use of ‘would’; alternatively past continuous and the phrase ‘used to’ are good options for conveying English background narrative.

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conjunction-participle ‫ כדין עבדין לכל‬So they did at Shiloh conjunction-yiqtol ‫ ישׁראל‬to all Israel conjunction-qetal ‫ דאתן לדבחא תמן‬who came there to sacconjunction-participle ‫ בשׁילו׃‬rifice. conjunction-la-yiqtul ‫ אף עד לא‬15 Moreover, before the conjunction-negation‫ יתסקון תרביא‬fat pieces were brought yiqtol ‫ למדבחא‬up to the altar, wparticiple ‫ ואתי עולימא‬the priest’s servant wqatal ‫ דכהנא‬would come wparticiple ‫ ואמר לגברא‬and say to the man wqatal ‫ דנכיס‬who was slaughtering, Direct speech: the priest only accepts raw meet not cooked wqetal ‫ ואמר ליה גברא‬16 And if the man said to wayyiqtol him Direct speech: they should wait until the time of the sacrifice wparticiple ‫ ואמר ליה‬he would say to him, wqatal Direct speech: they refuse to wait and threaten to take it by force wqetal wayyiqtol

conjunction-qetal conjunction-qatal

‫ והוה חוב‬17 ‫עולימיא סגי לחדא‬ ‫קדם יוי‬ ‫ארי בזו גבריא ית‬ ‫קרבניא דיוי׃‬

And the guilt of the young men was very great before the LORD, for the men robbed the offerings of the LORD.

The wqetal in 17a is non-sequential because of the assigning quality of ‫ הוה‬and it is the closest thing possible to a wparticiple form in terms of its impact on narrative, as we saw above. The other occurrence of wqetal in 16a is the only form that stands out as foreground narrative.60 The only reason I can think of for this odd wqetal is that not all the people protested, and this wqetal recounts that exception in foreground wqetal. This is an event worthy of mentioning or the ‘unheard-of event’ to use Weinrich’s term. This wqetal breaks the routine The sequence wparticiple-wqetal-wparticiple reflects the MT sequence wqatal-wayyiqtol-wqatal in 1Samuel 2:15–16. 60

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described in 13c–15bc, but the servant continues his routine, see the wparticiple in 16e (he would take it by force).

CONCLUSION TA wparticiple is the normal rendering of narrative wqatal of BH.61 There are also exceptions (Targum 1Samuel 10:9, 17:48, 25:20): they translate the BH wqatal with the Aramaic wqetal (so turning the message into a foreground one), not wparticiple. With the use of wqetal, TA creates temporally ordered events. In each of these cases, there is a temporal juncture between of the previous and the coming construction: Samuel’s speech for the anointing of David (10:1–8) and God’s changing the heart of David (10:9); David’s words (17:45–47) towards Goliath and his approach to David (17:49); Abigail’s orders (25:19) and her meeting David’s company (25:20). These translations are mirrored by the examples where wayyiqtol is rendered as wparticiple in 21:14cd and 14:52b already discussed above. It should be noted that Targum sometimes arranges the information of its Hebrew base text in a way which differs from the Hebrew; and this is possible, because the pairs of tenses in BH and TA have a trait in common. Both are zero degree forms, that is they do not insert recovered/anticipated information in the plot. The difference between them derives from their relievo: of foreground (BH wayyiqtol and TA wqetal) or of background (BH wqatal and TA wparticiple). With regard to both mirroring cases above, while BH reads in 1Samuel 10:9, 17:48, 25:20 a background narrative form with wqatal, the Targum reads them as foreground narrative as it uses wqetal (instead of the wparticiple). Where BH shows a non-sequential narrative disposition of information with wqatal (so intends to describe, present circumstances etc.), by translating with wqetal, the Targum creates temporal junctures which advances the plot.

See the wparticiple in Targum Genesis 30:41; 38:9; Exodus 17:11; 33:7, 8, 9; 2Samuel 15:5, they all translate the BH wqatal of ‫היה‬. 61

CHAPTER 5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES WORD ORDER AND COMMENT IN TARGUM ARAMAIC AND BIBLICAL H EBREW There are two normal word orders in Targum Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew, VSO and SVO/OVS. The VSO word order is represented by wqetal and wparticiple. The SVO word order is represented by xparticiple, xqetal, and xyiqtul. 1 Both VSO and SVO are normal because they are regular occurrences in these languages. In the SVO sentence, a grammatical element (dubbed ‘element x’2) takes the first place. This ‘x’ denotes the following morphologic constituents: a verb (as infinitive or a participle functioning as something other than the predicate), a noun, and a pronoun.3 Although much learned ink has been spilled on the syntax of Biblical Hebrew and the various dialects of Aramaic, scholars still have to address properly the meaning of the SVO word order. For example, John Cook starts from the classic idea summarised by Robert Longacre (1996) that while ‘VSO clauses […] mark the storyline, SVO The nominal sentence, subordination, and negated sentences are not discussed in this book. 2 The notation is also used by Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose. 3 Contrary to Niccacci, I do not regard the conjunction as a possible x element. This is because in terms of word order, linguistics only looks at three elements: Verb, Subject, and Object. 1

181

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clauses […] are for the most part reserved for supportive material’. 4 This statement is indeed unconvincing, not only for the reasons the former mentions (‘on what basis can Longacre claim that word order marks the storyline, and in what sense do they mark it?’, Cook’s italics), but also because it fails to elucidate the meaning of BH word order in those texts that do not necessarily have a storyline. At the end of his analysis of wayyiqtol, Cook considers that those sentences with a SVO word order are ‘deviations from wayyiqtol’ (so from VSO) caused by ‘fronting’ of a subject or object; ‘avoidance of a temporally successive interpretation’, ‘marking of a new discourse section’, and ‘signalling of backgrounded information’. 5 These could be taken as legitimate discourse analysis explanations. However, they are based on the general assumption that there would be only one normal word order, VSO. The sheer number of the SVO sentences in BH and TA contradicts this assumption: not all of them can be explained as ‘deviations’ of a ‘normal’ word order. As before, I consider that the meaning of BH word order is the same in TA. The alternative is to allocate a proper syntactic function to both VSO and SVO/OVS. For some readers familiar with functional theories of word order, it is counterintuitive to propose two normal word orders in a language. For example, as the Prague School grammar explains, English diverges from the regular SVO word order only as a result of some sort of functional meaning that the other word order creates.6 Cook, ‘The Semantics of Verbal Pragmatics: Clarifying the Roles of Wayyiqtol and Weqatal in Biblical Hebrew Prose’, 248; Longacre, The Grammar of Discourse, 23. These correlations (VSO—storyline and SVO— supportive material) go back to the 1970s; see Longacre’s articles ‘The discourse structure of the Flood Narrative’ (Journal of the American Academy of Religion 47 (1979)) and ‘Interpreting biblical stories’ found in the book edited by T.A. van Dijk, Discourse and Literature (1985). 5 Cook, ‘The Semantics of Verbal Pragmatics: Clarifying the Roles of Wayyiqtol and Weqatal in Biblical Hebrew Prose’, 264. 6 Following Vilém Mathesius, Jan Firbas lists five such principles of word order: grammar, coherence of members, Functional Sentence Perspective, emphasis, and rhythm; Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 118. Usually, each language employs one word order 4

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 183 Now, I would like to introduce the reader to a different type of examining word order: some languages achieve though word order the same syntactic meaning that others achieve through morphological tenses. According to Weinrich, where Romance languages employ a specialised tense, in his example Italian, German uses word order: ‘the change from the second to the last position in the sentence corresponds to a change in tense that in German has exactly the same function the Italian substitution of a passato remoto with an imperfetto has’. What Weinrich means is that Germen has two normal word orders (verb second and verb in final position of the sentence) and they mark the relievo syntactic function which in Italian is reflected by the two tenses. Previously, Weinrich had made the point that ‘in comparison with other languages [Romance languages and English] German displays few or very few tenses’. According to Weinrich, ‘the true verbal system of German language is obtained by multiplying by two the (few) tenses’. The ‘final’ position of the verb becomes ‘a signal which can accompany every verbal form’.7 I stress that neither of the two word orders is considered unusual. In German, word order is a factor influencing the foreground/background status of verbal tenses. In Biblical Studies, there is already a trend of arguing the same association between word order and the foreground/background opposition (Buth for Aramaic; Niccacci and Schneider for BH). My critique of their work has brought arguments against this association,8 so TA (and BH) and word order must have another syntactic value. Consequently, within the text-linguistic method, word order correlates with one of the other two

and only occasionally the others; for example, English follows the grammatical word order: ‘the position of the verb is determined by the grammatical principle, sentence position having taken on grammatical duties. Occurring between S and O, the English verb participates in signalling the grammatical S—O relation’, J. Firbas, ‘A Functional View of ‘Ordo Naturalis”, ’ BSE 13 (1979), 40. 7 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 200–201. 8 See my critique of their work in the first chapter of this contribution.

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dimensions that Weinrich proposes. One could be that of linguistic perspective but this is highly unlikely in view of the textual evidence.9 The only dimension that remains is that of register: TA word order is correlated with the commented and narrated registers. Because in TA the two VSO sentences—wqetal and wparticiple—are proven to indicate the narrative register (see the Chapters 3 and 4 dedicated to them in this book), it is natural for SVO/OVS order to convey the opposite. I restate and expand the syntactic statements of this book, based on the analysis of Targum 1Samuel in the following two affirmations. (1) The wqetal and wparticiple sentences are of the narrative register because they share a VSO word order; xqetal, xparticiple, and xyiqtul are of the comment register as they share the SVO/OVS word order. (2) Within these two word orders, the morphology is in charge of the relievo disposition of information. A sentence bearing a qetal is normally correlated with foreground; a sentence bearing a participle, with background. This morphologic correlation between TA qetal and foreground, and TA participle is already clear in the narrative register, where wqetal foreground is opposed by the wparticiple of background; the same will be evident in the comment register.

T HEORETICAL DISCUSSION OF COMMENT10 From a methodological standpoint, the first question is ‘what is comment’? Weinrich asserts that comment marks that instance in the 9 The zero perspective of the VSO sentences (this is the attested

meaning for wqetal and wparticiple resulting from the previous chapters of this book) would have to be opposed by a presumed recovered/anticipated meaning of the SVO sentences (xqetal, xparticiple, and xyiqtol). The option is not valid as, on too many occasions, the SVO sentences contain zero degree information (see the use of xparticiple, and the combination of xqetal-xparticiple sentence). 10 It is important to read Weinrich’s method in light of his advice which insists ‘not to explain, on principle, any verbal tense on its occasional name’, which means that the fact that an event is presented with past, present, future tenses

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES

185

communication when ‘the “I” of the narrator abandons for a moment the narrative register to address the readers with some thoughts on the story’.11 The comment tenses have the tendency of employing the first and second person verbs, deriving from the involved presence of ‘I/we’ communicating with ‘you’. The description of the comment tenses is based on the ‘relevant semantic features’. These are semantic indications which one should look out for when exploring whether a syntactic construction of a language is associated with the comment register. As an exemplification of the meaning of the semantic features, I outline Weinrich’s account of the French présent and passé composé, following the three dimensions of his method—register, relievo and perspective; all three facets of a particular binary relation in language that are used to define linguistic signs. As the French présent marks the absence of relievo, it has no foreground/background distribution. Because it is of zero degree, the present tense does not contain retrospective or anticipative information. A positive description comes from its relevant semantic feature, namely : being comment, this tense ‘provides no other instruction to the hearer but that of perceiving the text with the same attitude that one usually adopts in the case of actions that require their participation or reaction (‘tua res agitur’ [it concerns you])’.12 The French passé composé suggests the semantic features of (see the preceding paragraph) and . With regard to its retrospective trait, Weinrich asserts that ‘In the case of passé composé—and unlike the tenses which have the [semantic] feature of being , a past reality is not considered in its pastness, but introduced as a point of view in the informative economy of a comment situation’.13 From this, the reader should learn that the passé composé (and its equivalents in other does not say anything about the time when the events occurred; Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 88, his italics. 11 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 24–26. 12 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 140. 13 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 148; the square brackets belong to me.

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languages found as such based on the text-linguistic analysis) is a distinct kind of relating past events from narrative (Weinrich thinks at the specific tenses of imparfait and passé simple14 of the narrative register). Because it is conveyed through a passé composé, the past event contains information with immediate relevance for the hearer/speaker; the information has significant impact for the correct understanding of their communication. To be clear, in a direct speech situation in which the speaker and the listener communicate face-toface, this impact would be readily accessible: the hearer would instantly understand what that reaction the use of passé composé requires thereafter given that the speaker and hearer share a common time and space situation. Translating this to the predominantly narrative text of Targum 1Samuel indirect speech, that ‘informative economy of a comment situation’ or what passé composé aims to mark as worthy of a reaction for the reader (this is the aim of commented situation) should be discovered by considering how the various possible interpretative keys of this event might modify the otherwise serene and relaxed reading of a narrated situation. In other words, a comment sentence in indirect speech of the Bible should activate a participative search for a deeper meaning rather than a relaxed charting of the narrative plot. With regard to how these text-linguistic functions apply to English tenses, the comment register has present tense as its zero degree tense—the linearity of the communication is not interrupted. For interruptions of the zero degree to recover information, the present perfect tense is utilised. According to Weinrich, what the comment retrospective tenses like the French passé composé and English present perfect do is to report on past events15. This definition indicates instances of comment-specific genres which (among others) are ‘interrogation’, ‘declaration’, ‘accusation’, and ‘court proceedings’. Again, comment is an account of events where the encoder and the decoder of the message address each other directly with a communication requesting an answer and/or an active involvement, as it is the case with court proceedings; it implies that the person making the declaration assumes full responsibility for what is declared. 14 See table of ‘temps du récit’ or ‘tenses of narrative’ in Weinrich, Grammaire

textuelle du français, 124. 15 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 104–105.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 187 Now, I note a further essential difference between the narrative and comment registers. The first is that, while the narrative one is more about temporal passage or plot advancement, the comment register is about the presence of tension in whatever is said. This is confirmed in these statements by Weinrich: ‘when one comments not always, or very seldom, it is about time. In fact, we comment mostly on things that concern the speaker and the listener directly, so things are already current or known. Situating them [the commented events] in time is not so necessary. On the contrary, when we narrate, we move from the communicative situation [that is a general situation that allows a communication to exist orally or in writing] into another world that is already past or fictitious. If it [the narrated event] is the past it is better to indicate the time, and it is for this reason that, in combination with the times of the story, we find very frequently exact temporal determinations.’16

If ‘when one comments not always, or very seldom, it is about time’, then it makes sense to stress the professed function of the comment register which is that of marking the tensioned or involved transfer of information. Hence, it follows that the difference is in fact double: while narrative marks time passage and the ‘serene’ exposition of events, the comment register is all about marking tension with little or no care for conveying time passage. My last clarification in this introductory section concerns the tense correspondence in the comment register between the languages discussed by Weinrich (English, German, Italian, French, and Spanish) and TA. According to Weinrich, the comment register tense, opposing the English narrative past simple, is the present tense. They share the trait of advancing the communication. For retrospective information, the present perfect (or the French passé composé, the Italian passato prossimo, and the Spanish perfecto compuesto) is used. The

16 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 98, my square brackets.

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future tense completes that picture as this the tense of comment anticipation.17 The comment sentences in TA are those that display a SVO word order. This chapter is structured around the syntactic functions of the SVO sentence, as observed in the indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel: 1. xqetal as narrative, expressing contrast or correlation with the preceding wqetal foreground (acting as ‘narrative head’ for xqetal); 2. xqetal as comment retrospective; 3. xparticiple as comment zero degree (mostly background, but also foreground when relievo is not activated by the presence of xqetal); 4. xqetal as comment zero degree (foreground), that is only in combination with an xparticiple sentence; 5. xparticiple and xyiqtul as background of comment; and yiqtul as narrative anticipation.18

T HE SVO SENTENCE BETWEEN THE NARRATIVE CONTRAST AND THE COMMENT REGISTER

The three types of SVO/OVS sentences (TA xqetal, xparticiple, and xyiqtul) convey the semantic feature of the comment register. When inserted in indirect speech in the Bible, they are interpolations of the narrator towards the reader and contain information of utmost relevance for the reader. From the reader, they require a state of involvement or heightened attention with regard to events described. I make the case for SVO being a comment register word order after the next section.

17 Analysis of those texts of 1Samuel where comment tenses predominate (di-

rect speech) is not the object of this discussion. Weinrich takes for granted that comment and narrative tenses are mixed. 18 Regarding the tense correspondences between TA/BH and English, I reassert a rule of thumb by Weinrich: ‘no tense of one language may be considered equal to a tense from another language. Each tense is part of the temporal system of its language first, and only temporal systems can be compared’; see Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 94.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 189 Narrative contrast/correlation: xqetal

In this section, I examine those uses of xqetal which apparently contradict the main statement of this chapter that x-verb or SVO sentences signals the comment register. I refer to instances of the xqetal sentence which, because they semantically connected with a ‘narrative head’ (by a contrastive or correlative relation), do become narrative instances as their head. The narrative head19 is essentially a narrative sentence (in TA, that is a wqetal) which connects its xqetal with the plot. The semantic connection renders the latter syntactically synonymous with the former as foreground narrative. Usually, these xqetal are end-of-episode (postlude) sentences; when this happens, the sequence of wqetal-xqetal leads the reader out from the narrative world of the episode. My argumentation describes the xqetal uses from the simplest (those found at the end of the episode) to those whose status may be considered ambiguous—there is enough evidence to suggest both functions, narrative or comment register. This ambiguity disappears once the context provides the syntactic indication of a ‘narrative head’ in wqetal. In no particular order, a list of other xqetal of narrative contrast in Targum 1Samuel is attached at the end of the section. I start with the wqetal-xqetal sequence of 24:23bc (see also 15:34ab, 23:18bc, and 29:11). 24:23abc20

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal

‫וקיים דויד לשׁאול‬ ‫ואזל שׁאול‬ ‫לביתיה‬ ‫ודוד וגברוהי‬ ‫סליקו למצדיא׃‬

And David swore this to Saul. Then Saul went home, but David and his men went up to the strongholds.

I borrowed this term from Labov and Waletzky, ‘Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience’, 22. In their explanation, the narrative head refers to ‘the finite verb … which carries the tense marker of the clause’. As I employ it in TA, the narrative head is always connected with the plot or the chain of the narrative heads creates the plot. 20 Most of the translations in this chapter follow as usual the wording of Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel. Where present, my modifications are in italics; I note that the translation of Staalduine-Sulman considers that the wqetal-xqetal sequence in this example has a particular semantic bond (see the conjunction ‘but’). 19

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The episode (Targum 1Samuel 24:2–23: David spares Saul’s life) ends with David pledging that he would not destroy the seed/name of Saul. The xqetal in 23c is semantically bounded, here by correlation, with the preceding wqetal narrative in 23b which acts as its ‘narrative head’. Their semantic bond is evident in that the wqetal-xqetal construction may be read as a protasis-apodosis position in which neither of them makes sense without the other. If one was to delete either of them, the character that is not mentioned as leaving the scene would be a loose thread in the narrative which has to be closed in some other way. A possible explanation for the change in word order from wqetal to xqetal is that TA has a lower number of semantic ways (correlative/contrastive particles and conjunctions) to suggest contrast or correlation so word order makes up for that shortage. The syntactic synonymy between wqetal and xqetal in these examples justifies the translation with past simple of foreground narrative of the xqetal. As seen above, the simplest way of leading the reader out of the story is by showing the characters leaving the scene: the first character goes one way, the second goes the other. Targum 1Samuel 21:121

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal

‫וקם‬

And [David] arose

‫ואזל‬

and went.

‫ויהונתן על לקרתא׃‬

but Jonathan went into the city.

Targum 1Samuel 26:25ef

wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal

‫ואזל דויד לאורחיה‬

So David went his way,

‫ושׁאול תב לאתריה׃‬

but Saul returned to his place.

In most of the cases, this ‘formula of exiting’ informs the reader about where the characters go. To this end, they use verbs of movement (‫אזל‬, ‫קום‬, ‫תוב‬, ‫)סלק‬, sometimes in a hendiadic pair (21:1). In 26:25ef, the Staalduine-Sulman’s translation with my modifications in italics. This translation and that of Harrington-Saldarini connect these two sentences with ‘and’. 21

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES

191

exclusive aim of the wqetal-xqetal is to provide an exit from the scene; the reader is not told where the characters go. As this is the last time Saul and David meet before Saul’s death, the biblical author might have considered this information superfluous. Another way of leading the reader out from the episode is through a pithy remark on the character (see 1:24e: ‘the boy was young’; 4:18f: ‘and he judged Israel for 40 years’). Staalduine-Sulman translates 4:18f with ‘He had judged Israel’ supposing a retrospective action. While this retrospective view of past perfect is not to be ignored, I found that, in TA, retrospection is likely to be limited to specific syntactic markers like the construction with ‫כד‬-qetal.22 Instead, in both instances, the xqetal reflects the contrast between what happens to the characters and who they are. Targum 1Samuel 1:24de23

wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal nominal clause

‫ואיתיתיה לבית מקדשׁא‬ ‫דיוי לשׁילו‬ ‫ורביא הוה יניק׃‬

and she brought him to the sanctuary of the LORD, to Shiloh. Yet, the boy was young.

Targum 1Samuel 4:18def

wqetal wayyiqtol nominal clause nominal clause wxqetal wxqatal

‫ומית‬ ‫ארי סב גברא ויקיר‬ ‫והוא דן ית ישׁראל‬ ‫ארבעין שׁנין׃‬

and he [Eli] died, for he was an old man and heavy. Yet, he judged Israel forty years.

In the first example, the xqetal marks the contrast between the young age of the boy and the fact that he was given away to the temple; in the second example, the xqetal changes the downward course of the communication (Eli dies) to a more upbeat ‘he judged’ to suggest that the length of his service is a confirmation of his good work and that he is a model for future judges.

22 See chapter 3, section ‘Further functions: retrospection and prelude’.

The translation follows Staalduine-Sulman. The italics indicate my modifications. 23

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

A more elaborated way of ending the episode is through an elliptical ‘Samuel sent away all the people, each man to his house’ in 10:25d (wqetal; Harrington-Saldarini’s translation); wherever he goes next is never explained. Two other parties leave the scene. One the one hand, Saul goes back home (see 26a: xqetal) followed by the people who believe in him (with wqetal in 26b); on the other, a contrastive xqetal (27a) indicates a dissenting group of people who do not back Saul. 10:25d–27abc24

‫ושׁלח שׁמואל ית כל עמא‬ ‫גבר לביתיה׃‬

wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal wqetal (with subordinate) wayyiqtol (with subordinate) wxqetal wxqatal

‫ ואף שׁאול אזל לביתיה‬26 ‫לגבעתא‬ ‫ואזלו עמיה קצת מן עמא‬ ‫גברין דחלי חטאה‬ ‫דאתיהיב דחלא מן קדם יוי‬ ‫בלבהון׃‬ ‫ וגברי רשׁעא אמרו‬27

Then Samuel sent all the people away, each to his home. while also Saul went to his home at The Hill, and with him went part of the people, men fearing sin, in whose hearts fear from before the LORD was given. But evil men said,

Direct speech: ‘How can this one save us?’

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ושׁטוהי‬

And they despised him

Leading up to the more complicated examples, the contrast xqetal narrative can be employed in the body of the episode as it happens in 25:13f and 14:41d. The relation between wqetal-xqetal may be interpreted as semantic correlation. 25:13ef25

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫וסליקו בתר דויד כארבע מאה‬ ‫גברא‬

And about four hundred men went up after David,

24 The translation of Staalduine-Sulman; my italics.

The translation of Staalduine-Sulman; no modifications of tense or conjunction needed. 25

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 193 wxqetal wxqatal

‫ומאתן אשׁתארו למטר מניא׃‬

while two hundred men remained to guard the baggage.

14:41cd

wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal

‫ואתאחד יונתן ושׁאול‬ ‫ועמא נפקו׃‬

And Jonathan and Saul were singled out, but the people went forth.

Before listing the remaining xqetal of narrative contrast/correlation found in Targum 1Samuel, two more xqetal sentences deserve special attention. Both are evidence that sometimes xqetal is ambiguous and thus one has to consider the context more carefully. The xqetal in 4:1d could be of comment mainly because of its SVO word order and its prominence position in the prelude of the episode. This is all the more significant as LXX translates 4:1d with a present tense, a typical comment tense.26 However, the presence of a wqetal as narrative head in 4:1c effectively prevents 4:1d from being comment. 4:1cd

wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal

‫ושׁרו על אבן סעדא‬ ‫ופלשׁתאי שׁרו באפק׃‬

they [Israel] encamped at Stone of Help while the Philistines encamped at Aphek.

For the sequence wayyiqtol-xqatal found in the Masoretic Text 1Samuel 4:1cd (translated as wqetal-xqetal the Targum), LXX shows present tense in the equivalent sentences of 4:1de (LXX adds a sentence in 4:1b). So, the Greek text contains a change from the narrative aorist in 4:1c to comment of the present tense in 4:1de: καὶ ἐξῆλθεν Ισραηλ (aorist) … καὶ παρεµβάλλουσιν (present) … καὶ οἱ ἀλλόφυλοι παρεµβάλλουσιν (present) or ‘Israel went out …, and they encamp … and the allophyles encamp at Aphek’ (the translation follows B. A. Taylor, A New English Translation of the Septuagint: 1Samuel, ed. A. Pietersma and B. G. Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 251. The italics show my modifications; Taylor translates with the English past simple narrative tense (‘encamped’ and ‘encamped’) against the present tense of LXX. In his defence, there is a specific policy of the translators to align the wording of NETS with NRSV; see Taylor, A New English Translation of the Septuagint: 1Samuel, 245. It seems that this alignment goes all the way to replicating tense sequence. 26

194

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

In the other instance, Targum 1Samuel 13:2–7, the author chooses to employ an alternation of wqetal-xqetal sequences; its narrative meaning is discernible by strictly connecting the xqetal sentences to their immediately preceding wqetal (see the correlative or adversative conjunctions in italics): •

•

•

•

•

the wqetal narrative in 13:2b heads the two xqetal sentences in 13:2cd: Saul takes 2,000 men with him (of the initial 3,000 of 13:2a) while (1) 1,000 men stay with Jonathan (xqetal in 2c) and (2) those who were not chosen to fight go home (xqetal in 2d); the wqetal in 13:3b heads the xqetal sentences in 13:3c and 13:4a: in 13:3b, the Philistines hear (that their praetor was slain by Jonathan as explained in 13:3a) while (1) Saul blows the trumpet (xqetal in 3c; to attract the attention of the people) and (2) the people hear (xqetal in 4a; they hear about the death of the Philistine praetor); the wqetal in 13:4d heads the xqetal in 13:5a: the people of Israel gather with Saul at Gilgal (4d) while the Philistines gather to wage war (xqetal in 5a) with two wqetal continuative sentences in 5bc—they go up, and encamp at Michmas; the wqetal in 13:5c heads the xqetal in 13:6a: Philistines are in Michmas (5c wqetal) but the men of Israel see (6a) that the people are in distress and pressed (with two subordinated sentences in 6bc); the wqetal in 13:6d heads the xqetal sentences in 13:7a and 13:7c: the people hide in the rocks (wqetal in 6d) but/while (1) the Hebrew people cross the river Jordan (7a; nominal sentence ‘Saul so far stayed in Gilgal’ in 7b) and (2) all the people gather to Saul (7c).

Other contrastive or correlative narrative xqetal forms are (StaalduineSulman’s translation, with my modifications in italics): •

•

the wqetal in 14:15a heads the xqetal 14:15b: ‘And they quaked [with fear] in the camp, in the field and among all the people, as even they the praetors and the destroyer quaked’; for 3:19b xqetal (‘but the speech of the LORD was in his [Samuel’s] aid’,), there is a narrative head in wqetal 3:19a;

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 195 •

•

the xqetal in 18:17f ‫‘ ושׁאול אמר‬but Saul said’ is headed by the wqetal in 18:17a ‫‘ ואמר שׁאול לדויד‬Then Saul said to David’. The contrast between wqetal 18:17a and xqetal 18:17f comes from the direct speech passage they each introduce. While in one direct speech Saul seems to be offering his daughter Merab in marriage, the other contains Saul’s interior monologue with his intentions to kill David by the hands of Philistines. I note that a similar xqetal marks this duplicity with regard to David’s marrying the other daughter, Michal in 18:25e (see analysis below); the xqetal form in 19:10d is in narrative contrast with the wqetal of 19:10a, which acts as its narrative head: ‘Saul sought to hit David with his spear […] But David fled’. The linguistic sign and Derrida’s trace

In comparison with modern languages, TA and BH display a double word order (SVO and VSO) and operate with fewer verbal forms. At least from the perspective of text-linguistics, the theoretical clarifications of tense and word order are rather unconvincing. On the matter of why Hopper’s foregrounding or Weinrich’s relievo is relevant for word order, Schneider and Niccacci simply assert that such is the case; but they provide no theoretical support for their assertion. My choice of the following linguistic and philosophic arguments provides a wider methodological foundation for my proposal that TA and BH word order marks the linguistic dimension of register. In the coming sections, I will examine the following theoretical points: 1. Following Weinrich, in any given text the linguistic signs are always interconnected and support the meaning of one another; 2. In syntax, not only is the presence of a linguistic sign important but also its absence. 3. Various stylistic and linguistic markers contribute to the overall syntactic analysis besides tenses and word order. These are mainly poetic devices, logical and linguistic connectors, and the referential position of the sentence within its episode. I have identified 13 such markers which are called

196

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC ‘traces’, a term borrowed from the post-structuralist philosophy of Jacques Derrida.27

It shall be evident that linguistic signs are inherently interconnected; and the absence of a linguistic sign may become a linguistic clue. This ‘absence’ can be associated with Jacques Derrida’s term of ‘trace’. To be clear, it is the SVO/OVS word order that marks the comment register; the traces of comment as explained over the next three sections supply cumulative validation to that effect. 1. According to Weinrich, the linguistic sign has the following features.

27 According to Derrida, the ‘trace’ is an ‘invocation of supplements [un appel

de supplément]’; this translation is by J. Culler, On Deconstruction (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 106. Culler ‘silently’ modifies the following English translation J. Derrida and G. C. Spivak [tr], Of Grammatology (Baltimore/London: JHUP, 1976/1997), 158. The ‘supplement’ is a concept that makes sense in Derrida’s attempt to reverse what the Western world thought about language analysis. This understanding was shaped by Ferdinand de Saussure’s declaration that ‘the spoken word alone constitutes the object [of linguistic analysis]’ (the quote of Saussure’s Cours as translated by Culler, On Deconstruction, 100; the explanation in the brackets is mine). This means that spoken communication takes precedence in language analysis; writing is secondary or a reflection of spoken communication. Derrida’s reversal recuperates the value of writing which is evident in the fact that the existence of the realities referred to in spoken communication are always undermined by the necessity that these realities should be continuously supplemented by writing. Thus, I understand trace as the individual existence of the supplement that is writing to spoken word. I relied in this note on the contextualised explanations of Derrida’s complex mode of thinking on Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction, 99–110. To my knowledge, so far there have been no attempts to integrate the work of Derrida into the study of syntax. Derrida’s emphasis on writing seems to be in consonance with Weinrich’s declaration that ‘A grammar that introduces itself as a text grammar can only be entirely conceived from texts (oral or written), since its ultimate objective is to manage the language in a way that is consistent with texts.’; Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 19–20.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 197 a) A linguistic sign keeps to the economy principle which prevents it from being repeated without reason: ‘Its validity [of a place and time stamp inserted at the beginning of a letter] however is not limited […] to the following sentence […]. In fact, it would be annoying and less economical for the one writing to repeat the place and the date for every new sentence’;28 b) A ‘linguistic sign remains valid until the end of the text or until another sign of the same category intervenes to annul its meaning’. For example, ‘a definite article preserves its validity as long as another article does not annul it, be it an indefinite article, a demonstrative article, a possessive or a numeral article’.29 c) ‘in a text, single linguistic signs are not found in isolation one next to each other. […] all linguistic signs determine each other’.30 d) ‘language has a procedure by which it is able to annul the determinative force and the validity of certain signs […]. This occurs whenever a sign is replaced by another sign and they both together can be more or less be assigned to the same class or category’. 31 As I pointed out in the first chapter of this book, Weinrich bases his methodology on binary ‘relevant semantic features’. I have also repeatedly outlined the three main binary choices available to the author within the three dimensions of language (register, perspective, and relievo) when selecting a particular tense. This is indicative of the more substantial proposal that Weinrich makes in his Tempus. He explains that text-linguistics is ‘a subsequent stage in the development of structural linguistics’, as evident in the Cours de linguistique générale (1916) by Ferdinand de Saussure. According to Weinrich, the Cours ‘studies Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 16; see above the Economy Principle quoted from Radford, Linguistics: An Introduction, 301. 29 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 17. 30 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 17. 31 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 18. 28

198

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

the signs of a language in their positional value within the code of the language’; in this context, ‘One needs to distinguish between the paradigmatic dimension and the syntagmatic one’,32 in other words, between the repertoire of linguistic signs that the speaker/writer has at their disposal in view of communication (for example the variety of tenses) versus the actual utilisation of a particular tense in a syntagmatic disposition of linguistic signs in a text. While text-linguistics looks more closely at the syntagmatic disposition of tenses for example, it also preserves the paradigmatic view of the possibilities: ‘The two linguistic facets, the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic one, should be fundamentally considered of equal importance […]. Ferdinand de Saussure was of the same opinion’.33 2. I come to recognise the relevance of these statements for a linguistic sign as, for example, the presence or the absence of the French imparfait, in an actual sample of text, a literary work by Albert Camus. In communication, as one tracks the changes occurring from one sign to another, it might be that, in the first instance, the syntagmatic values of the signs in a text take precedence in the analysis—the linguistic signs that stand out are those that the text exhibits. However, taking seriously the paradigmatic alternatives of a linguistic sign—in accordance with the equal place of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic facets of language, as Weinrich suggests—means that one has to be aware of the other unused or ‘absent’ option that is extant in the paradigm of the verb.34 To continue with the example of the imparfait: this would mean probing what would the use of the passé simple tense achieve instead of the imparfait in the same context. The equality between the syntagmatic and paradigmatic sides of language is not spoken of further in his methodology in Tempus. There is, however, one instance where Weinrich produces a sample of this paradigmatic-syntagmatic relation. To be clear, I examine one section of Weinrich’s Tempus where he alludes to the linguistic clue produced by the absence of ‘passé simple’. I have already

32 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 12. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 13. 34 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 13. 33 Weinrich, Tempus.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 199 discussed the beginning of this section, ‘Tenses in dialogue’,35 to argue that the terms ‘narrative’ and ‘dialogue’ employed by Weinrich do not mean indirect and direct speech.36 Following this particular argument, Weinrich switches his treatment to ‘verbs of communication’ (verbs of speaking, thinking or hearing), previously known from grammars as verba dicendi (p. 228). The statements I refer to are developed based on the ideas that some verbs have the ability to introduce dialogue/direct speech and that this ability has a syntactic meaning. For example, the imparfait of the French verb ‘soupirer’—‘soupirait’ (in English, to sigh)—has such a syntactic meaning in the following example from Albert Camus, La femme adultère: ‘Marcel soupirait. “Tu peux être sûre qu’il n’a jamais vu un moteur de sa vie. – Laisse!” dit Janine.’37 Weinrich continues with the analysis of another passage in the same work by Camus: ‘Mais le chauffeur revenait [imparfait], toujours alerte. […]. Il annonça [passé simple] qu’on s’en allait [imparfait]. Il ferma [passé simple here and from now on] la portiére, le vent se tut et l’on entendit mieux la pluie de sable sur le vitre’.38 Weinrich’s underlying question is whether the sentence with imparfait ‘qu’on s’en allait’ (so the words narrating what had been spoken orally) indicates a reported speech39 or a simpler indirect speech communication. 35 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 226–239.

36 Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint I’. 37 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 227–228; Coral Cosman translates this as: ‘Marcel sighed. “You can be sure he’s never seen an engine in his life” “Leave it be!” Janine said’, A. Camus, Exile and the Kingdom: Stories (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 8. 38 The English translation is: ‘But the driver was coming back, ever alert. […] He announced that they were on their way. He closed the doors, the sound of the wind was silenced, and now they could hear the rain of sand on the windows.’ Camus, Exile and the Kingdom: Stories, 9. 39 Weinrich uses ‘dialogue inserted in the form of an indirect speech’ for what I called ‘reported speech’ (p. 230). This ‘dialogue in … indirect speech’ is subsequently indicated by Weinrich with ‘indirect speech’ although he means reported speech. That is why, for reasons of clarity, I replaced ‘indirect speech’ with ‘reported speech’. Ultimately, this is about the linguistic adjustments and constraints that one has to have in mind when transferring what is said in direct speech to indirect speech; see Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 230–232.

200

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Of course the answer is that this is a reported speech; but the linguistic question is why? Weinrich’s reasoning is that there is ‘the accumulation’ of the passé simple tenses which is to be corroborated with the ‘negative signal’ that is the ‘exclusion’ of the passé simple in the actual reported speech. Finally, he lists the accumulated ‘signals’ that mark the reported speech: ‘1) the presence of a verb of communication ‘annonçer’; 2) the change from third to an unspecified person on, which in modern French indicates in most cases a first person plural; 3) the absence of passé simple [in the actual reported speech], which is made even more obvious by its presence in the [immediately adjacent] context; 4) the introduction of the reported speech with the help of the conjunction que (“the subordinated clause”)’.40 3. What are the pertinent points for my case that the absence of a linguistic sign is a linguistic clue in itself? Within a communication that uses a linear disposition of ever-interacting linguistic signs, Weinrich proposes a balanced analysis of the syntagmatic (the sentence as is visible) and the paradigmatic (the other possible alternatives to the visible linguistic signs) parts of language. As seen in the analysis of Camus, the two sides of language provide access to a wider set of linguistic instruments, which includes those that are absent. Difficult cases or instances of a language whose syntax is yet to be elucidated (read TA) need a wider basis of data to uncover the appropriate syntactic solutions. It is important to note that the impact of the ‘absent’ on the analysis is ‘cumulative’, in other words, there needs to be a reasonable support for it (so the explanation should not force the language) and more than just one ‘absent’ linguistic sign should be existent. This is the first segment of my argumentation for thinking about the absent linguistic sign. However, more is needed, I believe, to make this ‘absence’ part of the linguistic debate proper. Such further support for the ‘absent’ linguistic signs is found in Jacques Derrida’s discussion of the linguistic sign and in particular in his proposal of the term ‘trace’.41 It is not by chance that Saussure’s Cours comes again into the discussion. 40 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 231–232.

41 Trace is a term borrowed and expanded to account for the existence of the

so-called ‘arche-writing’ by Jacques Derrida from Martin Heidegger, see

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 201 In his attempt to ‘deconstruct the transcendental signified’, Derrida indicates, as Gayatti Spivak explains, that the ‘“being” of the sign’ (graphic or sound) is ‘half of it always “not there’’ and the other half always “not that”.’ Spivak continues with the remark that ‘the structure of the sign is determined by the trace or track of the other which is forever absent. This other is never to be found in its full being’ (Translator’s Preface, xvii). The French word trace suggests ‘track, footprint, imprint’ (p. xv) ‘or even the spoor’ (p. xvii). In this context, ‘The sign must be studied ‘under erasure’ [an example is the erased being of Martin Heidegger] always already inhabited by the trace of another sign which never appears as such’; and here is the moment where the analysis of signs, ‘semiology’, gives way to ‘grammatology’ (Translator’s Preface, xxxix). ‘For Derrida, however, a text, as we recall, is a play of presence and absence, a place of the effaced trace’ (lvii). Spivak points out that the promoter of the structuralist project, Ferdinand de Saussure in his Cours de linguistique générale, is not a ‘grammatologist’ as Derrida, as the former ‘having launched the binary sign [it includes the signifier which stands for the meaning of the signified], he did not proceed to put it under erasure. The binary opposition within the Saussurian sign is in a sense paradigmatic of the structure of structuralist methodology’ (lviii). If this is not already obvious to the reader, I note that Spivak talks about the same syntagmatic and paradigmatic argument of Weinrich. Contrary to Weinrich (see the relevant quote above), Spivak reproaches Saussure with the omission of the paradigmatic analysis. Be that as it may, how is this ‘absence’ of Weinrich connected with Derrida’s trace? The absence marks those paradigmatic elements that are not apparently there when the text is read. In Weinrich’s example, it is an imparfait that the reader sees in the reported speech passage, not a passé simple. However, he finds a way of bringing into the discussion the unseen side that resides in the paradigmatic repertoire of the verb to suggest that, should the author have inserted a passé simple, what is now a reported speech would have been something else. Weinrich seems to suggest that should the other cumulative evidence be lacking and the tense be the passé simple, then the meaning Translator’s Preface of Gayatri C. Spivak to J. Derrida and G. C. Spivak [trans], Of Grammatology (Baltimore/London: JHUP, 1976/1997), xvi–xvii. The square brackets belong to me.

202

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

of reported speech would not have been there (inserting a passé simple would have yielded a simple indirect speech). In itself the absence of passé simple might not be really something of notice; however, the accumulation of these other indications—the verb introduces a dialogue-like communication, the change in person, the existence of a particular conjunction—together with the absence of passé simple become something that adds value to the actual linguistic sign of the imparfait. In short, the reported speech meaning of the imparfait is supplemented by the accumulation of these four ‘signals’ which I now call ‘traces’. What, however, is more important is to observe how Weinrich makes the context part of the linguistic sign. It is not that these traces alone create the reported speech meaning in the example above: there is an actual imparfait which indicates that openly. These traces accumulate body of evidence or work together as linguistic signals or traces to confirm the meaning of the imparfait. Ultimately, this argument aims to incorporate more convincingly into the text-linguistic discussion the contextual elements that authenticate the meaning of a linguistic sign. Weighing these contextual elements as actual linguistic clues or ‘traces’ (attached to a full linguistic sign as the tense is) brings them out of the shadow of the things that are there, but not theoretically discernible, into the sunlight of the linguistic signs. From the perspective of TA, the accumulated ‘traces’ of the context become compulsory for the analysis. As this chapter progresses, the following traces of the comment register will be introduced: 1) The sentence contains a poetical arrangement of information; 2) The sentence holds information with prominence for the narrative; 3) The xqetal sentences of comment lack a narrative ‘head’ in wqetal; conversely, the presence of a comment head (an xqetal) for a wqetal of continuation indicates that wqetal is comment; 4) The sentence is similar to, or occurs as such, in attested comment passages (it appears in a context that is comment-like as, for example, an involved dialogue between characters); 5) The presence of ‫‘( אף‬even’);

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 203 6) Apparent redundancy within the episode; 7) The presence of the TA particle ‫‘ והא‬behold’; in BH, that is ‫;והנה‬ 8) The sentence has prelude (initial) position in the episode; 9) Lack of temporal juncture within a sequence of sentences; 10) Morphological opposition between the narrative and comment registers (only for the xparticiple); 11) The sentence conveys incidental information; 12) The sentence has an end-of-episode or postlude position in the episode; 13) The juxtaposition of xparticiple before/after xqetal is a trace that the xqetal sentence has a zero degree function in the comment register. Comment retrospective: the xqetal sentence

This analysis of the xqetal sentence revolves around the critical concept of reporting. The annotated glossary (see the section ‘What does Weinrich’s approach stand for after all?’) clarifies that, in contrast with the idea that tense would deliver some sort of past-present-future setting of an event, Weinrich advocates the text time as the sequence of linguistic signs in communication. Tense contributes to text time by presenting a longer or a shorter accumulation of narrated or commented communication, which structures either events in zero degree (that advance the plot or communication) or which recovers/anticipates events. In this context, reporting is the syntactic function of recovering information in the comment register and is expressed though the English present perfect or the French passé composé. The following two sections are focused on developing a number of comment traces and how they contribute to highlighting the inherent comment function of the SVO/OVS word order in TA. Before going into this argument, I discuss (1) what is reporting and (2) how the xqetal sentence marks this particular function in TA. On the first point, Weinrich begins his discussion of the German Perfekt with the difference between narrating and commenting on a story that happened in the past. In the narrative register, one can refer to a past event with an attitude of ‘serene reflexion of the narrator which leaves it [the past] be’. Or, in the case of the other register of comment, one can make this communication about the ‘I’ of the

204

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

author who communicates with the ‘you’ of the reader. Weinrich deplores the fact the usual tense for this latter kind of communication is referred to with something like the ‘perfect’—in German Perfekt, in English, the present perfect.42 So when commenting with German Perfekt, ‘if, instead of narrating a past occurrence, one comments it, the matter is not about something completed (perfectum) but rather about something which belongs to my world in the same way something that I comment as a present or future occurrence belongs to my world; this is because I have to take care of it [the commented occurrence which is in the past, present, or future]. It is about a past in which I act, as I shape it with the same words I use to place the acts. And while commenting I shape the past, I move together my present and future: thus, once impressed, all this tension is far from the serene contemplation of the narrator, which in his narrated world he leaves it [the past] be’.43 Subsequent to his analysis of the German Perfekt, Weinrich passes to the English present perfect. He observes that in the work of Thornton Wilder, there are two sets of examples with present perfect which have two different time extensions. On the one hand, ‘there is a temporal relation with the present, where the results [of the action] reach into the present’; on the other hand, ‘there is no temporal relation with the present’. Here, Weinrich suggests that a theory that explains only the first circumstance44 is an incomplete explanation.45 His solution is that the present perfect marks comment retrospective because it englobes that relation between a past event having impact on a present situation but also because present perfect is the tense of ‘reporting’: ‘A report is a comment and, at the same time, retrospection.

This does not mean that the German Perfekt and the English present perfect are absolute equivalents: ‘Each tense is part of the temporal system of a given language, first, and only tense systems can be compared to one another’; Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 94. 43 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 87–88. 44 This theory has been espoused among others by Otto Jespersen, see discussion of Jespersen and others in Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 95–96. 45 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 102. 42

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 205 For this reason we find the present perfect with particular frequency in situations in which it reports something. They are similar situations to court hearings, so sometimes they can also include the story of the circumstances. But in fact, reporting an account is not narrating but commenting.’46 In his overall discussion, Weinrich explains that, in contrast with narrative (an ordinary temporal arrangement of events), by reporting the author adds to the relating of the facts a tensioned voice which instructs the reader to be sensitive to the deeper meaning of what is said. The court proceedings are an excellent example of this commented situation in which both sides of the case are involved, participants being keen on getting their interpretation of the events heard. I come to the second point of how the xqetal marks comment retrospective. The analysis in the coming two sections brings forth the fact that, with xqetal, the author introduces past information which is of special relevance for the reader. Such information is all the more important when life and death matters are discussed: before the moment when some people of Beth-shemesh die because they looked into the ark (Targum 1Samuel 6:19), by the use of three xqetal sentences, the biblical narrator explains the proper behaviour which is said to avoid such calamity (it is the Levites who are allowed to handle it, the people sacrifice, the foreigners watch). One cannot ignore the evidence that the ‘I’ of the narrator who warns the ‘you’ of the reader of the dire consequences of behaving irreverently. The poetry of Targum 1Samuel 4:10–11 As an initial test case, I discuss the xqetal sentences in Targum 1Samuel 4:11ab. After recounting the battle in 10abc, there is a sequence describing the impact of the battle. It contains two wqetal forms (10de, nonsequential wqetal forms) and two subject-qetal sentences recounting a further two losses (11ab: the Ark is lost and the two sons of Eli are killed). 1Samuel 4:10–1147

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ואגיחו קרבא פלשׁתאי‬10

46 Weinrich, Tempus.

And the Philistines did wage war.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 104.

47 The translation is by Staalduine-Sulman. Italics mark my modifications.

206 wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal wxqetal wxqatal

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC ‫ואתברו ישׁראל‬ ‫ואפכו גבר לקרווהי‬ ‫והות מחתא רבתא לחדא‬ ‫ואתקטלו מישׁראל תלתין‬ ‫אלפין גבר רגלי׃‬ ‫וארונא דיוי אשׁתבי‬11 ‫ותרין בני עלי אתקטלו חפני‬ ‫ופינחס׃‬

And Israel was shattered and they retreated, every man to his city. And it was a very great stroke,48 and there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. And the ark of the LORD has been captured; and the two sons of Eli have been killed, Hophni and Phinehas.

There is a certain poetry to this passage which resides in arranging the four ‘strokes’ in two syntactically parallel pairs: wqetal-wqetal-xqetalxqetal. The death of the two sons parallels that of the 30,000 men. The capture of the ark (11a) heightens the magnitude of the stroke (10d) as this is an object of great significance for Eli, the old priest. It is a personal loss for Eli as 4:13c confirms: ‘his heart trembled for the ark of the LORD’. Furthermore, the loss of the ark is listed as the reason of his death in 4:18: ‘When he [the messenger] mentioned the ark of the LORD, Eli fell backward […] his neck was broken and he died’ (Staalduine-Sulman’s translation). Moreover, the two xqetal are two ‘stubs’ with a specific prominence in the story. The xqetal in 11b closes Eli’s line of descendants as the two sons of Eli, the judge, could have challenged Samuel’s ascension as judge; furthermore, it fulfils the prophecies of 2:34 (‘Hophni and Phinehas: both of them shall be killed in one day’, Staalduine-Sulman’s translation). The other xqetal in 11a opens the story towards this being the cause of Eli’s death (4:18a) and towards the two narrative episodes in chapter 5 (plagues of Philistines as they have the ark) and chapter 6:1–7:1 (the return of the Ark). There is no narrative ‘head’ of wqetal for the xqetal in 11a. The wqetal recounting the death of 30,000 soldiers (4:10e) is not in a temporal connection with the loss of the Ark (11a). Consequently, the two In 4:17d, Staalduine-Sulman translates ‫ מחתא‬with ‘slaughter’. I think the more general ‘stroke’ is better. 48

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 207 xqetal in 11ab are practically ‘free’ from the preceding narrative register forms or from the narrative plot. In the sequence of events of the section (4:1–11), the loss of the ark and the death of the two men have the trait of exceptional losses rather than events constitutive to the plot. Being exceptional means, on the one hand, that the narrative register advancement of the plot can do without them; on the other, if they are included, then the author thought about the benefit of the reader because they make up a passageway to the other story of this episode (4:1–22) that is the death of Eli (12–18) and the birth of his nephew Ichabod (19–22). A similar sequence of two xqetal with the same comment retrospection function as that of Targum 1Samuel 4:11ab is found in 20:36ef.49 To sum up, the poetic arrangement of information in the overall passage, the prominence of these two xqetal forms, and the lack of a narrative head are strong indications that the xqetal sentences in 11ab mark the comment register. A further confirmation comes from how the two events of the loss of the Ark and the death of the two sons reoccur in the direct speech of 4:17 again in xqetal. Whereas in indirect speech it is the narrator who reports to the reader, in direct speech, the messenger reports to Eli what happened in the war. 1Samuel 4:1750

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol qetal qatal wxqetal wxqatal wxqetal wxqatal wxqetal wxqatal

‫ואתיב דמבסר‬ ‫ואמר‬ ‫אפך ישׁראל מן קדם‬ ‫פלשׁתאי‬ ‫ואף מחתא רבתא הות‬ ‫בעמא‬ ‫ואף תרין בנך אתקטלו‬ ‫חפני ופינחס‬ ‫וארונא דיוי אשׁתבי׃‬

He who brought the tidings answered and said, ‘Israel has retreated from before the Philistines, and there has also been a great stroke among the people; your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, have been killed and the ark of the LORD has been captured.’

49 See the xqetal sequence in 20:36ef ‫לאעברותיה׃‬

‫‘ עולימא רהט והוא שׁדא גירא‬the young man has run and he has shot the arrow beyond him’ (following Staalduine-Sulman, my modifications in italics). 50 Translation of Staalduine-Sulman.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The contrast between the narrative register account (wqetal, VSO) and the report in comment register (xqetal, SVO) is marked by the difference of word order. On one occasion (compare 4:10d and 4:17c), what was before recounted with a narrative wqetal sentences is turned into a comment with xqetal: • •

• •

Israel flees: wqetal narrative (VSO) in 10c; qetal narrative (VSO) in 17b; Great slaughter: wqetal narrative (VSO) in 10d; xqetal comment register (SVO) in 17c; 4:10d, ‫והות מחתא רבתא לחדא‬ ‘And it was a very great stroke’, versus 4:17c, ‫ואף מחתא‬ ‫‘ רבתא הות בעמא‬and there has also been a great stroke among the people;’ Hophni and Phinehas die: xqetal (SVO) in 11b; xqetal (SVO) in 17d; The ark is captured: xqetal in 11a; xqetal in 17e.

If the wording and the SVO word order of the 4:11ab are the same as in 4:17, it makes sense to ascertain as constant the syntactic value of xqetal in both direct and indirect speech; that xqetal is of the comment register should be evident irrespective of the type of speech where it occurs.51 To summarise, in support of the xqetal of comment register sentences in 4:11ab, I have developed the following comment traces: (1) poetical disposition of information; (2) prominence of the information for the current or the next episodes; (3) lack of narrative ‘head’; (4) similarity with attested comment passages; (5) and the presence of ‫ אף‬as also mark of comment given its repetition in 4:17.52

Staalduine-Sulman translates the xqetal sentence in 4:17 with the present perfect (‘your two sons also, have been killed and the ark of the LORD has been captured’) but with the narrative of English simple past in 4:11: ‘And the ark of the LORD was captured; and the two sons of Eli were killed’; Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel, 240 and 238. 52 Conversely, an analysis of direct speech would need to assert similar traces for narrative, when the form of communication is dialogue/direct speech. While narrative feels more at home in indirect speech, there is nothing to prevent it from being present in direct speech (see the narrative wqetal in 12:8b– 51

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 209 The xqetal sentence in 1Samuel In the following, I examine several cases of xqetal sentences which are in syntactic opposition, narrative foreground (part A) versus comment retrospective (part B).53 Part C briefly examines the remaining xqetal of comment retrospective and xqetal of narrative in Targum 1Samuel. Parts A and B deliberate on Targum 1Samuel 6:10–16, a fragment from an episode containing two panels which bring into focus the counsel of the Philistines regarding the ark (6:1–12) and its return to Israel (6:12–7:1). A. The two xqetal sentences in 6:10d and 6:14e indicate a semantic contrast/correlation with their narrative heads, 6:10c and 6:14d, respectively. Targum 1Samuel 6:10; 13bcd–1454

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal narrative contrast wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ ועבדו גבריא כין‬10

And the men did so,

‫ודברו תרתין תורן‬ ‫מינקן‬ ‫ואסרונון בעגלתא‬

and led two milk cows

‫וית בניהון כלו‬ ‫בביתא׃‬ ‫וזקפו ית עיניהון‬ ‫וחזו ית ארונא‬ ‫וחדיאו למחזי׃‬

and bound them to the cart, but shut up their calves at home. 13 b 13c

and they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark,

13 d

they rejoiced to see it.

10b and 11a–12c part of Samuel’s address to the people presenting his/God’s side of the story of Israel). 53 This comparison is based on Weinrich’s contrastive analysis of the narrative foreground and comment retrospective tenses; see above. 54 The translation follows that of Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel, 250. Her translation of 6:13bcd (‘and when they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it’) supposes that the first two wqetal forms in 13bc are subordinated to 13d.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

wxqetal wxqatal comment retrospection wqetal wayyiqtol nominal clause nominal clause wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal narrative contrast

‫ועגלתא אתת‬14 ‫לחקל יהושׁע דמבית‬ ‫שׁמשׁ‬ ‫וקמת תמן‬

The cart has gone to the field of Joshua, who was of Bethshemesh, and has stayed.

‫ ותמן אבנא רבתא‬And a great stone was there; ‫ וצלחו ית אעי‬and they split up the wood ‫ עגלתא‬of the cart ‫ וית תורתא אסיקו‬and sacrificed the cows as ‫ עלתא קדם יוי׃‬a burnt offering before the LORD.

In direct speech (verse 7cd, with two wyiqtul sentences), the Philistine priests instruct that the cows should be put on to the cart and their calves should be left at home. Subsequently, (1) the sequence of 10abcd (wqetal→wqetal→wqetal→w-object-qetal) contains the application of this advice. (2) The narrative thread of the cows and cart is picked up again in 14de with the same sequence (wqetal→w-object-qetal) relating that the cart is dismantled for wood and the cows are offered as burnt-offerings. The two object-qetal sentences (OVS) do not advance the narrative but expand it by bringing in an additional theme. I note two observations. First, the distribution of the three themes (cart, cows, and calves) in a wqetal and xqetal sentence does not suggest a foreground/background opposition. In 10cd, one could argue that the cows are more prominent (so this theme occurs in a wqetal) than the calves (hence, the use of an xqetal ‘background’); however, the same does not apply to 14de which distributes the cows in a ‘background’ xqetal (14e) and the cart in the foreground wqetal (14d). In fact, these two pairs of wqetal-xqetal are set in the foreground of the narrative register. The two xqetal (10d, 14e) are connected to the plot by their respective narrative heads (10c, 14d): • the narrative foreground develops from the wqetal of 10b and 10c and to the xqetal in 10d: ‘and they led two milk cows’ → ‘and bound them to the cart’ → ‘but shut up their calves at home’;

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES •

211

the narrative thread of the wqetal in 13d ‘they rejoiced to see it [the ark]’ is taken up by the wqetal and its xqetal (14de), ‘and they split up the wood […] and sacrificed the cows as burnt offering’; 13d and 14de share the same subject (the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh); this is possible because 14ab is of the comment register (see below).

B. Once the ark reaches Beth-shemesh, the story exchanges the narrating with reporting to the reader about four actors, all referred to with a xqetal sentence (SVO): • • • •

the cart (14a; it stops at a certain place); the Levites (15a; they take care of the Ark by putting it on a great stone according to their duty); the people of Bet-shemesh (15c; they offer a sacrifice); the Philistine captains (16a; they witness everything and leave).

These xqetal sentences are a ‘comment head’ for the following wqetal sentences (14b, 15b, 15d, and 16b) which provide progress of reporting. 1Samuel 6:13d–1655

wqetal wayyiqtol narrative wxqetal wxqatal comment wqetal wayyiqtol comment nominal clause nominal clause wqetal wayyiqtol narrative wxqetal wxqatal narrative

‫וחדיאו למחזי׃‬

they rejoiced to see it [the ark].

‫ועגלתא אתת‬14 ‫לחקל יהושׁע‬ ‫דמבית שׁמשׁ‬ ‫וקמת תמן‬

The cart has gone to the field of Joshua, who was of Bethshemesh, and has stayed there.

‫ותמן אבנא רבתא‬

And a great stone was there;

‫וצלחו ית אעי‬ ‫עגלתא‬

and they split up the wood of the cart

‫וית תורתא אסיקו‬ ‫עלתא קדם יוי׃‬

and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering before the LORD.

55 The translation follows Staalduine-Sulman with my modifications in italics.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

wxqetal wxqatal [nominal clause] comment wqetal wayyiqtol continues 15a wxqetal wxqatal Comment wqetal wayyiqtol continues 15c wxqetal wxqatal Comment wqetal wayyiqtol it continues 16a

‫וליואי אחיתו ית‬15 ‫ארונא דיוי וית‬ ‫תיבתא דעמיה‬ ‫דביה מני דהבא‬ ‫ושׁויאו על אבנא‬ ‫רבתא‬

And the Levites have taken down the ark of the LORD and the box that was with it, in which were the golden things, and have put them upon the great stone.

‫וגברי בית־שׁמשׁ‬ ‫אסיקו עלון‬ ‫ונכיסו נכסת קדשׁין‬ ‫ביומא ההוא קדם‬ ‫יוי׃‬ ‫וחמשׁא טורני‬16 ‫פלשׁתאי חזו‬

And the men of Beth-shemesh have sacrificed burnt offerings and have slaughtered holy sacrifices on that day before the LORD. And the five chiefs of the Philistines have seen,

‫ותבו לעקרון ביומא‬ ‫ההוא׃‬

and have returned that day to Ekron.

In the case of the first retrospective comment of 14ab, the SVO word order indicates the comment register. Several traces of comment are present: • •

trace (2) the arrival of the cart and its rest in the field of Joshua is prominent information; trace (3), the wqetal in 13d is not narrative head for 14a. The rejoicing in 13d is caused by and, hence, correlated with the previous events (the people lift up their eyes (13b), see (13c) the ark, and rejoice (13d)), not with the subsequent arrival of the ark in Joshua’s field in 14a.

This lack of the narrative head (trace (3)) applies to the other xqetal sentence between 6:14de–19a: 15ab, 15cd, 16ab. This is because the narrative foreground has as theme the people of Bet-shemesh (they are referred to simply as ‘Beth-shemesh’ in 13a)—they lift their heads, see and rejoice (13bcd)). This is followed by the wqetal-xqetal narrative sequence of 14de where the same people split the cart and offer the burnt offering. The same theme occurs in 19a where some of them are said to be killed because they have looked into the ark. This means that the

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES

213

events surrounding the other four actors (14ab, 15ab, 15cd, 16ab) are set aside from the narrative thread. Indeed, 15ab has as theme ‘the men of Beth-shemesh’, but it is more important that this sequence initiates with an SVO sentence of comment and has no narrative head to connect it to the plot. The following are the other comment traces of these SVO sentences. The context contains a redundancy (comment trace (6)): semantically, there are two sacrifices by the same people or men of Betshemesh (in 14de and 15cd) for the same event, the arrival of the ark. At text-syntactic level, however, the redundancy becomes less of an issue: what is told in a narrative sequence (14de, wqetal-xqetal) is re-told as comment register (15cd xqetal-wqetal). Translating redundant sentences according to their respective registers, and conducting an assessment of what the comment register achieves in the story insofar as it differs from the narrative, are the proper ways of dealing with biblical redundancy. Moreover, there is a slight discordance between 6:12e (xparticiple—the Philistine captains came as far as the border) and 6:16a (xqetal—the captains are present at the sacrifices and leave for Ekron). A narrator reporting on the events may share the information that they entered Beth-shemesh outside the narrative register and thus avoid a discordant note. It is noteworthy that 6:12e and 6:16ab share the comment register word order: the xparticiple in 6:12e is a comment zero degree. With 6:16ab, the narrator closes his own comment stub inserted before: the Philistine lords come to the border (12e) and are present at the sacrifices and leave for Ekron (16ab). This attests to the fact that the xqetal of comment recovers information which is subsidiary to the predominant narrative advancement of the plot, but provides the necessary bigger picture to the reader. This brings me to the particular meaning that this interpretation of xqetal of reporting brings to the fore. It is not obvious why the xqetal in 14a is of comment retrospective: a future analysis of its context might provide further evidence as to why this information is addressed to the reader as comment on the narrative. The other three xqetal and their respective wqetal are indeed a significant piece of reporting. With this report, the narrator aims to teach the reader. It is about how one should behave around the ark: the Levites (and only them, it is suggested) are responsible for its

214

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

handling (15ab); the men offer sacrifices in its presence (15cd); foreigners (here, the Philistine captains of 16ab) are allowed to be present at the sacrifices, but probably nothing more. These comment sentences gain particular significance (comment trace (2)) in view of what happens to those that do not behave according to this teaching: 19ab relates that death is the exemplary punishment applied to those who irreverently ignored the sanctity of the ark and looked inside. This analysis of 6:13–19 has brought out two important functions of xqetal: • one as contrast/correlation with a wqetal as narrative head— they are both narrative (6:10cd and 6:14de); the semantic contrast/correlation binds them together as narrative; • one as comment register head followed by a wqetal of continuation (14ab, 15ab, 15cd, 16ab). Before listing the remaining xqetal comment and xqetal narrative instances in Targum 1Samuel, I introduce traces of comment (7), (8) and (12). A recurrent particle associated with SVO sentences (xqetal and xparticiple) in TA is ‫והא‬, which is usually translated with ‘and behold’. I consider that (7) ‫ והא‬is a particle marking the comment register. Niccacci has raised the profile of this particle with his analysis of its BH equivalent ‫ ְוִה ֵנּה‬. He claims that this particle is a ‘macro-syntactic marker’ whose function is ‘to link the past or present event very closely to the actual moment/time of the discourse. Without ‫הנה‬, the same event would be introduced as information of no significance for the actual moment of communication’. 56 Previous research by Schneider, however, considers ‫( ִה ֵנּה‬and its other variant of ‫ )ֵהן‬to be marking ‘the start of the speech’ and it occasionally may lead ‘to the main point of the speech’. In both these instances, I take the word ‘speech’ employed by Schneider as the more suitable descriptor as it recognises that ‫ ִה ֵנּה‬has some sort of comment function.57 Although proper examination of the instances of this particle in comment passages is required, I believe that ‫ והנה‬and its TA equivalent, ‫והא‬, is associated 56 Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose

§67, p. 96. 57 W. Schneider and R. L. McKinion [tr], Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (New York: Peter Lang, 2001/2016), §54.1, p. 235.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES

215

with the comment register because, by instigating an attentive look from the reader (‘behold’), it affects an involved communication between the writer and the reader. This semantic meaning of ‫ והא‬is certainly opposed to the serene outline of information of the narrative register. The traces (8) and (12) take into account the referential function of narrative. The seminal work on narrative by Labov and Waletzky argues that besides the evaluative function (and the four types of narrative sentence: narrative, coordinated, free, and restricted), sentences gain a referential function within the text in function of their position, from the beginning of the text to the end. Crucial for my argument are the referential values of the orientation and coda or the prelude/antefatto58 and postlude. In Chapter 6 dedicated to the biblical episode, I explain that an episode having wqetal as an initial sentence or prelude is very likely to be in temporal sequence with the ending of the preceding episode. The narrative passes smoothly from one episode to another and wqetal is the normal sentence form in prelude narrative. However, when xqetal or xparticiple is employed in prelude instead, the narrator indicates to the reader that the current episode breaks from the narrative of the previous one. So, I propose trace (8), which reflects this manifested intervention into the narrative register instructing the reader about this change, and trace (12) which points to the other prominent position in the episode: • (8), the presence of SVO in the prelude is a trace of comment register; • (12), postlude or end-of-episode position of a SVO sentence is a trace of the comment register. C. I analyse remaining xqetal sentences in Targum 1Samuel as follows (the numbers in parentheses mark the comment traces that apply): 1. Comment retrospective: • 3:1b: (3), (2)—it shows how rare the vision of Samuel was in those days;

58 With regard to biblical prose, the term ‘prelude’ has already been developed

(to a certain extent) by Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, §19, p. 40, and §27–29, pp. 48–51.

216

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC •

•

• •

•

•

5:3b and the sequence in 5:4b–5: they are introduced by (7) ‫ ;והא‬there is no narrative head (3); regarding trace (2): they explain the state in which the people of Ashdod find the idol and that the destruction of their idol is one of the main ‘plagues’ which begins the transfer of the ark to Gath; 5:12a has (3) no narrative head and displays a type of (6) redundancy as the mention of death in 11g (‫ארי הות שׁגושׁ‬ ‫‘ קטלא בכל קרתא‬For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city’) is repeated somewhat unnecessarily in 12a (‫‘ וגבריא דלא מיתו‬The men who did not die’). The content of the ensuing wqetal (‫ )וסליקת צוחת קרתא לצית שׁמיא‬also contributes as reporting on the gravity of the plague, rather than narrating events. This comment of the narrator in 12ab with xqetal-wqetal suggests that the reader should note that the haemorrhoids made it even worse for those who survived death. My suggested translation is (following Staalduine Sulman’s translation) ‘The men who did not die have been stricken with haemorrhoids, and the cry of the city has gone up toward heaven’; 11:5a with ‫( והא‬7); 28:3abcd is a comment register communication with xqetal with three continuative wqetal because: 28:3a has (3) no narrative head, (2) it offers the first justification (Samuel is dead) for Saul’s appealing to a diviner; also it has a poetical disposition of information as the lamentation of the people is repeated (see 3b and 3d); LXX interprets 28:3c (only) with present tense (θάπτουσιν) ‘they bury him in Ramah’ which means comment register with a zero degree; 28:3e: (3); it displays trace of prominence (2) because it offers the second justification (diviners were banned from the country; again, Samuel was dead) for Saul’s appealing to a diviner to get answers to his questions; 17:20f (it recounts the movement of Saul’s troops to the battle line) is comment retrospective because it lacks a narrative head (3); the previous wqetal refers to David’s getting to his brothers’ camp so there is no contrast or correlation between Saul’s troops and David’s visit;

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 217 •

Chapter 14 presents a number of xqetal sentences of comment retrospective:59 o 14:16b: the context of this xqetal displays: (2) prominence of information; (3) lack of narrative head; and (7) ‫והא‬: ‫‘ והא המון משׁרית פלשׁתאי אתבר‬and behold, the multitude of the Philistine camp has been broken’. The text reverts to the narrative participle (VSO) in 16c (‘and its breaking grew more and more.’); this participle does not share the morphology of the preceding xqetal and lacks a coordinate waw; o 14:20c–23ab. These are the occurring traces: trace (7) ‫והא‬ in 20c; in 21c there is ‫( אף‬5); 23b is the end of the episode (trace (8)). 14:20c–23 is very similar to the xqetal-wqetal sequence of 6:15ab (Levites), 6:15cd (men of Bethshemesh) and 6:16ab (the Philistine captains), as they comment on what the actors of the narrative do: ▪ the lack of unity between the people in the Philistine camp (20c): ‘and behold, every man’s sword has been against his fellow, and there has been very great confusion’; ▪ the Hebrews that sided with the Philistines at first (21ab: two xqetal sentences): ‘Now [some] Jews have been for the Philistines, like yesterday and before as they60 had gone up with them into the camp round about, even they have turned to be with Israel, who were with Saul and Jonathan’; ▪ and the Hebrews on Mount Ephraim (22abc: 22a xqetal; 22b subordinate sentence to 22a; the wqetal in 22c is comment as it continues the comment xqetal of 22a); translation of 22a–c: ‘And when all the men of Israel who had hidden themselves in the hill country of the House of Ephraim have heard […] even they have pressed after them in battle’ ▪ the wqetal in 23a also continues the xqetal in 22a so it comments: ‘And the LORD has saved Israel that day.’

I use Staalduine-Sulman’s wording throughout these coming examples with italics to indicate my modifications. 60 I deleted ‘and those’ and ‘who’ in Staalduine Sulman’s translation. 59

218

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC ▪ the xqetal in 23b (‘And the wagers of the war have reached Bethaven’) reiterates the comment retrospective function of the entire construction between 22a–23b. o 14:24a is a prelude xqetal of comment retrospective, see Chapter 6, section ‘Further sentence types in prelude position,’ for analysis; o 14:25ab (xqetal-wqetal) is comment ‫וכל דירי ארעא עלו‬ ‫‘ בחרשׁא והוה דבשׁא על אפי חקלא‬And all the inhabitants of the land have entered the forest, and there is61 honey on the surface of the field’. 25a shows a SVO word order (25b is wqetal continuative) and the following comment traces: (6) redundant information with 14:26ab (the same information—the people go into the wood, there is honey—is reported); (3) there is no narrative head; (2) this is prominent information—it introduces the temptation which the people resist—as, in 14:24, Saul made a vow that nobody would eat before the battle. The redundancy is so flagrant in the context of 14:26 that 25ab (so the entire verse) could have been omitted with no loss of information; see the rendering of 14:24e–26ab: ‘So none of the people tasted any food […] And when the people came into the forest, behold, a stream of honey …’; o 14:47a62 is a comment xqetal because of its SVO word order and the existence of the following traces: (8) prelude of the second panel in the episode (see Annex 1); it contains (2) prominent of information and (3) lacks a narrative head. Verse 47 is a comment-only verse: 47b (wqetal) is comment because it continues 47a; 14:47c (xparticiple)63 is comment zero degree: ‘Saul has prospered… has waged battle. In wherever [place] he is turning, he is making the place tributary’. In 48a narrative resumes with wqetal foreground.

61 The verb

to be prevents the present perfect of comment retrospect, so the zero degree comment is its closest equivalent. 62 LXX has the present tense: καὶ Σαουλ κατακληροῦται. 63 See Chapter 5, section ‘Comment anticipation and background: TA xyiqtul and xparticiple’.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 219 •

1Samuel 25:14a and 25:21a. o The xqetal sentence of 25:14a supports a direct speech passage in which a servant informs Abigail about the refusal of her husband Nabal to respond to the request of David. This is prominent information (trace (2)): having this information, Abigail reacts by interceding in front of David. Moreover, 25:14a is not subsequent to the preceding narration which already shows the preparations of David to punish Nabal. This means that there is no contrastive/correlative relation between 14a and the preceding narrative sequence of wqetal (13ef: presents 400 men ready to attack and 200 standing by the luggage) so trace (3) (lack of narrative head in wqetal) occurs; o the xqetal in 25:21a is comment retrospective because it displays: trace (2), the sentence introduced prominently that David speaks to a woman, Abigail; and trace (3), there is no semantic contrast between the ‘Abigail met them’ and David’s act of speaking; in this case, by employing the comment xqetal, the author instructs the reader that it was David who spoke first when Abigail meets him.

2. Narrative variation to wqetal:

In the initial list of xqetal comment retrospective, more of them were analysed as such based on the above-mentioned traces. Nevertheless, resorting to a broader interpretation of the term ‘contrast’ to include the overall context (not only the preceding wqetal) resulted in recognising that xqetal may display contrast/correlation with a surrounding wqetal sentence. Besides translating the contrastive/correlative sequence with past tense, the xqetal and its narrative head should be connected with an appropriate conjunction (‘while’ ‘but’, ‘in contrast’, etc.). • •

19:1b: the xqetal shows Jonathan who is very fond of David, which is in contrast with 1a where Saul plots to kill David; 30:9c xqetal: there is no contrast between 9c and 9b (all the men of David went to up to river of Besor); however, the

220

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

•

•

•

•

contrast occurs with 30:10a, where only 400 out of 600 men pursue the enemy along with David; 18:25e xqetal: the contrast is with the direct speech (that is 25bcd, which is rheme of 18:25a): overtly, Saul offers his daughter’s hand in marriage; covertly, he hopes David would be killed in the attempt; 24:8c: the xqetal sentence (Saul exits the cave) is in connection with narrative head wqetal in 24:8a (David and his men remain in the cave); these two pieces of information are divided by 8b (David prevents his men from attacking)—the connection is less of contrast, but 8c is still narrative; the wqetal 37d ‫‘ ומית לביה במעוהי‬And his heart died within him’ is narrative head for 25:37e xqetal ‫‘ והוא הוה כאבנא‬and he became like a stone’; along with its narrative head, the xqetal in 37e describes the death of Nabal; the three xqetal sentences in 25:42d, 25:43a and 25:44 are in the narrative register. Their narrative trait derives from the presence of a narrative head (the translations follow the wording of Staalduine-Sulman with my modifications in italics): o 42c wqetal ‫‘ ורכיבת על חמרא‬and [Abigail] mounted on an ass’ and xqetal 42d ‫‘ וחמישׁ עולימתהא אזלן לקבלה‬while her five young women went alongside her’; o 42f wqetal ‫‘ והות ליה לאתו‬and she [Abigail] became his [David’s] wife’ and xqetal 43a ‫וית אחינעם נסיב דויד‬ ‫‘ מיזרעאל‬but/while David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel’; o and 43b wqetal ‫‘ והואה אף תרויהון ליה לנשׁין׃‬And both of them were his wives’ and xqetal 44 ‫ושׁאול יהב ית מיכל‬ ‫‘ ברתיה אתת דויד לפלטי בר לישׁ דמגלים׃‬but Saul gave Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim’; the xqetal in 25:44 is particularly difficult not to analyse as comment retrospective given its prominent position at the end of this episode; however, the contrast with the narrative head in 43a takes precedence as the episode is not about Saul and David, but about David and Abigail.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 221 o Further evidence of their connection is that these xqetal sentences share common topics: 42d shares the topic of ‘Abigail preparations’; 43a and 44a, ‘wife of David’. The comment zero degree: the xparticiple sentence; the xparticiple and xqetal combination

The xparticiple sentence Deriving from its SVO/OVS word order, the xparticiple is a comment zero degree sentence or a sentence that comments without retrospection or anticipation. Its evaluation is made difficult by the fact that, while allocating generous space in his Tempus to comment retrospective,64 Weinrich discusses only briefly the comment zero degree. He begins by recasting Käte Hamburger’s comparison of the functions of the (comment) present tense and the (narrative) Präteritum: ‘we narrate a story, a novel, a short-story with Präteritum (in Italian with imperfetto and passato remoto), but we always summarise the content in present tense’.65 From the comedies of Plautus up to the modern novels and dramatic works, Weinrich notes, there are few exceptions to the rule that summaries make use of present tense.66 However, ‘the problem of present, and consequently of all tenses in group I [that is the comment register tenses], cannot be solved based on the isolated case of summary of a novel’. He subsequently pleads for text-linguistic reading of this tense distribution: ‘a passage like the summary of a novel in a living language does not appear isolated’ but it serves, ‘unless one uses it with the modest aim of refreshing the memory, as basis for comment of a literary work; the one who has composed it cannot surely aspire to tell badly and in two words a story which has been already told well and in all its details. A summary is not a Reader’s There is a separate unit on the German Perfekt, the French passé composé, the Italian passato prossimo, and the Spanish perfecto compuesto, with two sections for the English present perfect; see Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 78–118. 65 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 57; Weinrich refers here to K. Hamburger, ‘Das epische Präteritum’, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 27, No. 3 (1953), 352. 66 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 57. 64

222

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Digest. Rather, the one who writes it wishes to comment on the literary work or to offer other people the opportunity to comment […]. Then, the ensuing context identifies the summary as part of a comment situation.’67 There are several points that are worth repeating in his overall explanation. First, that the past and present tenses do not mark some sort of real-time situation. Second, the present tense of comment has a meaning in text and its function is derived from the text. Third, that the main purpose of the present tense is to bring out the voice of the narrator who addresses the readership with comments on the story. Commenting may have the simplest of purposes as that of ‘refreshing the memory’. The following argument studies particular issues raised by the TA xparticiple; given the similarity in tense and word order with TA; this should broadly apply to its equivalent in BH, the xparticiple (and in some cases, the BH xyiqtol). Taking into account the results of the preceding chapters on TA wqetal and wparticiple, I begin by establishing a base line against which the xparticiple is to be defined. This reflects Hamburger and Weinrich’s procedure which opposes the more discernible function of the narrative Präteritum to the more perplexing one of present tense. The wqetal and wparticiple sentences have the ability to structure events in temporal juncture; this juncture is a narrative phenomenon observed and theorised by Labov and Waletzky. I comparatively examine 21:13–15a (a sequence of wqetal and wparticiple) and occurrences of wqetal in 17:52–53 and of wparticiple in 16:23. While wqetal and wparticiple may or may not arrange events in temporal juncture, this arrangement is absent in the events structured with multiple xparticiple sentences; in turn, the absence of the temporal juncture is an indication of the comment syntactic value of xparticiple. 1Samuel 21:13–15a68

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ושׁוי דויד ית פתגמיא‬13 ‫האלין בלבה‬ ‫ודחיל לחדא מן קדם אכישׁ‬ ‫מלכא דגת׃‬

67 Weinrich, Tempus.

And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 59, his italics. Targum of Samuel.

68 The translation of Staalduine-Sulman, The

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 223 wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wparticiple wayyiqtol wparticiple wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ושׁני ית מדעיה בעיניהון‬14 ‫ואשׁתמם בידהון‬ ‫ומסריט על דשׁי תרעא‬ ‫ומחית ריריה על דקניה׃‬ ‫ואמר אכישׁ לעבדוהי‬15

So he changed his intelligence in their sight and feigned himself mad in their hands. He would make marks on the doors of the gate and would let his spittle run down his beard. Then Achish said to his servants

The wparticiple sequences of 16:23 (when the evil spirit visits Saul, David plays his instrument, Saul feels better, the spirit leaves) are in temporal juncture; a change in their order would create a different story. By contrast, in 21:14cd, a similar change would not have any impact on the story as any of the two (the scribbling on doors or the running of saliva) may come first without modifying their overall interpretation. The same contrast between wqetal sentences with and without temporal juncture is visible between 17:52–53 (Israel and Judah raise and follow/fight the Philistines, the Philistines fall, and the sons of Israel return to spoil their camp) and 21:13ab. In the latter passage, the story stays the same if the two events were switched (the taking of the words to heart before David’s fear of Achish). With these examples in mind, I formulate three theoretical propositions for xparticiple. i. Trace of comment (9): the absence of temporal juncture. As seen above, the wparticiple and wqetal sentences are used for both temporally sequenced events and for lists of events (temporal juncture disappears).69 By contrast, the temporal juncture is absent in sequences of xparticiple;70 this is evidence that temporal juncture is excluded in those sequences in which xparticiple occurs. This is not to say that there is no difference between wqetal and wparticiple: the incidence of temporal juncture is significantly higher in the wqetal than in the wparticiple sentence. 70 The same lack of temporal junction verifies for xqetal (SVO/OVS): (1) ‘contrast’ xqetal forms, though assimilated to wqetal because of their strong 69

224

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC 1Samuel 29:1–371

wqetal wayyiqtol wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol xparticiple wxyiqtol xparticiple wxyiqtol xparticiple wxyiqtol [conjunctionparticiple]

‫וכנשׁו פלשׁתאי ית כל‬1 ‫משׁריתהון לאפק‬ ‫וישׁראל שׁרן בעין‬ ‫דביזרעאל׃‬

Now the Philistines gathered all their forces at Aphek. And Israel is encamping by the fountain which is in Jezreel. 2 ‫ וטורני פלשׁתאי עברין‬The chiefs of the Philistines ‫ למאון ולאלפין‬are passing on by hundreds and by thousands, ‫ ודויד וגברוהי עברין‬and David and his men are ‫ בבתריתא עם אכישׁ׃‬passing on in the rear with Achish. 3 ‫ ואמרו רברבי פלשׁתאי‬The commanders of the Philistines said 1Samuel 13:17–18 ‫ונפק מחבלא ממשׁרית‬17 And the destroyer came out ‫ פלשׁתאי תלת משׁרין‬of the camp of the Philistines in three armies: ‫ משׁריתא חדא מתפניא‬one army is turning toward ‫ לאורח עפרה לארע‬Ophrah to the land of the ‫ דרומא׃‬South; ‫ומשׁריתא חדא מתפניא‬18 another army is turning to‫ לאורח בית חורון‬ward Beth-horon, ‫ ומשׁריתא חדא מתפניא‬and another army is turning ‫ לאורח תחומא‬toward the border that looks ‫ דמסתכי לחלת אפעיא‬down on the Valley of the ‫ למדברא׃‬Hyenas, on the wilderness.

narrative connection with their narrative form, never exhibit a temporal juncture between themselves or with their narrative head (see the examples in the section ‘Narrative contrast/correlation: xqetal’ of Chapter 5); (2) being comment retrospective, the xqetal sequences are also not concerned with temporal juncture, even though they may display it. The lack of temporal juncture, I think, is a substantial difference between the VSO (wqetal and wparticiple) and SVO/OVS (x-verb) sentences. Even if comment reports temporally sequenced events, the temporal juncture is only a by-product of reporting, not an aim or a substantial constituent of the comment register. 71 The translation of Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel; the italics indicate my modifications.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 225

wqetal wayyiqtol xparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple wqetal wayyiqtol

1Samuel 26:7–8a ‫ואתא דויד ואבישׁי לות‬7 So David and Abishai went ‫ עמא בליליא‬to the people by night. ‫ והא‬And behold, ‫ שׁאול שׁכיב דמוך‬Saul lies sleeping within the ‫ בכרקומא‬bulwarks,

‫ומורניתיה נעיצא בארעא‬ ‫איסדוהי‬ ‫ואבנר ועמא שׁרן‬ ‫סחרנוהי׃‬ ‫ואמר אבישׁי לדויד‬8

and his spear is stuck in the ground at his head, and Abner and the people encamp around him. Then said Abishai to David,

In 29:1b–2, the sequence of xparticiple has no temporal juncture–the location of any of the three parties could have come first (Israel, Philistines and David). The same is valid for the sequence of 13:17b–18ab which lists the three places to which the ‘destroyer’ spreads. Again, the events recorded in 26:7–8a have no temporal juncture as they contain a description of what David sees (Saul sleeping, his spear, and Abner and the people around him). The point of the xparticiple is not to show simultaneity or some other type of real-time relationship with the surrounding wqetal sentence; this simultaneity is a by-product of their simple juxtaposition with the preceding and the subsequent wqetal (see 26:7a and 8a). This is because there is no alternative way of reading the event of Saul sleeping or the position of his spear other than being simultaneous with these two wqetal. Instead, given its comment function, the xparticiple requires a state of ‘participation’ or a particular openness towards pondering the meaning of the details they convey. Specifically, xparticiple is generally connected to the background arm of comment. I return to this point in the next section, although I concede that a broader elucidation of the theory of foregrounding in the commented world of the Hebrew Bible and its translations (like the Targum) would require further wrestling with passages that are predominantly of comment, i.e. direct speech.

226

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

ii. It is a fact that TA almost invariably displays the narrative wparticiple whenever the Hebrew Bible presents a wqatal.72 From the above examples of 29:1–3, 13:17b–18ab and 26:7–8a, I derive another crucial observation that the TA xparticiple translates the BH xparticiple.73 There is a hidden morphological difference between TA wparticiple and TA xparticiple—that is the narrated and commented usages of participle, respectively: while in TA the only visible distinction between wparticiple and xparticiple seems to be that of word order, their underlying BH sentences illustrate that this distinction is further marked by the morphologic opposition between the BH wqatal and xparticiple. This, in fact, amounts to another trace of comment (10) the morphological opposition present in BH between wqatal, on the one hand, and the xparticiple and xyiqtol, on the other. This affirmation is based on the fact that any given example of TA wparticiple or xparticiple in 1Samuel is a reflection of the forms it translates, a BH wqetal or xparticiple. While trace (9) may apply to xqetal, trace (10) belongs exclusively to Aramaic xparticiple. iii. As there are only so many narrative and comment functions in all languages, the comment status of xparticiple may be exposed, based on the progress made so far in explaining the other TA sentence types. Thus, the TA xparticiple sentence cannot convey the following syntactic functions: • narrative foreground and background (see wqetal and wparticiple); 72 This is evident from the tables containing the analysis of wqetal and wpar-

ticiple (see the right column). For convenience, these are the observed parallelisms between MT and Targum in Chapter 3 focused on wparticiple: wayyiqtol→wqetal: 1Samuel 21:13–15a; 27:8ab; 19:23ab; 14:52a; 5:6–7a; 1:14a; 7:14ac, 15a, 17d; wqatal→wparticiple: 1Samuel 2:15; 14:52b; 2:19b; 16:23bcd and 23f; 7:16abc; wayyiqtol→wparticiple (less present): 1Samuel 19:23cd; 14:52c; 1:10b—the impact of this deviation which converts BH narrative foreground (wayyiqtol) to Targum Aramaic background (wparticiple) is to create a more lento narrative. 73 There are only a handful of TA xparticiple translating MT xyiqtol in 1Samuel: 14:47c; 18:5b; 1:7bc and 13:17c–18ab. These TA xparticiple have the same background comment as any other xparticiple. I discuss them in a separate section along with the 5 forms of xyiqtul in Targum 1Samuel (indirect speech), in section 5.3 of Chapter 5.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 227 • narrative retrospection (‫ כד‬with qetal sentence) or comment retrospection (there is xqetal of comment retrospective), or comment anticipation (none of the xparticiple in Targum 1Samuel are of anticipation); The remaining possible syntactic equivalent is the comment zero degree which, in view of the examples below, should have a relievo, that is comment foreground and background. Now, in light of the previous paragraph, I record a correspondence that the morphology of the TA wparticiple and xparticiple implies, namely relievo. If wparticiple is the background of the narrative register, xparticiple should be the background of the comment register. This correspondence is derived from their morphological base, the participle. As I shall argue below, this background relievo of xparticiple is mostly relevant when a foreground comment sentence (an xqetal) is also present. I pass to the examination of Targum 1Samuel 24:4–5, 19:20, and 22:9. The xparticiple generally introduces incidental information. The term ‘incidental’ means that the information is there only for the benefit of the reader, as it has little contribution to the narrative plot. More often than not, the xparticiple add either an explanation/clarification (which, in translation, can even be inserted in parenthesis) or necessary information for the understanding of the plot. The presence of an xparticiple makes little or no difference to the sequence which advances from the wqetal sentence preceding the xparticiple to the one succeeding. Generally, the xparticiple does not contain an event which is part of the narrative structure. A list with a brief analysis of the other xparticiple sentences follows at the end of this section. In 24:4–5, the xparticiple in 4d introduces information necessary for the understanding of the section. Because it is not evident from the narrative in the episode so far that David was in the cave when Saul enters, the narrator has the option of either inserting this particular information narratively with wparticiple or in comment with xparticiple. What is the impact of choosing the latter option?

228

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC 1Samuel 24:4–5a74

wqetal wayyiqtol nominal sentence nominal sentence wqetal wayyiqtol wxparticiple wxparticiple wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ואתא לחטרי ענא דעל‬4 ‫אורחא‬ ‫ותמן מערתא‬

And he came to the sheepfolds that were by the road, where there was a cave.

‫ועל שׁאול למעבד‬ ‫צורכיה‬ ‫ודויד וגברוהי בסיפי‬ ‫מערתא יתבין׃‬

And Saul went in to relieve himself; and David and his men are dwelling in the innermost parts of the cave. And the men of David said to him

‫ואמרו גברי דויד ליה‬5

To explain what the sentences in 24:2–4abc do, they contain a narrative communication in wqetal about Saul (third person). The ‘I’ of the narrator and the ‘you’ of the reader are not involved in the narrative communication and this distant communication could have gone undisturbed if the story were composed only from a sequence of wqetal from 4c–5a (‘And Saul went in to relieve himself. And the men of David said to him [David]’). This narrative communication is briefly switched to a comment communication about David (again third person, he and his men are in the cave!). Hence, by way of this xparticiple, the ‘I’ of the narrator engages with the ‘you’ of the reader(s) by imparting relevant information so that the ‘you’ of the reader may become aware of the urgency of the situation. 75 This xparticiple does not contain a momentous plot movement of the characters as they carry on doing whatever they were doing before the xparticiple: David has already seen that Saul entered the cave and goes on with his dialogue; for his part, Saul remains unaware of the danger. This means xparticiple has nothing to with the plot (again, conveying the plot is the attribute of narrating not of commenting). I modified the translation of Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel. She translates ‘while David and his men were dwelling in the innermost parts of the cave’ with past continuous which would require a wparticiple instead of xparticiple. 75 Discerning clearly the presence of ‘I’ and ‘you’ or first and second persons is paramount for determining the comment trait of a passage; Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 27–26 and 37–39. 74

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 229 It is important for the reader to know about David before the story continues. Overall, the xparticiple in 4d is a clarification of the question ‘how was Saul put in danger by entering the cave?’ or a statement of fact (David is in the cave), both enough to generate a comment situation. This is in contrast with the normal question that narrative sentence usually answer, ‘what happened next?’. It is hardly a surprise that this change from narrative to comment communication is so short; as Weinrich explains: ‘The “I” of the narrator abandons for a moment the narrative [linguistic] attitude to turn the readers with some remarks on narrative. [...] we mean that the narrative is interrupted with an interpolation and the “I” of this text takes the opportunity to comment the circumstances of the “case”.’76 In 1Samuel 19:20, the xparticiple in 20c (‘and Samuel is standing teaching them’) introduces incidental information addressed to the reader. It is up to the interpretative skills of the reader to unlock the commented meaning of this sentence; what I think is important to note is the text does not suggest that the messengers of Saul know who Samuel is. 1Samuel 19:2077

wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wxparticiple wxparticiple wqetal wayyiqtol

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ושׁלח שׁאול אזגדין למדבר‬ ‫ית דויד‬ ‫וחזו ית סיעת ספריא‬ ‫משׁבחין‬ ‫ושׁמואל קאים מליף עליהון‬ ‫ושׁרת על אזגדי שׁאול רוח‬ ‫נבואה מן קדם יוי‬

‫ושׁבחו אף אנון׃‬

And Saul sent messengers to take David, they saw the company of teachers singing, and Samuel is standing teaching them, and a spirit of prophecy from before the LORD resided upon the messengers of Saul, and they also praised.

Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 26; the italics as in the original. 77 The translations in this table follow the wording of Harrington and Saldarini, The Aramaic Bible 10: Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets, 139. 76

230

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The text is clear that the messengers see the band of scribes 20b as there is a mark of accusative (‫ )ית‬which introduces the scribes as object. However, it cannot be taken for granted that they also see Samuel leading them; the first indication is that mark of the accusative ‫ ית‬is absent before 20c.78 There is little evidence that that these messengers know who Samuel was, so it is precipitate to think that they recognised Samuel among the scribes. There is also the fact that 20c is a SVO sentence which means that the sentence does not narrate (as 20b does) but comments. By the xparticiple, the narrator instructs that the reader should engage or take a more participative stance when receiving it by interpreting it in its context. Because this xparticiple introduces Samuel and a manifestation of the spirit follows in 20d, this sentence must have something to do with that. Interventions of God were known to be very scarce before the time of Samuel. So, the biblical narrator needs to explain why, for example, in Targum 1Samuel 3:1 the visions were said to be rare occurrences, but they abound with prophetic praising over three different groups of people (19:20de, 21c, and 21e). Samuel is mentioned in xparticiple to make the occurrence of the spirit more credible for the readers and point to him as the one who had summoned the spirit over these people. The passage opens and then closes with Samuel: in the end, led by the same prophetic spirit, Saul striped his clothes and prophesied in front of none other than Samuel (19:23–24). The incidental trait of xparticiple is most visible in 22:9, where it occurs within a hendiadic wqetal pair of 9ac (‫‘—)ואתיב ]…[ ואמר‬answered and said’. The xparticiple of 22:9b is a typical comment sentence in which, as Weinrich would say, the biblical narrator aims for ‘refreshing the memory’ by reminding who Doeg is (see 21:7). Again, this xparticiple is not part of the narrative thread but an explicatory address to the reader. 78 Staalduine-Sulman’s translation suggests accusative: ‘(20b) And when they

saw the company of scribes praising, (20c) and Samuel standing as teacher over them, (20d) a prophetic spirit from before the LORD dwelt on them,’ see Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel, 399. My main objection is that 20b and 20d display the same wqetal form which suggests coordination not subordination.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES

231

1Samuel 22:979

wqetal ‫ואתיב דאג אדומאה‬9 And Doeg the Edomite wayyiqtol answered, wxparticiple ‫ והוא ממנא על עבדי שׁאול‬he80 is appointed over wxparticiple the servants of Saul, wqetal ‫ ואמר‬and he said: wayyiqtol Direct speech: Doeg tells about David’s visit to Nob

In these three examples, the narrator feels he should intervene in narrative with a comment xparticiple introducing characters or circumstances which aid the understanding of the plot. They all display at least four out of ten comment traces we already outlined: (10) morphological opposition of narrative and comment; (9) lack of temporal juncture with the surrounding wqetal forms—a sign of this absence is the fact that the sentence in question (here that Doeg had a certain rank in Saul’s household) is free to move up and down the plot without the story being significantly changed; and (2) prominence of the information for their respective episode. The analysis of the texts under examination in this section (in the first instance: 29:1–3, 13:17b–18ab, 26:5, 7–8a and then 24:4–5a; 19:20; 22:9) is evidence for the fact that the (11) the incidental feature of a sentence is trace of comment. The same comment word order and a number of corroborating traces of comment are found in the following examples of xparticiple: • 4:15b: ‘and his eyes are setting’: (2) because he is blind and cannot walk freely, Eli asks what is the noise; (3) lack of narrative head, (9) lack of temporal juncture, trace (10) the opposition between narrative (BH wqatal) and comment (BH participle/yiqtol) is not present as MT 4:15b shows a xqatal; (11) incidental value; • the two xparticiple 6:12e–13a explain in comment who accompanies the ark to the city of Bet-shemesh and what its inhabitants do as the ark approaches. These xparticiple 79 The translations in this table follow the wording of Harrington and Saldarini,

The Aramaic Bible 10: Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets, 139. 80 I deleted the preceding ‘and’ in the translation of Harrington-Saldarini which was standing for the initial ‫ו‬.

232

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

•

•

•

sentences display the following traces: prominence of information (trace (2)) as they introduce two characters which are going to feature in the second part of the episode (the people of Bet-shemesh and the Philistine captains (see 6:16a)). The translation is: ‘and the chiefs of the Philistines are going after them as far as the border of Bet-shemesh and Bet-shemesh are harvesting the wheat harvest in the valley’; 18:10d and 19:9bd: Saul’s first and third attempt to kill David (the translations follow Staalduine-Sulman with my modifications in italics: o the xparticiple in 18:10d displays prominence (trace (2)) as it introduces David in the episode (Staalduine-Sulman’s wording): ‫‘ ודויד מנגין בידיה כיום ביום‬And David is playing [the lyre] with his hand …’; o the xparticiple sentences in 19:9bd refer in comment the place where the attack takes place and what David is doing (trace (2)): ‫‘ והוא בביתיה יתיב‬and he is sitting in his house’ and ‫‘ ודויד מנגין ביד‬while David is playing the lyre with [his] hand’; these xparticiple forms contain the following comment traces: (3), (9), (10), (11) this is incidental information as David is the target of Saul’s attack; 17:2: (2) it indicates the position of the Israel and the Philistines (see Staalduine-Sulman wording: she uses past simple, Harrington-Saldarini, past continuous): ‘And the Philistines are staying on the mountain on the one hand, and Israel are standing on the mountain on the other side’; this xparticiple is comment of the presence traces (3), (9), (10), (11); 22:6df ‘Saul is sitting at Gibeah […] and all his servants are standing about him’: (2) it presents Saul’s location; (3), (9), (10), (11) incidental value.

Now, I answer the question of whether xparticiple displays a use like that of contrast/correlative narrative xqetal. The only example in 1Samuel of the sequence wparticiple-xparticiple81 is that of 17:41d.

81 Presumably, this type of xparticiple of ‘contrast’ would replicate its qetal model

of narrative head wqetal followed by subject/object-qetal of contrast.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 233

wqetal wayyiqtol participle participle wparticiple verbal adjective82 wxparticiple wxparticiple

1Samuel 17:41 ‫ ואזל פלשׁתאה‬And the Philistine came,

‫אזיל‬

as he was coming and drawing near to David,

‫וקריב לדוד‬ ‫וגברא נטיל תריסא‬ ‫אזיל קדמוהי׃‬

there was a man bearing the shield coming before him.

I analysed 41bcd as a protasis-apodosis construction (41bc–41d, see section ‘Functions of participle’ in Chapter 4), where xparticiple (41d) displays an emphatic word order of wparticiple. As its meaning is of background narrative, I proposed a translation which takes into consideration both the protasis-apodosis and the emphasis on ‫וגברא נטיל‬ ‫תריסא‬: ‘as he was coming and drawing near to David, there was a man bearing the shield coming before him’. The xparticiple has a connection with its narrative head, although the reason for the change in word order is, I think, more related to the emphatic message of the sentence than to a semantic correlation. Relievo in the comment register: the xparticiple-xqetal sequence It has been long established that in BH and TA, sequences of wayyiqtol and wqetal create something more than the sum of its parts—a syntactic advancement of the narrative plot. This section examines the syntactic meaning of the sequence of TA xparticiple-xqetal. Because they share the SVO word order, they belong to the comment register; because of their morphology, the xqetal and xparticiple create relievo, or the foreground versus background disposition of information. Briefly, the function of the xparticiple-xqetal sequence is conveying comment relievo. To be clear, xqetal is foreground (and thus of zero degree) only when occurring in conjunction with a preceding or a subsequent background xparticiple. The three main points of my argument are: (1) what comment relievo is; (2) the theoretic suppositions of comment relievo in Targum Aramaic; (3) illustration of this theory with discussion of examples. 82 Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown‒Driver‒Briggs

Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 898.

234

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

(1) The text-linguistic method of Weinrich contains little information on the topic of comment relievo as this syntactic slot is simply not represented by tense in the languages on which the method is based (see Weinrich’s Tempus and Grammaire textuelle du français). According to Weinrich, Greek, Latin, and Romance languages have an ‘asymmetrical tense system’, which means that the narrative register has two tenses to convey zero degree events—so with relievo (in French, they are imparfait and passé simple (background/foreground))—but only one for comment (see the French présent)—no relievo. The explanation is that ‘In discursive speech [comment] situations [in these languages], concentrated around the speaker in his actual speaking, foreground and background are self-explanatory’. 83 Hence, relievo is discerned based on the individual circumstances of each comment situation. It is, however, noteworthy that Weinrich tackles, albeit obliquely, the issues concerning the comment relievo in English.84 In his ‘Tense and Time’, a summary of the method in English, Weinrich surmises that the ‘expanded tenses’—the continuous tenses—have picked up the role of comment relievo: ‘It seems to me – but this is a question and suggestion rather than a proved conclusion – that the expanded tenses in English have essentially the same function of indicating the third [relievo]85 dimension of background and foreground in the speech [comment] situation’.86 He continues: ‘the aspect theory – any aspect theory – did not help me in understanding the function of these expanded forms’; and here he refers to sentences like ‘A letter will be awaiting you’, ‘I shall be preparing a programme’, or ‘We will be meeting you’. These are sentences found in actual letters he received prior to a visit to ‘some English universities’.87 Indeed, this is also a stark rejecting of the aspect theory. One would need more context to ascertain what comment relievo means in theory. Despite this Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38. In precedence, Weinrich explains that he is not the first to propose that French has a tense for lento (imparfait) and one for presto (passé simple) narration, ‘but unlike my predecessors [he refers here to studies of the French verb by J. Larochette and H. Sten] I stress that all this occurs only in [French] narration’, p. 37. 84 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 37. 85 This dimension is developed after that of register and perspective. 86 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38. 87 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38. 83

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 235 lack, it is clear that one should not take for granted that, for example, ‘a programme’ will be prepared by the time of arrival so a backgrounding ‘I shall be preparing…’ is employed. In other words, by not using the foregrounding alternative ‘I shall prepare’ which firmly promises ‘a programme’, this person keeps both options on the table. Subsequently, Weinrich provides an example of how the comment relievo might work in English. While teaching in the United States, he requested his students to write a term paper as base for academic assessment. When prompted about their progress, Weinrich received two types of responses: ‘I have written a good part of the paper’ and ‘I have been writing …’. In his words, ‘Very soon I found out that the latter category of answers (and of students!) was less serious. To put the expanded form ‘I have been writing’ instead of ‘I have written’ was a kind of evasive speech, a kind of putting the topic – the wretched paper – in the background’.88 Several things are essential in his account. First, in contrast with Romance languages, English has relievo in the comment register, with the present tense of foreground and the present continuous of background. Second, in comment relievo is a type of structuralist binary opposition. In narrative, the relievo of tenses creates either a slowing down (see the lento TA wparticiple) or a quickening of narration (see the presto TA wqetal). In comment, there are ‘self-explanatory’ indications, meaning a binary opposition that sets into the foreground some topics (a paper that is taken seriously) while others are moved into the background, (the ‘wretched paper’). (2) The foreground SVO comment sentence (say xqetal) would require the existence of somehow a different background SVO sentence (say xparticiple) with which the former creates a contrast. It follows from there that: i) generally, if a single SVO sentence does not recover or anticipate information and there is no narrative head in VSO, the SVO sentence should be interpreted as comment zero degree; ii) if this zero degree sentence is alone or a sequence of sentences of the same type occurs (for example, xparticiple only sequences), there is no relievo to speak of since 88 Weinrich, ‘Tense and Time’, 38.

236

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC foregrounding would require two different types of SVO sentences to be set in opposition; hence, the English translation of the xparticiple-only sequences may utilise either the present or present continuous (not both) thus leaving unmarked the absent relievo; iii) if there are two types of SVO (TA xqetal and xparticiple),89 then comment relievo is in place and, consequently, one should evaluate what this relievo means; accordingly, the translation should recreate the relievo disposition of the information by tense (English) or by other means in the case of the asymmetric tense systems (in Italian, the opposition is between the foreground presente and construction like ‘sto leggendo’, for background).

(3) Now, I introduce the argument of trace comment (13), the juxtaposition of xparticiple before/after xqetal is a trace of xqetal zero degree. On the one hand, trace (13) provides a syntactic mould for analysing together a recurring sequence of the sentences xparticiple-xqetal (and xqetal-xparticiple) which, as far as I know, sits under the radar of previous grammars. In view of the examples below, this text-linguistic structure of xqetal-xparticiple works together to insert a number of incidents in the story with an involved comment register communication. These incidents usually precipitate a number of momentous events in the narrative development of the story. The structure is ‘a tap on the shoulder’ for the reader that the information contained in the sequence is of significance or has substantive consequences in the story. In sum, the author retains these events as having a special weight. On the other, trace 13 acknowledges that there are cases of xqetal which do not recover information; I recall that xqetal is normally a comment retrospective sentence. It derives from their combination that neither the xqetal nor the xparticiple should contain information which distorts the linearity of text time by presenting retrospection.

89 From the perspective of the Targum as translation mirroring the tense and

word order meaning of the BH original, the meaning of TA xyiqtul is closer to xparticiple, because the BH xyiqtol seems to be translated mostly with xparticiple in TA. This is to say that whenever xyiqtul is zero degree, it is closer to xparticiple rather than xqetal.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 237 I examine this combination with the examples of 4:13bd and 5:4bc, followed by an annotated list of the other examples I found in Targum 1Samuel. As shall be argued, the rapport between plot advancement and the comment register is not constant. In some cases, the advancing of the plot is interwoven with commentary as, while the plot is predominantly achieved by the narrative register, short commented expositions of the plot might occur. In other cases, the narrative register in wqetal bears a coherent description of the plot with no loss in coherence when read without the commentary; in this second case, the author suspends the transmission of the plot altogether to comment. None of these cases suggest that the comment sequence is superfluous; on the contrary, because it contains prominent information for the context of the episode, the comment register is as essential to the story as the narrative one. Targum 1Samuel 4:13bd

I start with an example of the latter sort: between 10e and 13e, the sequence of the events in wqetal alone advances the plot of the story: 30,000 footsoldiers of Israel are killed (10e) → a man of Benjamin runs from the line of battle (12a) → he comes to Shiloh on that day (12b) → he comes (13a) → and all the city is shaken (13e). Moreover, the overall passage does not gain particular coherence from the presence of the SVO sentences as the element that might actually complete the plot (that he is coming to tell the story of the battle) is lacking in the comment register too. The translation of Harrington and Saldarini (13d: ‘the man came to tell (the story)’) makes this lack of object very clear, as they feel obliged to supply it in parenthesis. Instead, these SVO sentences instruct the reader that they should exert some sort of participation in receiving this message: in the case of biblical narrative, this would require mulling over the meaning of the message in the overall context of the passage, the episode or even the book. 1Samuel 4:10e–1390

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ואתקטלו מישׁראל תלתין‬ ‫אלפין גבר רגלי׃‬

and there were killed from Israel 30,000 men footsoldiers.

The translation follows the wording of the translation of Harrington-Saldarini. Italics indicate my modifications. 90

238

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

wxqetal ‫וארונא דיוי אשׁתבי‬11 wxqatal comment retrospective wxqetal ‫ותרין בני עלי אתקטלו חפני‬ wxqatal ‫ופינחס׃‬ comment retrospective wqetal ‫ורהט גברא משׁבטא דבית‬12 wayyiqtol ‫בנימין מסדרא‬ wqetal wayyiqtol wxparticiple wxparticiple wxparticiple nominal clause wqetal wayyiqtol xparticiple xparticiple comment zero degree conjunctionqetal conjunctionqatal wxqetal wxqatal comment zero degree wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ואתא לשׁילו ביומא ההוא‬ ‫ולבושׁוהי מבזעין‬ ‫ועפרא רמי ברישׁיה׃‬

And the ark of the Lord has been captured,

and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, have been killed. And a man from the tribe of the house of Benjamin ran from the battle line, and he came to Shiloh on that day. And his garments are torn, and dust is mounted91 on his head.

‫ואתא‬13

a

And he came

‫והא‬ ‫עלי יתיב על כרסיא על‬ ‫כיבשׁ אורח תרעא מסכי‬

b

‫ארי הוה לביה זע על ארונא‬ ‫דיוי‬

c

and behold Eli is sitting on the chair upon the path of the road of the gateway, looking out for his heart was trembling concerning the ark of the Lord.

‫וגברא אתא לחואה בקרתא‬

d

And the man comes to tell (the story) in the city.

‫ואשׁתגישׁת כל קרתא׃‬

e

and all the city was shaken.

91 This follows the wording suggested by Staalduine-Sulman.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 239 The xparticiple-xqetal sequence in 4:13bd (with 13c as subordinated to 13b) contains the following traces of comment: no. (2) the fact that Eli is sitting on a chair on the gateway (13b) is prominent information because this is where he falls from his chair on the path and dies (4:18); (3) there is no narrative head; (7) the presence of the comment particle ‫( ;והא‬6) 13d contains a redundancy of verb, ‫‘ אתא‬he comes’ (13d repeats the verb in wqetal narrative of 13a, ‫‘ ואתא‬and he came’). For 13b, based on the general analysis of xparticiple, one can safely assert that it is a zero degree background ‘Behold, Eli is sitting …’; for 13d xqetal, there are two options: it is either a retrospect (‘the man has come…’) or zero degree (‘the man comes…’) sentence. What makes the xqetal in 13d a zero degree sentence is the fact that there is no disruption between the text time (the events are inserted in the current arrangement) and real time (the events as they happened). Eli’s sitting on the chair (13b) is not framed into a plot progression in which his sitting could be ascertained as being subsequent or proceeding to a ‘before’ or ‘after’ the arrival of the messenger (13d). That relation has already received a position in the plot (13a) where the coming of the messenger is presented in narrative. Here, the significance of the redundancy that 13a (he ‘came’) displays with regard to 13d (he ‘comes’) is more important to note as ever: the coming of the messenger is once narrated to advance the plot and once is commented to mark the impact his coming has for Eli and, subsequently, for the readers. For Eli, hearing his message leads to an accidental death. For the readers, the xqetal provokes them to pay attention to the consequences of these events. With regard to Eli’s family, because of this commented communication in xparticiple-xqetal, the reader should pay attention to the fact that his sons are dead already and, if it were not for his nephew (who is born that day by Phinehas’ wife, who also dies in childbirth), Eli’s seed would have died completely. Moreover, the reader should understand that, after these momentous events, Samuel may now legitimately take over the service of Eli, as he and his sons are no longer there. Targum 1Samuel 5:4bcd

While in the preceding example, the narrative wqetal contained a coherent account of information with no input from the comment register sentences, in the coming example the xparticiple-xqetal

240

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

contribute to the plot. Whether the x-verb sentence contributes to the plot or not is not an issue, as the author is free to choose between narrative and comment tenses (in TA, sentence types) when describing the development of a story. It just goes to show that the story can be developed either in narrative or in comment. This episode expounds what happens to the ark after it is taken by the Philistines. After an initial xqetal sentence (a comment retrospective reports to the reader: ‘The Philistines have taken the ark of the Lord’, 5:1a), the wqetal sentences of narrative advance the plot up to the moment when the first wondrous events take place: the idol Dagon is found face down before the ark of the Lord. This particular event is reported with an xqetal of comment retrospective in 3b. The narrative resumes with wqetal from 5:3c to 5:4a. Regarding the xqetal-xparticiple in 5:4bc, I argue that the xqetal in 5:4b is a zero degree form. This is an example of what Weinrich called the ‘self-explanatory’ indications of the relievo in comment (see above): it simply does not make sense to describe the same theme ‘Dagon’ on different perspectives, meaning one time as zero degree xparticiple in 5:4c and another as retrospective in 5:4b. Instead, this sequence is an example of the commented foreground/background relievo: the foregrounded events are that Dagon’s body is at the floor (xqetal in 4b) and that his body ‘is left to him’ (xqetal in 4d); the backgrounded event is what happened to his head and palms (xparticiple in 4c). There is a sort of attraction of the zero degree xparticiple which pulls the xqetal sentence towards a similar syntactic function. Thus, the retrospective function of xqetal is reverted to zero degree. 1Samuel 5:3–692

wqetal wayyiqtol xqetal xparticiple93

‫ואקדימו אנשׁי אשׁדוד‬3 ‫ביומא דבתרוהי‬ ‫והא דגון רמי על אפוהי‬ ‫על ארעא קדם ארונא‬ ‫דיוי‬

And the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon has fallen on his face to the ground

92 The translation follows the wording of Staalduine-Sulman; the italic letters

mark my modifications. 93 The BH xparticiple is translated by the Targum with xqetal. So while BH contains a comment zero degree xparticiple, Targum reads comment retrospective with xqetal.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 241 comment retrospective wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ונסיבו ית דגון‬ ‫ואתיבו יתיה לאתריה׃‬ ‫ואקדימו בצפרא ביומא‬4 ‫דבתרוהי‬

xqetal xparticiple comment zero degree

‫והא דגון רמי על אפוהי‬ ‫על ארעא קדם ארונא‬ ‫דיוי‬

wxparticiple wxparticiple comment zero degree xqetal xqatal advlapart advloyiqtol

‫ורישׁ דגון ותרתין פסת‬ ‫ידוהי קציצן מחתן על‬ ‫סקופתא‬

wqetal wayyiqtol

‫לחוד גופיה אשׁתאר‬ ‫עלוהי׃‬ ‫על כין לא דרכין כמרי‬5 ‫דגון וכל דעלין לבית דגון‬ ‫על סקופת דגון באשׁדוד‬ ‫עד יומא הדין׃‬

‫ותקיפת מחתא דיוי על‬6 ‫אנשׁ אשׁדוד‬

before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. a When they rose early in the morning the next day, b Behold, Dagon is thrown94 down on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. c And the head of Dagon and the two palms of his hands are lying cut off upon the threshold; d only his body is left to him. Therefore the idol priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon are not stepping95 on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. And the stroke of the LORD was heavily upon the people of Ashdod

It is important to note that the xqetal comment in 5:4b has its comment function confirmed separately by its own comment traces. 5:4b displays the traces: (3), (7) this ‫ והא‬extends over 4bcd, (6) redundancy (3b and 4b have the same wording). Before briefly examining the remaining xparticiple-xqetal sequences in Targum 1Samuel and drawing some limitation to trace (13), 94 This follows Harrington-Saldarini’s translation. 95 Again, after Harrington-Saldarini.

242

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

I summarise the results of this section. First, the two examples examined above show that in whatever order they occur (xparticiple-xqetal is the most common), the xparticiple and xqetal sentences create a comment zero degree sequence with relievo. Second, this relievo is visible in their different morphology: qetal for foreground; participle for background. Third, the xparticiple sentence acts as validation or attracts its xqetal (normally having the function of comment retrospective) to become zero degree sentence (trace (13)). As a note on the importance of xparticiple for determining the zero degree value of xqetal, 5:4b shares the same wording with the xqetal of 5:3b. Although it displays the same comment traces of 5:4b, the lack of trace (13) in 5:3b attests that it is retrospective. The other cases of zero degree relievo in Targum 1Samuel are: 17:14c–15ab; 13:16ab; and the sequences found in the narrative of 9:1– 27. 17:14c–15ab

This is a sequence of wxqetal-wxparticiple-wparticiple.96 Besides their comment SVO word order, they display the following comment traces: (2) they contain prominent information for the episode (the elder brothers of David went to fight, David stays home and goes back and forth between his duties to Saul and Jesse); (3) there is no narrative head; the xqetal in 14c shows (6) redundancy with 13ab (they both mention that the three older brothers joined Saul to fight the Philistines). Because it displays trace (13), xqetal becomes zero degree. 17:14c–15ab acts as a summary inserted before the narrative resumes in 16a with wqetal. The summary introduces David and his brothers (following Staalduine-Sulman’s translation): ‘(14) the three eldest go after Saul. (15) And David is going and returning (or simply: is going) back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.’ The wparticiple in 15b is a comment form continuing the xparticiple in 15a.97 Along with 5:4bc, these seem to be the only two xqetal-xparticiple sequences in Targum 1Samuel. 97 Other examples of wparticiple continuing xparticiple: 1:10b; 2:26b; 14:19c; 18:16c. There are 118 occurrences of xparticiple (both in direct and indirect 96

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 243 13:16ab

This verse is made of two comment wxparticiple-wxqetal; the following traces are present: (2) prominence of information—the camp position of Saul and Philistines; (3) lack of narrative head; redundancy (6), 16b xqetal repeats information stated in 13:5d—the act of camping of the Philistines in Michmas. The presence of xparticiple (trace (13)) in 16a allows the interpretation of xqetal as zero degree (following Staalduine-Sulman’s wording). ‘And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people who were found with them, are staying in The Hill of the House of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamp in Michmas’. The distribution of the two sides as background (Saul and his men, xparticiple) and foreground (the Philistines, xqetal) is in line with the wqetal narrative zero degree of 13:17a: ‘And the destroyer came out of the camp of the Philistines’. 9:1–2798

Episode 9:1–10:16 is a lengthy description of the circumstances in which Saul was anointed as king. After recalling the names of his ancestors (verses 1–2), the episode recounts that Saul and his servant are looking for his father’s lost donkeys (3–8). The subsequent narrative sequence is interrupted in several places with the following content. • 9:5ab: comment retrospect with xqetal-xqetal. The corresponding translation is: ‘When they have come to the land in which there was a prophet, Saul has said to his young man, who was with him’. • 9:9a–d: the xqetal in 9a is of comment retrospect sentence (comment traces: (2); (3)). After the direct speech of 9bc, a narrative conjunction-xparticiple sentence follows in 9d. This last form is narrative because the word order is speech, subordinated sentence included) in Targum 1Samuel and only 5 occurrences of a wparticiple continuative as comment (including 17:15). It is clear that wparticiple presents comment information only in exceptional cases. The exceptional cases are explained by hendiadys: 2:26ab, 14:19ab; 17:15cd; 18:16bc (16c continues a subordinate xparticiple). 98 The wording this translations follow Staalduine-Sulman; italics reflect my modifications.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

•

•

•

•

emphatic, oriented towards the technical term ‫(‘ לנביא‬to) the prophet’. The translation of 9a–d is: ‘Formerly in Israel, when a man goes99 to seek instruction from before the LORD, he says it like this, “Come and let us meet the seer.” For it was100 the prophet today that formerly was called a seer’. 9:11ab: comment zero degree with xparticiple-xqetal. Narrative resumes in 11c: ‘As they are going up by the ascent of the city, they meet young women coming out to draw water, and said to them’. 9:14bc: this is a comment xparticiple-xparticiple. The translation is: ‘As they [Saul and his servant] are entering the city, behold, Samuel is coming out toward them on his way up to the banqueting hall.’ 9:15 (see also the ensuing section): although two xparticiple precede it, this is not a zero degree but an xqetal comment retrospect. 9:15 recovers an event which took place the day before: ‘And from before the LORD it has been said to Samuel, one day before Saul’s coming’. 9:17ab: this is a comment zero degree sequence of with wxqetal-wqetal. Despite the lack of trace (13), the wxqetal in 17a is still zero degree. This is because (a) 9:14bc and 9:17ab share the theme ‘Saul’ and (b) the indirect speech from 9:14bc to 9:17ab is incidental information (including 9:15; verse 16 is entirely direct speech so it does not count). The translation of 9:17ab is: ‘When Samuel sees Saul, from before the LORD it is said to him’.

The form in 9a is comment retrospective, but English does not allow present perfect retrospective in these types of sentences. 100 I translate with the narrative ‘was’ as I analyse the conjunction-object-participle in 9d as narrative despite the fact that it displays an OVS (comment). 9d is narrative xparticiple of the emphatic sort (thus, not a comment xparticiple) that aims to introduce a new Phenomenon (the prophet) in a sentence with what Prague School grammar calls a Presentation-scale sentence (its functional word order is Phenomenon-Transition-Setting), which is oriented towards introducing the new/rhematic subject; J. Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), 66–67. 99

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 245 •

9:27ab is a comment zero degree sequence of xparticiplexqetal: ‘As they are going down to the outskirts of the city, Samuel says to Saul’.

The limits of trace (13) in the xparticiple-xqetal sequence The preceding section argued that xparticiple and xqetal sentences cooperate to create the so-called syntactic relievo in comment register. There are, however, up to four restrictions. First, the two forms should be part of the same episode/panel for trace (13) to apply. This excludes those SVO sentences where one sentence closes (postlude position) and the other initiates (prelude positions) a panel or episode. An example is 4:18f–19a. 1Samuel 4:18def–19ab

wqetal wayyiqtol wxqetal wxqatal Panel 2 ends wxparticiple Panel 3 begins wqetal wayyiqtol

‫ומית‬ ‫ארי סב גברא ויקיר‬ ‫והוא דן ית ישׁראל‬ ‫ארבעין שׁנין׃‬ ‫וכלתיה אתת פינחס‬19 ‫מעדיא למילד‬ ‫ושׁמעת ית שׁמועתא‬ ‫דאשׁתבי ארונא דיוי‬

and he [Eli] died, for he was an old man, and heavy. But he judged Israel forty years. Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, is with child, about to give birth. And when she heard the report that the ark of the LORD was captured ...

The second panel (4:12–18)101 is focused on the circumstances of Eli’s death. With the beginning of the third panel in the episode, there is a change in theme (to Eli’s daughter-in-law) and place (from where Eli dies to where the birth takes place). The two postlude and the prelude sentences in 18 and 19a do not work together to establish comment relievo. Second, the xqetal sentence should be of comment before joining it to an xparticiple sentence. Again in 4:18, the xqetal in 18f is narrative because of its connection with a wqetal narrative head in 18d: ‘He [Eli] died … but he judged Israel…’. 101 The first panel is 4:1–11.

246

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Third, in the example of 9:14ab–15 (see above), the plot advanced until the moment when Saul and his servant go up in the city (9:14ab two xparticiple) while 9:15 (xqetal) recovers that Samuel was informed about Saul’s coming the day before. As the xqetal evidently recovers information, it does not forge foreground relievo for the preceding xparticiple in 14ab. Relievo or foregrounding only occurs within the same perspective; here, xqetal is retrospective, xparticiple is zero degree. Fourth, the xqetal and xparticiple sentences do not function as comment relievo while they are part of the protasis of a double sentence headed by a macro-syntactic signal ‫( והוה‬7:10; 3:2–4a and 23:26cd–27a).102 This is because the head of the double sentence and its apodosis (both in wqetal) indicate that the entire construction is of the narrative register. The double sentence employs a SVO sentence in the extended protasis because the xqetal and xparticiple are a variant of their counterpart in narrative, wqetal and wparticiple; it is less probable (if not impossible) for the VSO to occur in protasis: any VSO following a narrative head of ‫ והוה‬would create confusion as it becomes a candidate for apodosis. Consequently, the juxtaposition of xparticiple before/after xqetal is trace (13) of xqetal zero degree provided that: both forms are part of the same episode/panel; the xqetal should not have a narrative head; the xqetal does not recover information with regard to comment/narrative zero degree line; and, finally, the construction is not part of a double sentence introduce by ‫והוה‬. Comment anticipation and background: TA xyiqtul and xparticiple

This section examines the few occurrences of TA yiqtul (imperfect) in the indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel: • 1:12d conjunction-yiqtul (the conjunction is ‫—)עד ד‬VSO sentence; 102 See Chapter 3, section, ‘The main function of the double sentence: Bridg-

ing a gap in the plot’.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 247 • • • •

2:15a conjunction (‫אף עד‬/until)-negation-yiqtul—VSO sentence.103 19:24d with the adverb ‫‘ על כין‬therefore’—SVO / xyiqtul; 1:7a with the adverb ‫‘ כין‬so / thus’—SVO/ xyiqtul; 2:19a object-yiqtul—OVS/ xyiqtul.

Together with these TA yiqtul sentence, I investigate those TA xparticiple sentences which translate a BH yiqtol sentence (all of them occur in the middle of the episode): • • •

two combinations with common x element (‫‘ ובכל אתר‬in every place’) 14:47c104 and 18:5b; one double sentence with correlated verbs 1:7bc where x is ‫ בזמן‬and ‫;כין‬ three subject-participles in 13:17b–18ab.

yiqtul as narrative anticipation The first two cases of yiqtul exhibit the narrative register (given their VSO word order) with the perspective of anticipation. According to Weinrich, the sequence of linguistic signs in the text amounts to the so-called text time. When the linearity of the text time is not disturbed, the zero degree is in place, which means that the narrative story or the comment communication advances towards its end. Negatively, this means absence of anticipation or retrospection. If that linearity is disturbed, either retrospection or anticipation occurs with regard to the moment where this disruption is inserted. 105 The passage of Targum 1:12abc–13abcd is a double sentence introduced by a ‫ והוה‬as narrative head (apodosis is the wqetal in 13d). In the longer protasis, with regard to the Vorlage, Targum adds a conjunction-yiqtul sentence (VSO) anticipating that Hannah would stop weeping (1:12c: Eli waited ‫‘ עד דתפסוק‬until she would finish’). The information is stated before this act actually happens, presumably in 1:14 when Eli is able to addresses her.

103 Negation and conjunction are not an x element.

On 14:47–48 , see in section, ‘The xqetal sentence in 1Samuel’ (part C) of Chapter 5. 105 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 77. 104

248

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The example of 2:15a is a conjunction-negation-yiqtul sentence (VSO: ‫‘ אף עד לא יתסקון תרביא למדבחא‬even before the meat would be brought to the altar’) which anticipates information: the sons of Eli were supposed to wait for the meat to be presented before taking it. While the context of this sentence recounts that the sons of Eli routinely breached the sacrificial law, 2:15 acts as an anticipatory event. As this is the only occurrence of such yiqtul in the indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel, it is difficult ascertain anything else without further examples. Backgrounding xparticiple and xyiqtul The xparticiple and xyiqtol sentences analysed in this section are of the comment register. The xparticiple in 14:47c and 18:5b seem to be part of a protasisapodosis schema composed of the expression ‫‘ ובכל אתר‬in wherever place’ as protasis (with a relative sentence which explains ‘place’) and a participle—together they compose an xparticiple: • Saul ‘in wherever [place] he is turning, he is making the place tributary’ (14:47; this follows Staalduine-Sulman’s wording); • David ‘in wherever place Saul is sending him, he is being successful’ (unlike Staalduine-Sulman: ‘And David went out in every place that Saul sent him, successfully’); nor as Harrington-Saldarini: ‘And David went forth successfully in every place that Saul sent him’. I have already discussed the xparticiple sentences in 13:17b–18ab (they translate BH xyiqtol sentences) which list the directions that the three spoilers coming from the Philistine into Israel took. The same comment and (possibly) background analysis is valid for the xparticiple in 1:7bc (again the underlying BH sentence is xyiqtol) which is correlated with the TA xyiqtul (BH yiqtol) in 1:7a: ‘And so it happens year by year in the time she [Hannah] goes up to the house of the sanctuary of the Lord. Thus she [Peninnah] is angering her’ (This modifies the tenses of Harrington and Saldarini’s translation). Regarding the xyiqtul sentences in 19:24d and 2:19a, they are definitely comment register sentences because of their SVO and OVS word order, respectively. As they are not anticipating information in the way the first two yiqtol (VSO) sentences do (1:12d and 2:15a), their

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES 249 status can only be determined by comparison. The syntactic similarity between TA xparticiple and TA xyiqtul can be gauged from a tally of how BH yiqtol is translated in TA: on six occasions, BH xyiqtol is translated with TA xparticiple (14:47c, 18:5b, 1:7bc, and 13:17b–18ab) against the other three which translate with the equivalent ‘imperfect’, TA xyiqtul (19:24d, 1:7a, and 2:19a).

GENERAL CONCLUSION FOR XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL

This chapter has argued that those sentences bearing the SVO word order express an involved and participative communication in the comment register. In this summary, I briefly answer two questions: a. What is comment? It is a register of communication which has as formal traits: the implied presence of a first person sharing information to a second person about a third party; a ‘stressed character’ of communication; when occurring in the indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel, the comment register is found in narrative frames (prelude and postlude of the episode), summaries, and stretches of text that introduce incidental information. All these elements are in contrast with the narrative register, a third person communication that is plot-oriented. b. What are the syntactic functions and the resulting English tense equivalents corresponding to the TA xqetal, xparticiple, and xyiqtul? The analysis notes the following correspondences between Weinrich’s theory, TA and English: • xparticiple functions as comment zero degree sentence with a background perspective which makes it equivalent to the English present continuous; however, should there be no foreground x-verb sentence (meaning an xqetal)—as is the case in most examples of xparticiple, one should assume that the comment relievo is not broached and hence xparticiple may be translated with the English present simple or continuous tense; • the xqetal may have one of the following three text-linguistic functions: o xqetal normally conveys comment retrospective information and should be translated with the English present perfect;

250

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

•

o xqetal is narrative whenever it contrasts or correlates with a wqetal as ‘narrative head’; xqetal is equivalent to the English past simple; in translation, xqetal should also be introduced with an appropriate conjunction (‘while’, ‘but’, ‘yet’) to account for the semantic connection between xqetal and its narrative head; o in rare cases, xqetal combines with xparticiple (see trace (13)) to create comment relievo: in contrast with the xparticiple of foreground, xqetal functions as zero degree sentence referring foreground, corresponding to the English present tense; there is no definitive answer to the question of yiqtul because Targum 1Samuel indirect speech contains very few occurrences (5): xyiqtul is similar to xparticiple, so indicates comment background (19:24d; 1:7a; 2:19a); the simple yiqtul (1:12d; 2:15a) may signal narrative anticipation.

Presenting a reasoned translation of tenses and word order, albeit based on the wording of those translations already available (Harrington and Saldarini, and Staalduine-Sulman), is an attempt by the current author to replicate the text-linguistic procedure as found in Weinrich’s Tempus; he supports the main syntactic affirmation by examples from literary texts (so real life texts) from the language under analysis. It has become clear that the translation of the biblical text is a necessary tool in the text-linguistic discussion. Translating is even more important for those languages that are dead. In sum, I think that the method of Weinrich proposes a certain cycle of analysis of language which, at least in the case of dead languages, is completed only when the parser provides a translation which reflects the text-linguistic analysis. What is the concept of trace meant to do for text-linguistics? When occurring, the traces of comment are contextual elements which corroborate the comment function of a SVO or x-verb sentence. Regardless of how many are employed in a given text, the traces are not meant to be taken as proof that one sentence is of comment; it is the word order that signals the comment register. The trace makes visible those contextual elements which otherwise would have received marginal importance in the syntactic analysis.

5. THE XQETAL, XPARTICIPLE, AND XYIQTUL SENTENCES

251

The supplementary weight of the trace is added to that of the linguistic sign of the SVO/x-verb word order so that the indirect speech communication comes under proper scrutiny. This is to prevent the present tendency of most grammars and biblical translations to interpret indirect speech as signifying ‘narration’, or to make it genre-identified by a detached account of facts which have a narrative plot. The indirect speech is indeed predominantly made up of narrative register sentences; however, as the analysis of SVO sentences in this chapter has shown, the narrator accompanies and adjusts the meaning of the narrative and its plot by way of interpolations and comments. In a word, the present theory of trace is a push-back against the long existing prejudice that the biblical narrative only narrates; by acknowledging the comment syntactic meaning of the SVO sentence in TA and BH, the voice of the biblical narrator becomes much more present. With comment sentences, the reader is urged to look for a deeper meaning of the passage. My attempt to make the context speak through the comment traces is not a singular attempt, as both the Prague School and Weinrich’s Tempus resort to context elements to justify their analysis. 106 From this perspective, the context becomes a contributor to the meaning of particular linguistic signs; effectively, trace is a way of making context part of the syntactic analysis of language. By this I mean that context elements should receive some sort of categorisation with regard to the linguistic sign, as morphology and word order already have. To expand on the relation between linguistic sign and trace, they are like the two sides of a coin.107 The coin means something for a community of users. On the one side of the coin, there is the head of the one issuing it (a king or someone of significance within the community). On the obverse side or ‘heads’ of the coin, one can find open signs like tense and word order. On the reverse side or ‘tails’, there is further

106 Weinrich, Tempus.

Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo; Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français; Firbas dedicates two chapters to discussing the ‘contextual factor’ and the ‘semantic factor’; Firbas, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication, 21–66. 107 The coin is a long lasting image in philosophy and linguistic explanations. One example is Jacques Derrida’s comments on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile in Derrida and Spivak [tr], Of Grammatology, 204–205.

252

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

information through those scratches or ‘traces’ of how much the coin is worth for the community: like value, weight, year of issue, etc. The traces of comment are catalogued as follows: (1) Poetical disposition of information; (2) Prominence of the information for other narratives/episodes/or within the episode; (3) Lack of narrative ‘head’ and/or the presence of a comment head (as xqetal) represent further trace of comment; (4) Similarity with passages which are easier to attest as comment; (5) The presence of ‫‘ אף‬even’; (6) Apparent redundancy within the episode; (7) The presence of ‫‘ והא‬and behold’; (8) Prelude position; (9) Lack of temporal juncture; (10) Morphological opposition of narrative and comment (only for xparticiple); (11) The conveying of incidental information; (12) Postlude or end-of-episode/panel position. (13) The juxtaposition of xparticiple before/after xqetal is trace of xqetal zero degree provided that: both forms are part of the same episode/panel; the xqetal should not have a narrative head; the xqetal does not recover information with regard to comment/narrative zero degree line; and, finally, the construction is not part of a double sentence introduce by ‫והוה‬.

CHAPTER 6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE René Wellek and Austin Warren declared the narrative literature a ‘time-art (in distinction from painting and sculpture, space arts)’. The narrative genre may add ‘to chronology the structure of causation’. The result creates a story which ‘shows a character deteriorating or improving in consequence of causes operating steadily over a period of time’.1 While these authors refer to the modern novel, I think time and causation are perfectly appropriate items to consider in the narrative of 1Samuel. Here too, characters decline or flourish in a narrative world which is driven by causation and time passage; this is the kind of time to which they refer. Saul is elected king at the instigation of the people (1Samuel 8:19); his situation deteriorates over time because of his disobedience to God (1Samuel 15:11 RSV: ‘I repent that I have made Saul king; for he […] has not performed my commandments.’). The goal of this chapter is to explain, in general, the meanings of the term ‘text’ and, in particular, of ‘biblical text’ or ‘biblical episode’. Both these definitions are about dividing a larger text into coherent linguistic units; the way one engages with this activity is through the key term of coherence. I have explained how narrative sentences, wqetal and wparticiple, impact on time passage. By examining narrative time passage, one eventually arrives at the question of what makes a text a text. A text is a sequence of sentences with coherence. Robert R. Wellek and E. A. Warren, Theory of Literature (London: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949), 222. 1

253

254

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

de Beaugrande and Wolfgang Dressler list coherence as one of ‘the seven standards of textuality’ which facilitate the flow of communication.2 Why is dividing the biblical text into episodes necessary? Textlinguistics works with sequences or stretches of text. Within this analysis, one needs approachable limits within which syntactic values (for example, the zero degree, which marks the phenomenon of time passage or plot advancement) can be feasibly studied. This is the reason for which Weinrich talks about limits or breaks in his definition of ‘text’: ‘A text is a logical (i.e. intelligible and consistent) sequence of linguistic signs, placed between two significant breaks in communication’.3 Key in this definition is that a stretch of sentences becomes a text when it is ‘intelligible and consistent’. Weinrich does not go into specifying how to arrive at a text, so the question still stands: what is text? Or, more specifically, how does one go about delimiting an ‘intelligible and consistent’ biblical text or a ‘biblical episode’? These two questions of coherence receive an answer in the first section of this chapter. A second reason for developing a theory of the biblical episode is so that these limits (in other words, the prelude, the initial sentence, and the postlude, the last sentence, of a biblical episode) may come to be acknowledged as having syntactic meaning. Niccacci has already argued that the prelude of an episode has significant influence over syntax. As he did not go any further than that, in the second part of this chapter, it is all the more important to make progress on this matter by exploring how different sentences signal the temporal sequence of episodes or lack thereof: an episode is temporally subsequent to another whenever it picks up the narrative from where it was left off at the end of the previous episode. The main finding is that, while these temporally arranged episodes tend to be initiated by a wqetal sentence, those without such arrangement have as prelude other types of sentences (the TA xqetal, xparticiple, and nominal clause).

R. de Beaugrande and W. U. Dressler, Introduction to Text Linguistics (London: Longman, 1981), 4–7. 3 This is the translation of Wilfred Watson as found in Niccacci and Watson [tr], The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, 44; Weinrich, Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt (4th), 38. 2

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

255

WHAT IS A TEXT? WHAT IS AN EPISODE? The answer to ‘what is a text?’ comes from outlining those characteristics which make a stretch of sentences a ‘text’ in contrast with a ‘nontext’. For Beaugrande and Dressler, the text is a ‘communicative occurrence which meets the seven standards of textuality’; ‘non-texts’ are those that lack any of these standards.4 Besides the already mentioned standard of coherence, they list cohesion, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality. These standards are ‘relational in character’ and examine how elements in a text fit together.5 For what it is worth, four of these standards belong to textlinguistics (cohesiveness, coherence, informativity, intertextuality) while the other three to pragmatics (intentionality, acceptability, and situationality).6 I discuss only the standard of coherence and how it contributes to dividing the biblical narrative into episodes. Furthermore, I note that these standards of textuality are the basis of a ‘complete’ text, which, for Beaugrande and Dressler, means the point where author reaches the ‘threshold of termination’ or when ‘the producer finds the outcome satisfactory for the intended purpose’.7 The concepts of coherence and threshold of termination are the two essentials for delimiting the length of a text or a biblical episode. So, what is coherence and what is its connection with text and the biblical episode? Coherence exposes whether, within the text or the episode, the ‘concepts and the relations8 which underlie the 4 Beaugrande and Dressler, Introduction

to Text Linguistics, 3. Beaugrande and Dressler, Introduction to Text Linguistics, 37. The italics belong to these authors. 6 Beaugrande and Dressler, Introduction to Text Linguistics, 31. 7 Beaugrande and Dressler, Introduction to Text Linguistics, 34–35. 8 Beaugrande and Dressler, Introduction to Text Linguistics, 4: ‘A CONCEPT is definable as a configuration of knowledge (cognitive content) which can be recovered or activated with more or less unity and consistency in the mind’; an example of such concept would be a ‘theme’ in Prague School grammar, which could be anything from a person to an object or an event; ‘Relations are the LINKS between concepts which appear together in a textual world: each link would bear a designation of the concept it connects to’. The capitalised words belong to the authors. 5

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

surface text are mutually accessible and relevant’. The authors list several coherence relations: • causality (A is a necessary condition for B); • enablement (A is ‘sufficient but not obligatory’ for B: ‘she made some tarts, […] he stole those tarts’); • reason (‘an action follows as a rational response to some previous event’: ‘Jack shall have but a penny a day // Because he can’t work any faster’); • purpose (‘an event or situation which is planned to become possible via a previous event or situation’: ‘Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone’); • arrangement in time (or temporal proximity).9 Now, I propose a definition of the biblical episode: it is a section of a biblical book which has a meaning by itself and, as a result, it is comprehensible outside the context of the other episodes. Its meaning should be easily articulated in one-two sentences or the episode answers a simple question. The episode contains a clear delimitation of the concepts and relations existent between its various parts (causality, enablement, reason, purpose, arrangement in time) leading to an account that is, in Weinrich’s terms, ‘intelligible and consistent’. The episode is a self-contained unit, bearing the features of text, as explained by Beaugrande and Dressler, but most importantly, that of coherence. For that to happen, an episode needs to contain information about the beginning, middle, and end of the story, and thus be at least three sentences long (corresponding to the three parts). A way of checking whether an episode is ‘completed’ is that the reader is able to defend the proposition that one does not have to resort to elements outside its span to explain its content fully. When necessary information is lacking, a sequence of sentences cannot be considered an episode. Two options are possible. One either looks into expanding the length of this sequence to include the missing concepts or relations; or one should investigate whether the episode ought to be composed of two or more panels. A panel is a seemingly coherent stretch of text which, however, needs more information to complete its meaning. In this latter solution, there is

9 Beaugrande and Dressler, Introduction

to Text Linguistics, 4–6.

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257

another panel which develops that side of the story and, hence, these (two or more) panels together add to be an episode. Now, I outline the scale of narrative. The first level is the simple sentence; the second level is that of a panel: this formation ‘makes sense’ but because it calls on another panel to clarify concepts and relations it remains a panel; the third is the episode which can be read independently from another episode without needing to clarify concepts or relations. The finished product of a literary work tops the narrative scale. The ‘text’, as defined in this section, is represented by the episode or by the literary work as a whole.

APPLICATION OF THE THEORY: JOHN 11, TWO OR THREE EPISODES ? I discuss these theoretical points with an application to John 11, a chapter from the Greek New Testament, already discussed by Niccacci.10 This is about how to decide on the ‘threshold of termination’ for setting the limits of a biblical episode. Niccacci’s division seems to be into two (1–17 and 18–57) or three episodes (1–17; 18–46; 47–57).11 No clear development of the term ‘episode’ is found in his work. In the case of

This is a sample of a text-linguistic analysis of a biblical episode which has some connection to the method of Weinrich. For an analysis of a text in Biblical Hebrew, see Condrea, ‘Following the Blueprint II’. 11 A. Niccacci, ‘Dall’aoristo all’imperfetto o dal primo piano allo sfondo’, Liber Annuus 42 (1992), 104–106. Niccacci’s article shows that the basic principles of the text-linguistic method of Hebrew are very much applicable to the NT Greek. Niccacci specifically refers to 11:1–2 and 11:18 with the Italian terms, respectively, sfondo (background), and antefatto (prelude): ‘John 11 begins and ends with background constructs (vv.1–2 and 54–54) [read ‘antefatto’ for verses 1– 2 because they initiate the episode] […] The narrative [of John 11] stops and passes to the background in order to provide information relevant for hereinafter: the distance [from Jerusalem] to Bethany, the presence of the Jews (vv. 18–19); this [18–19] is then another small prelude within the narrative’. He subsequently says ‘another brief circumstance [in imperfect] connected with the preceding aorist is found in v. 47’. Niccacci, ‘Dall’aoristo all’imperfetto o dal primo piano allo sfondo’, 104–105. The translation from Italian and the brackets belong to me. 10

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each division, Niccacci considers the passage vv. 1–17 as being separate, an interpretation that I take issue with here. My point is that John 11:1–17 and what follows after in 18–46 cannot be separated.12 Niccacci claims that 11:18 is ‘another short prelude [antefatto] within the narrative’13. However, if the stretch of text starting with verse 18 is read separately from what is before, there are several missing pieces of information. The following concepts and relations need to be supplied before the reader fully understands the section 18– 46 as proposed, meaning without the account of Lazarus’ death of 1–17: • The story of 11:18 begins with where Bethany is. This is a lack of concept (what is Bethany?) and relation because the reader does not know why this place is important. The name has already appeared twice in 11:1–17 and this place is days away from Judea where Jesus was; • a further missing relation is that of who Martha and Maria are. This was stated in 11:1–2 where they are named as sisters of Lazarus from Bethany; also, more information is said about Maria (she anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair); • people come to comfort Martha and Maria in verse 11:19. If we read 11:18 as the beginning of a separate episode, this action 12 I divide John 11 into two: episode A (11:1–45)—the death of Lazarus and his

resurrection by Jesus; and episode B (11:46–57)—the reaction of the highranking officials to Jesus’ miracles. The first argument is that there is no mention of Lazarus’ resurrection after verse 44; the second is that the particle δέ in verse 46 is to be read not as adversative but as a transition particle from one episode to another, as a simple then or, if one needs to show a clearer break, after that. There are plenty of examples of this use in John with δέ at the beginning of a new episode (1:44; 2:8–9; 3:1, 23; 8:1; 11:1; 13:1; 20:1, etc.). Moreover, in the episode B, (1) Jesus’ activities are referred to as ἃ ἐποίησεν Ἰησοῦς (‘what Jesus had done’ vs 46) and σηµεῖα (‘signs’ or ‘miracles’ vs 47)—so a plurality of events—which assumes the sum of Jesus’ activity; (2) the place and characters are completely different from A to B: in A, Jesus is the main character; in B, he is only mentioned in the third person during the plot of 47–53, and then showed as reacting to their plan (54–57), again in third person. So, the reader understands fully the meaning of episodes A and B on their own terms. It is safe to assume that 11:46 is a good example of Greek aorist in prelude of a new episode, which is in temporal sequence with the previous episode. 13 Niccacci, ‘Dall’aoristo all’imperfetto o dal primo piano allo sfondo’, 105.

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

•

259

of comforting becomes a lack of relation, i.e. reason. The reason for their coming to comfort the sisters was the death of their brother, an event related in 11:11; Verse 20 recounts that the two women hear of Jesus’ imminent arrival. What is he coming for? There is a lack of concept and relation: Jesus comes because the sisters sent for him (reason presented in 11:3) and because he is a friend (concept presented in 11:4–5).

Furthermore, if, on the contrary, they are considered together, there are more internal connections within the episode that come to the fore. With regard to Martha’s words in verse 21 in the second panel, (‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’), there is a question one could ask: was Jesus family or from their village to support her presumption that Jesus could have helped? The answer comes from verse 11:3 where this relation is present: the sisters sent for Jesus, probably in time to save Lazarus, but he delayed coming for another two days (11:6). A less obvious connection between the two panels is the fact that the second panel does not tell the whole story about why Jesus comes to Bethania: it is not only because they are very good friends, but also because ‘This sickness [of Lazarus] is not unto death, but for the glory of God’ (11:4). Consequently, as each of these two stretches of sentences (11:1–17 and 11:18–46) lack major concepts and relations, they cannot be read as self-standing episodes; instead, they are two panels of a single episode.

T HE WQETAL OF PRELUDE AND TEMPORAL SEQUENCED EPISODES IN TARGUM 1SAMUEL14 Prelude or the initial sentence of a biblical episode has the purpose of indicating whether the episode is in sequence with the previous one. There are 42 episodes in the narrative of 1Samuel, divided according to the methodology outlined above. The majority of prelude forms in Targum 1Samuel are of the wqetal form (31), either of the verb ‫ הוה‬or other verbs (‫אמר‬, ‫קרי‬, ‫כנשׁ‬, ‫מלל‬, ‫ערק‬, ‫אתי‬, ‫אזל‬, ‫חוי‬, ‫קום‬, ‫)מות‬. In this section, I argue that the wqetal in prelude position indicates temporal sequence between two subsequent episodes.

14 See Annex 1 for the division in

episodes in Targum 1Samuel.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

The remaining 11 prelude sentences (5 xqetal, 3 xparticiple, and 3 nominal clauses (no verb present)) are described in the next section; the fact that other sentence types than wqetal occur in prelude signals that the episode does not advance the narrative thread from where it was left at the end of the previous episode. In the episodes which begin with wqetal, time passage is evident in the fact that the plot advances from the end of one episode to the next. In Targum 1Samuel, I discern three types of chronological sequences of episodes: • the chronological sequence is the simplest way of connecting two episodes; • besides being in temporal succession, one episode may provide the cause, the reason, the purpose or the item enabling the events of the second episode; • and the thematic arrangement of information or the narrative sequence of episodes follows a particular theme. While the first two types of chronology are familiar from the analysis of wqetal, the third is prompted by an observation of Gérard Genette. In prose, he thinks that the sequence of events may have a ‘thematic kinship’ or they are positioned following a specific theme, a character, or a topic of discussion.15 This means that the time passage from a narrative sentence to the next, or from one episode to another, may have additional properties which shape the narrative in a new way. The three types of episodic sequences in 1Samuel are as follows. (1) The simple chronology is represented by two episodes one after another with no visible connection besides the temporal one. There are two examples of two subsequent episodes which are only connected by temporal advancement: Sequence

simple chronology

Tg. 1Samuel 3:16–21 4:1–22

Initial form wqetal wqetal

Summary of episode (1+1 episodes) Samuel and Eli discuss the vision of the former followed by the battle with Philistines

Genette and Lewin [tr], Narrative Discourse (Figures III: Discours du récit), 84–85. 15

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE simple chronology

7:2–17 8:1–22

wqetal wqetal

simple chronology

13:1–23

Nominal Clause wqetal

14:1–23

261

the wars of Samuel with the Philistines are followed by the event of the people asking for a king The dispute between Saul and Samuel followed by Jonathan’s deeds of bravery

(2) A more advanced type of chronology involves two temporally subsequent episodes which share a common theme or the events in one episode provide the cause, enablement, reason, or purpose for the ensuing episode. There are four examples of this in 1Samuel: Sequence

Tg. Initial form 1Samuel chronological 1:1–19 wqetal promise and fulfil- 1:20–2:11 wqetal ment chronological vi- 3:1–15 wxparticiple sion and its re- 3:16–21 wqetal counting chronological 5:1–12 wxqetal events on the ark 6:1–7:1 wqetal chronological 15:1–9 wqetal command and dis- 15:10–35b wqetal obedience

Summary of episode (1+1 episodes) promise of a son, fulfilment of promise16

Samuel is called to become prophet followed by its recounting to Eli the ark is taken and returned Samuel ask for Saul’s obedience—Saul disobeys

Both episodes in these pairs act together and, at the same time, each episode is a self-standing episode. The first episode builds up the problem (a barren woman, Samuel’s vision about the sons of Eli, the ark being taken by Philistines, Samuel’s command of destroying all Amalekites, respectively) and the second indicates its resolution (birth of Samuel, Eli A strong indication that 1:20–2:11 is a self-standing episode is the fact that, while the preceding episode closes by confirming that Hannah’s prayer is granted, this current episode opens with Hannah’s pregnancy as the point of departure for recounting the birth of Samuel—it is sufficient for one to know she was pregnant to understand what happens next. 16

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

asks and receives an (incomplete) account of what God said, the ark resides in Kirjath-jearim in Judah, Saul loses legitimacy as king). (3) A more elaborate development of a theme is that containing more than two temporally subsequent episodes. 1Samuel contains three such sequences. Sequence

Chronological development of the theme ‘Saul as king’

Tg. 1Samuel 8:1–22

9:1–10:16 10:17–27 11:1–12:25

Initial Summary of episode (4 epiform sodes, 1 theme) wqetal the people petition for a king (sons of Samuel are unsuitable to lead) wqetal presentation and anointing of Saul as king wqetal official election of Saul as king (casting lots) wqetal four panels: the threat of the Ammonites (1–4); introduction of Saul (5–10); the victory against Ammon (11:11–15) and Samuel’s farewell discourse (12:1–12:25).17

Covering 13 episodes, the second overarching theme is ‘Saul chasing after David’. These episodes are introduced with wqetal, which reflects the concordance between the order of the episodes in reality and that of the story. Sequence

Tg. 1Samuel

Initial form wqetal

Chronological development of the theme ‘Saul chasing after David’

1.

18:6–9

2. 3.

18:10–16 18:17–30

wqetal wqetal

4.

19:1–24

wqetal

Summary of episode (13 episodes, 1 theme) Saul’s anger for David’s greater popularity the first attempt to kill David the second attempt to kill him by hands of the Philistines; David takes Michal’s hand Jonathan mends fences between David and Saul; a further third attempt by javelin (10) and later

17 Because Samuel’s discourse (12:1–25) starts with referring

indirectly to Saul (lack of concept), I integrated it with the battle against Ammon where Saul proves himself. All the material has the overarching theme of ‘Saul as king’.

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

5.

20:1–21:1

wqetal

6.

21:2–16

wqetal

7.

22:1–23

wqetal

8.

23:1–24:1

wqetal

9.

24:2–23

wqetal

10. 25:1a–d 11. 25:1e–44

wqetal wqetal

12. 26:1–25

wqetal

13. 27:1–12

wqetal

263

at his house in Michal’s bed (17), and in Ramah (19) Jonathan acknowledges Saul hates David and sends David away David flees to Ahimelech (a priest in Nob) and then to Achish (the Philistine king of Gath) from Achish, David escapes to different places (Adullam, Mizpeh of Moab, Hareth in Judah), while Saul kills Ahimelech (of Nob); Abiathar the priest (Saul killed his father, Ahimelech) escapes to David with an ephod David and his help in Keilah, Saul is in pursuit of him again; David escapes to Ziph, Maon, and En-gedi David spares Saul’s life the first time Death of Samuel In the Paran desert, David enters into a dispute with Nabal (his wife Abigail intercedes); the latter dies unexpectedly; David takes Abigail as wife David spares Saul’s life a second time (in Zif) as there is no place for him in Saul’s kingdom, David goes to Achish and resides in Ziklag

The third thematic and temporal pairing of episodes is the one in battle with the Philistines from 28:1 to 31:13 (the last 4 chapters of 1Samuel).

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Sequence

Tg. 1Samuel The battle 28:1–25 with the Philistines 29:1–11

Initial form wqetal

Summary of episode (13 episodes, 1 theme) Saul and the diviner in Endor in view of the upcoming battle wqetal David’s presence is unwanted in the Philistines’ camp 30:1–31 wqetal David pursues and retrieves the people and goods stolen during a raid of Amalek against Ziklag 31:1–7: The fact that this episode recounting Saul’s death starts with an xparticiple is indication that it is not supposed to be taken as subsequent to the end of the preceding episode in 30:31. Episode 31:1–7 occurs after 29:11. 31:8–13 wqetal Account of what happened with the bodies of Saul and his sons

FURTHER SENTENCE TYPES IN PRELUDE POSITION The analysis of the preceding section provided evidence that, in line with its normal syntactic function (narrative, zero degree), the wqetal in prelude positions advances the narrative from one episode to another. This section examines the impact of the prelude SVO sentences (mainly, xqetal and xparticiple, along with three nominal clauses) on the sequence of two ensuing episodes. There is no reason to believe that the SVO sentences are not able to retain their own syntactic functions when found in prelude, particularly with regard to register and perspective. The xqetal and xparticiple comment on information, which means that the author instructs the reader to take their message as being different from narrative. As the examples below will show, the narrative ‘baton’ of the previous episode falls aside as the new episode initiated with a SVO sentence favours earlier themes or topics which are in a non-temporal relation to the previous episode. The linguistic dimension of perspective expresses the sequence of events or lack thereof (there is no retrospection or anticipation) in narrative and comment communications. While prelude wqetal is continuing a zero degree line between two ensuing episodes, the episodes introduced with xqetal and xparticiple disrupt that temporal linearity. Now, I come to their positive attributes.

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

265

1)

In line with its main comment function, an xqetal in prelude position will have, in most cases, a recovering function which seeks two things: (1) to recover or return to a point in time, a character, or situation; (2) to restart the narrative. 2) The xparticiple is a zero degree communication which proposes a different theme to pursue in the episode about to begin; generally, it restates information using verbatim expressions. Besides the wqetal, three other types of prelude sentences are displayed in Targum 1Samuel: nominal clauses (3); xparticiple (3), xqetal (5). I analyse them in the order of their occurrence with the aid of the table below. These examples are clustered around the three characters of this biblical book: Samuel, Saul, and David. Targum 1Samuel

Initial form

Summary of episode

Episodes introduced with wqetal

1:20–2:11 2:12–17 2:18–21

wqetal Nominal Clause wxparticiple

The promise is fulfilled: birth of Samuel The sins of Eli’s sons

The childhood of Samuel; Hannah bears other children 2:22–36 wxqetal Eli rebukes his sons; a prophet predicts their demise from God 3:1–15 wxparticiple Samuel’s vision about his prophetic calling 3:16–21 wqetal Samuel recounts the vision to Eli 4:1–22 wqetal Israel loses the battle at Rock of Help; Eli dies 5:1–12 wxqetal The Philistines take the Ark from Israel Episodes introduced with wqetal 13:1–23 Nominal Saul disobeys and is rejected as king Clause 14:1–23 wqetal Jonathan and his armour bearer take on the Philistines 14:24–52 wxqetal Saul’s oath and his wars 15:1–9 wqetal Samuel orders the destruction of the Amalekites 15:10–35b wqetal Rejection of Saul for disobedience

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

15:35c– 16:13

wxqetal

Samuel is sent to anoint another king in Bethlehem Panel 1: 15:35c–16:5: Samuel is sent to Bethlehem Panel 2: 16:6–13: wqetal: Election of David 16:14–23 wxqetal Saul is tormented by the evil spirit; David comforts him; David is introduced as a new character the second time 17:1–11 wqetal Philistines attack: description and the provocative words of Goliath; reaction of Saul and his army 17:12–18:5 Nominal David kills Goliath; David and Jonathan are Clause friends Panel 1: 17:12–54: David kills Goliath (David introduced as new character the third time) Panel 2: 17:55–58: wxqetal, Reactions to killing Goliath Panel 3: 18:1–5: wqetal, Jonathan and David become friends Episodes introduced with wqetal 28:1–25

wqetal

29:1–11

wqetal

30:1–31

wqetal

31:1–7

wxparticiple

31:8–13

wqetal

Saul and the diviner in Endor in view of the upcoming battle David’s presence is unwanted in the Philistines’ camp David pursues and retrieves what was lost to Amalek’s raid Death of Saul (Episode 31:1–7 occurs after 29:11) The bodies of Saul and his sons

Samuel 2:12a is an example of a nominal clause in prelude position. Its functions seem to be that of introducing Eli’s sons as completely new characters in the story with no sense that there is a temporal sequence between the birth of Samuel and Eli’s sons. While recounting the story of Samuel’s childhood (1:1–3:21), the narrator intervenes four times with non-wqetal sentences (a–d). After he has introduced information about Eli’s sons on two occasions ((a)

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

267

2:12–17 (nominal clause) and (c) 2:22–36 (xqetal)), the narrator returns to Samuel with an xparticiple sentence (b) 2:18 and (d) 3:1 (see the table above). This creates an unmistakably polished alternation (Samuel→Eli’s sons→Samuel→Eli’s sons→Samuel), shaped around the opposition between Samuel—the servant of God (‫)משמיש קדם יוי‬18— and Eli’s sons (‫‘ רשׁיעין גברין‬evil men’). Over the longer interval of the episode 2:22–36, the theme of Samuel is kept present in the mind of the reader by inserting a reminder in 2:26, again using the same xparticiple sentence (‘And the boy Samuel continued to grow’); this also serves as a pause between the rebuke of Eli (2:22–25) and God’s word against them (2:27–36). By answering the following three questions, I explain how these three prelude sentence types disrupt the narrative advancement of their respective previous episode. 1) What does this alternation mean for the syntax of the prelude nominal clause in 2:12? Without proper examination of more occurrences, no positive analysis of the nominal clause can be made with regard to Weinrich’s register, relievo and perspective.19 However two things can be ascertained. First, the episode introduced with nominal clause in 2:12 is not connected with the previous one: a) new characters—Eli’s sons; b) a general newfound topic—their sins. c) the timeline is vague—the events related to the wicked behaviour of Eli’s sons (2:12–17) happen sometime early in the life of Samuel; Second, these items are part of the narrator’s theological message: sinful people are forewarned and repeatedly called to repentance and, when they stiffen in their wrongdoings, punished. He develops this theme by returning to Eli’s sons and their behaviour in the subsequent episodes either directly (2:22–36 with xqetal, this time by recovering this theme) or just mentioning them (their punishment by death in 4:11). All in all, the prelude nominal clause is about setting new topics 18 This is reminiscent of Hannah’s promise made in her prayer for a child (1:11:

‘he may serve before the LORD all the days of his life’, Staalduine-Sulman’s translation). 19 The nominal clause is not examined in this book.

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

which take central stage in the theological development of the story; in the remaining two examples, the nominal clause is about re-asserting main themes for the narrative development of the story (Saul from 13:1; David from 17:12). 2) What does this alternation mean for the two xparticiple sentences in 2:18 and 3:1? The prelude xparticiple restates in an almost verbatim way information made available previously in the biblical book (following Staalduine-Sulman’s translation): a) The xparticiple of 2:18 (‘And Samuel is serving before the LORD’) restates a point made in 2:11b with xqetal, ‘And the boy served before the LORD, during the life of Eli the priest’. b) The xparticiple of 3:1 (‘And the boy Samuel is serving before the LORD during the life of Eli’) restates with similar wording information from 2:21d (wqetal ‘And the boy Samuel grew up, serving before the LORD’) and 2:11 (‘during the life of Eli the priest’). I note that xparticiple in prelude marks actual repetition of information with verbatim phrases; this is not the same as recovering information, a function which is taken by the prelude xqetal (see the following paragraph). 3)

What does this alternation mean for the xqetal prelude sentence of 2:22a? From the previous episode focused on Samuel’s childhood and Hannah’s subsequent fertility (2:18–21), the sequence of xqetal-wqetal in 22ab contains a change of topic, scenery, and characters (‘Now Eli is very old and he has heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and that they have lain with the women who had come to pray’).20 Eli rebukes his sons as he becomes aware of their sins listed in the episode of 2:12–17, and more because their sleeping with women has not been mentioned before.21 This means that by using the xqetal sentence in 2:22a, the

20 Staalduine-Sulman’s translation, my italics to account for the xqetal-wqetal

comment retrospective sequence. I translated the xqetal in 2:22a with present tense to avoid the awkward present perfect (although the latter is the actual tense of comment retrospection). 21 The vague concept of ‘all that his sons were doing’ (NRSV) is clarified later within the episode in 2:23 as ‘evil dealings’ so 2:22–37 is still a self-standing episode.

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

269

narrator set this rebuke as being recovered information with regard to the previous episodes. The function of recovering of information is more apparent in the other four instances of xqetal of prelude examined below. The next SVO in prelude is the xqetal sentence in 5:1. It marks the discontinuation between the sayings of the midwife assisting the birth of Eli’s grandson (4:22) and the event of the Philistines taking the Ark to Ashdod 5:1a (‘the Philistines have captured the ark of the LORD’). This new episode recovers the information asserted in 4:11 that ‘the ark was taken’. Because 5:1 is a SVO sentence, this is a commentary of the narrator warning of the break in the narrative thread occurring between these two episodes. The episode of 5:1–12 acts together with the following two episodes 6:1 and 7:2 (the events surrounding the ark while in Philistine possession). Saul The subsequent sequence of episodes ends with Samuel’s farewell discourse. The episode in 13:1 restates the theme of Saul with a prelude nominal clause of ‘As a one year old child, in whom there is no guilt, was Saul, when he became king’ (13:1).22 Following the episode of 14:1–23 (Jonathan and his armour bearer take on the Philistines), an xqetal of prelude followed by a continuation wqetal in 14:24ab recovers information (‘And the men of Israel have kept themselves at a distance that day, for Saul had made the people swear’). These ‘men of Israel’ about to fight the Philistines are mentioned earlier in the prelude section of the previous episode in 14:2—there were 600 men with Saul. Consequently, the xqetal in 14:24a continues 14:2 not 14:23 and this discontinuation is marked with an xqetal. David

The following two episodes (15:1–9 and 15:10–35b) have wqetal in prelude bringing the episodes focused on Saul to a close. In the next two I agree with the translation of Staalduine-Sulman. She attributes this textual variant of the Targum to a metaphorical interpretation of a grammatically corrupt original; explanation prompted by R. Ḥuna, see StaalduineSulman, The Targum of Samuel, 299–302. 22

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

episodes (15:35c–16:13 and 16:14–23), David takes centre stage. Both these episodes start by recovering information with xqetal in prelude: • The expression of God’s regret in 15:35c (‘And the LORD has turned back in his speech that he had made Saul king over Israel.’) recovers God’s statement of 15:11 (‘I reconsider my speech that I have made Saul to be the king’).23 The prelude xqetal in 35c sets the scene for God’s command to Samuel (16:1) to go to Jesse the Bethlehemite to anoint another king. Hence, the xqetal (35c) is not connected to the immediately preceding form in 15:35ab. This is the first introduction of David in the narrative of 1Samuel: by divine calling, he becomes the newly anointed king of Israel. • the xqetal in 16:14a states that Saul is no longer a place of residence for God’s spirit (‘And the mighty spirit from before the LORD who had been with Saul, has departed from him’) which implicitly recovers the moment when it has left in 16:13c (‘And a mighty spirit from before the LORD dwelt upon David from that day forward.’). The connection between the two is severed by the interposed passage of 16:13de (‘And Samuel rose up and went to Rama’) which closes the previous episode.24 This second introduction of David explicates how he reaches Saul’s presence, although the former was from a humbler family. As a conclusion, the prelude xqetal sentence recovers information rather than continuing the end of the previous episode. In some cases, the new episode presents two parallel strands of the story: Samuel’s righteous serving of God versus the sinful serving of Eli’s sons; David enjoys the presence of the good spirit, while Saul is tormented by the evil spirit. In 17:12 occurs the third case of nominal clause in prelude. This is the third time the theme of David is introduced. The nominal clause of 17:12 presents David as a new character starting again from his humble origin in Bethlehem and his family (‘Now David was the son of this Ephrathite man, from Bethlehem, of the House of Judah, named Jesse, who had eight sons’). This happens although this information 23 The translation of Staalduine-Sulman with my modifications in italics. 24 This is Staalduine-Sulman’s translation; the italics belong to me.

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

271

has been already imparted in the episode 15:35c–16:13: verse 1 ‘I send you to Jesse, who is from Bethlehem’; verse 10 ‘And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.’; verse 11 ‘There remains one, the smallest, but behold, he is tending the sheep’. There is no indication in 17:12 and thereafter that any of the other preceding information in 17:12– 18:5 should already be known to the reader. In other words, this is not recovered (usually marked with xqetal) or restated verbatim (marked with xparticiple) information in the prelude. In view of the other two previous examples, the use of the nominal clause in 17:12 signals that this is to be taken as a genuine first introduction of theme David. The xparticiple of prelude in 31:1 has the function of restating information. The first movement of troops in this last war of Saul with the Philistines is found 28:1b with a wqetal form, ‫וכנשׁו פלשׁתאי‬ ‫‘( ית משׁריתהון לחילא לאגחא קרבא בישׁראל‬the Philistines gathered their forces for an army, to wage war against Israel.’). This is followed by another movement of troops in 28:4 (a wqetal) showing where they camped (Philistines in Shunem, Israel in Gilboa). Another wqetal in 29:1 tells about a subsequent movement of troops from the previous position to Aphek (Philistines) and Jezreel (Israel). By contrast, there is no movement of troops in the xparticiple of 31:1: the sentence only repeats that the Philistines fight against Israel without adding new information. It has the purpose of restarting the story of Saul, after the two episodes focused on David (29:1–11 and 30:1–31) by restating a known fact ‫‘ ופלשׁתאי מגיחין קרבא בישׁראל‬Now the Philistines are waging war in Israel’ (31:1).25 A comparison between 28:1a and 31:1 reveals that they share a verbatim repetition of three key words (‫‘ ופלשׁתאי‬the Philistines’, ‫‘ קרבא‬war’, and ‫‘ בישׁראל‬against Israel’).

CONCLUSION The coherence of a literary work as a whole is the cornerstone of this syntactic division of episodes in 1Samuel. In the following, I outline the argument of Weinrich about text beginning with his concluding statement about coherence (‘By coherence we mean the particular item that makes a text a text’) and then discussing the ‘dialogue faceto-face’ where ‘the two communicators find themselves vis-à-vis’.26 25 Staalduine-Sulman’s translation with my modifications in italics. 26 Weinrich, Grammaire

textuelle du français, 23–25.

272

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

This is to explain how the coherence marker of time passage or what Weinrich calls ‘the axis of time between the beginning and the end’, fits with his linguistic dimensions, especially the registers of comment and narrative.27 What we learn is the following:28 (1) The priority of the linguistic analysis is ‘to grab the textuality of the text’, or that which makes it coherent. (2) That for text-linguistics, ‘the text-in-situation is […] the first given’, which means that the analysis starts from actual texts. (3) That ‘a dialogue is a text too in the sense of text-linguistics’; this means that the assumptions of text-linguistics are applicable to the written text and the oral exchange of information. (4) Weinrich’s updated definition of text puts together the oral and the written communication: ‘We call TEXT the linear enunciation which is contained between two notable interruptions of communication and which goes from the organs of speech or of writing of the sender to those of hearing or sight of the receiver. That being said, we do not count as an interruption of communication the simple change of speaker during the exchange’. (5) The suggestion that ‘all exchange takes place on the axis of tenses between a beginning and an end’ reinforces the fact that Weinrich’s text time is longer or shorter in view of how many linguistic signs the author decides to put together as text. Moreover, if that text is of a narrative sort, its coherence is dependent on a linear axis of tenses; time passage (or plot advancement) is a coherence marker. (6) Every exchange of information is a ‘Sprachspiel’ or ‘dialogic exchange or game’. Text-linguistics and its applications to individual languages are based on the ‘oral dialogue’ in which the situation of writer/reader is no different from that of the speaker/hearer; they share the same ‘ACTANTIAL In the early sections of this chapter, I have made clear the importance of chronology or temporal arrangement of information for literary criticism (see Wellek and Warren) and text-linguistics in general (Beaugrande and Dressler). 28 Weinrich, Grammaire textuelle du français, 25, 24, 23. 27

6. NARRATIVE: TEXT, EPISODE, AND TIME PASSAGE

273

SITUATION’. More specifically, both the writer and the speaker have the same goal of influencing through communication the action (including their level of information) of the reader and hearer. (7) The most relevant item is the fact that Weinrich equates textlinguistics to ‘dialogical linguistics’: ‘It is the oral dialogue that this grammar29 takes as point of reference and fundamental form of communication’. The relevance of this statement can hardly be overstated in the context of what the comment register means: it is a direct address of the narrator to the reader that instructs that their message is to be taken in a participative and involved state. From this perspective, commenting a story is as important as narrating it. Finally, after presenting a theory of the what ‘text’ means and how this concept applies to the biblical literature, this chapter has shown not only that a biblical book is divisible into smaller text units with coherence (biblical episodes), but also that the biblical narrator builds on the syntactic functions of the available sentence types to create coherence at episode level. Summarising the function of VSO versus SVO sentence in prelude position, while 31 chapters of 1Samuel represent subsequent temporal advances of their antecedent chapter (marked with the VSO sentence of wqetal), there are 11 other episodes in which the narrator comments in the prelude position of the episode. The sole objective is to indicate that although two episodes are subsequently arranged in the story, one episode does not temporally continue the plot of the preceding one. The break may mean three things: it recovers already stated information with the use of the xqetal; it restates verbatim information with xparticiple; or, by the use of the nominal clause, it proposes fresh new topics of narrative (2:12) or at least pretend that they are such topics (Saul in 13:1; David in 17:12).

29 The term ‘this grammar’ refers to his Grammaire textuelle du

français.

CHAPTER 7. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS: THE WORLD OF COMMENT

Harald Weinrich’s text-linguistic method investigates language based on three dimensions: relievo, perspective, and register. In the following, I return to the point that the method is ‘dialogic’ and ‘anthropologic’; these traits are most conspicuous in the comment register. In addition to providing a summary, this closing statement is an accumulation of notes on how the theory of comment may be developed in the future.1 Perhaps for one to become more receptive to their emphatic rejection by Weinrich, one should consider how the traditional tense theories limit the scope of the syntactic analysis. By fixating on time, these theories involve a unidimensional outlook of tenses which makes language indifferent to the writer or speaker. This view neglects the fact that the author and their characters are as corporeal as most of the objects depicted in the text. The evaluation of tense through the dimension of register is Weinrich’s attempt to remedy this fixation of tense syntax with time. By conceiving the comment register, he puts on equal footing the communication of the absent author (including his or her characters) with the communication of persons standing face-to-face. It thus becomes understandable why Weinrich considers any communication (oral or written) as being ‘text’: the syntactic functions of language are the same no matter what the medium of communication may be. The This project takes place at Dublin City University (Ireland) starting in the autumn of 2019 and is entitled The Event in Biblical Hebrew: Tense and Word Order in Direct Speech. 1

275

276

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

text is a coherent sequence of narrative and comment sentences and a conversation between a sentient speaker/writer and a sentient listener/reader. These lines, I believe, set forth the comment register as a building block of the linguistic analysis.

T HE CONTENT OF THE BOOK This book is focused on defining the function of the following TA sentence types as they are employed in the indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel: wqetal and wparticiple (the VSO sentences); xqetal and xparticiple (the SVO/OVS sentences). The two chief correlations between TA (and by extension BH) tense and word order, and Weinrich’s method are: register is conveyed by word order (VSO denotes the narrative register; SVO/OVS is comment); relievo is marked by morphology—while qetal expresses foreground, participle means background. After the introduction, there is a chapter which examines the work of a number of scholars of Semitic languages who have engaged with the work of Weinrich in a substantive way. Despite the best intentions of a few scholars, it was striking the extent to which Weinrich’s work has been misunderstood. These misunderstandings range from misreading particularly important elements of the method (for example, mistakenly assimilating the comment/narrative with the direct/indirect speech) to frontal attacks which have failed to understand its linguistic and philosophic contexts. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the TA wqetal and wparticiple (VSO) sentences which account for the narrative register. They share the zero degree perspective (they do not contain information that recovers or anticipates events in the story), but are separated by their foregrounding or relievo function: wqetal takes the foreground advancement of the plot and of the narrative time, while the wparticiple takes background function of expressing additional information and of stalling the narrative time. In these two chapters, I further engage with the question of how the passage of time and the plot interact in the narrative. The sociolinguistic analysis of Labov and Waletzky and the discourse analysis of Hopper examine the narrative communication starting from the function of tense in the plot. Hopper generally suggests that one should go beyond the traditional tense-theories and look at foregrounding as an alternative since, for example, the particles responsible with marking

7. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

277

the foreground and background narration in Swahili (‘ka-’ and ‘ki-’) have ‘no temporal deixis’ and ‘nor are they aspectual’2 but are still able to produce a respectable narrative communication. Between them, Labov and Waletzky examine how ‘the temporal sequence of the experience’ finds its way into the oral narrative account of the experience.3 Later, it has become a mantra of discourse analysis to talk, as Hopper does, about the ‘flow of the narrative’4 up to the point that Dry proposed ‘the illusion of the temporal movement’. What ‘flows’ or ‘moves’ is the narrative time which advances from one event to the next, from the beginning to the end of the story. It is striking that Dry calls this movement ‘illusory’ which, I think, indicates inability to explain this narrative phenomenon. My contribution is to articulate how Weinrich’s concept of tense metaphor makes this time passage less illusory. In the context of the three dimensions of Weinrich’s theory, the tense metaphor acknowledges that, when communication passes from one tense to another, more than one change in linguistic dimension is possible: as a narrative and retrospective tense (in English this is past perfect) is followed by a comment and zero degree tense (present tense), two dimensions are changed—narrative to comment and retrospective to zero degree. This double change marks that one tense is metaphorically (which means that there are two changes) turned into another or that a tense metaphor occurs. The passage of narrative time is created by the reading together of two narrative sentences which become a different type of tense metaphor: the juxtaposition of their semantic value (say ‘to start up the car’ and ‘to drive away’) with a narrative tense creates an advancement of the narrative time as in ‘She started up the car and drove away’. Further development of the narrative time is the theory of temporal metamorphosis of Kristeva which brings together the narrative sentence with the physical experience of the five senses. In the biblical literature, the quoting of a character’s utterance may be read as the physical 2 Hopper, ‘Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse’, in Discourse and Syntax

213–214. 3 Labov and Waletzky, ‘Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience’, 4. 4 Hopper, ‘Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse’, in Discourse and Syntax 240.

278

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

imprint of the character on the narrative. For this reason, I proposed that the TA wqetal (or BH wayyiqtol) introducing a dialogue or direct speech is in fact a temporal metamorphosis: the reader experiences the metamorphosis of the narrative time into the presence of the characters addressing one another. Chapter 3 was also concerned with the particular combination of the wqetal of the verb ‘to be’ ‫( והוה‬called ‘macro-syntactic sign’) with a protasis/apodosis construction (also called ‘double sentence’). As a reaction to the issues found in Niccacci’s analysis, I consider that there should be an amendment of methodology, in order for this theory to stand its ground against the various challenges.5 The solution is to set a type of consecutio temporum rule for the macro-syntactic sign and its apodosis: they must display the same tense and word order. Besides resolving the methodologic issues, the effect of this rule is significant: • there is a coherent way of incorporating more than one protasis sentence into the double sentence; • there is a proper explanation of retrospection; • in the double sentence, the emphasis is realised in the apodosis by the way of xqetal. Chapter 5 is by far the most complex as it harnesses to a Semitic language the original element of Weinrich’s syntax—the comment register. The methodologic discussion of this chapter is difficult to summarise in a limited space, so I will restrict my remarks to outlining the results. Whereas the xparticiple mainly marks the comment zero degree function, the xqetal has no less than three different functions: • • •

comment retrospective—this is the default syntactic position of xqetal; narrative foreground—this happens when it enters into a correlation or contrast relation with a discernible narrative head in wqetal; comment zero degree—whenever found in its immediate vicinity, the xqetal is influenced by the xparticiple (see also the instances when that analysis is not possible); such is the case with wqetal/wparticiple (their respective syntactic

For example, the supposition that the combination of ‫ והוה‬and participle would be equivalent to a past continuous tense in modern languages. 5

7. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

279

foreground/background opposites), when occurring together the xqetal and xparticiple mark the foreground versus background contrast. This is a synoptic correlation of TA sentence types and Weinrich’s functions:

narrative zero degree comment zero degree

narrative retrospection narrative anticipation comment retrospection comment anticipation

Relievo Background wparticiple

Foreground wqetal xparticiple (it takes either foreground or background relievo when found alone) xqetal (foreground) whenever in connection with xparticiple (background) conjunction-qetal (relievo does not apply) conjunction-yiqtul (relievo does not apply) xqetal (relievo does not apply) no occurrences in indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel

Finally, Chapter 6 is concerned with questions of text: what makes a text a text? (Answer: coherence) and how does one go about deciding on the length of a biblical text? In terms of results, the initial or prelude sentence of the biblical episode (there are 42 episodes in 1Samuel, see Annex 1) is a reflection of whether the episode about to begin continues the narrative plot from the end of the previous episode. The prelude wqetal indicates this continuation; the other sentence types signal the interruption of the narrative thread to recover information (the prelude xqetal) or restate information (xparticiple).

WHERE TO ? Regarding the future of the comment register theory, one should consider the quality of the event within the literary work. In the introduction of his The Event: Literature and Theory, Ilai Rowner catalogues

280

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

events under three main types: (1) the historical event; (2) the narrative event; and (3) the literary event. I suggest that the narrative register corresponds to those texts that, according to Rowner, display ‘[t]he common narrative structure of the plot [which] can be defined either as a narrative unit of one or more events or as the succession of events that composes a narrative relation’.6 This inevitably has an inner temporal passage which follows a linear development of the story from the beginning to the end. The ‘succession of events’ is the zero degree of narrative, which sometimes is incised to include a perspective (from zero degree to retrospection or anticipation and back). It may seem a humdrum association but the wqetal and wparticiple, as narrative TA sentences, portray narrative events. The other two types of events are part of the comment register. The comment retrospective function is correlated with the historical event, the latter being ‘not only what happens but precisely what could be told, what may assume order in spite of its relative disorder’.7 This is the development of the mode of writing history. Weinrich argues this historical side of comment with regard to the work of the historian Golo Mann: ‘the science of history, a science which has the mission to give account of the history along with that of commenting it’.8 The implication of Weinrich’s argument is that, when talking about history, a historian would employ both the narrative and comment tenses, albeit in a specific way as the example of Mann exhibits. The latter type of communication—a historian’s commentary on a historical event—may be marked by the syntactic function of comment retrospection and, in Targum 1Samuel, are represented by the xqetal sentence. From this perspective, the TA xqetal sentence (and its BH xqatal equivalent) has the meaning of facilitating the link between the biblical historian who addresses the historic person of the reader. Rowner begins his discourse on the third type of events, the literary event, from a quote of Jorge Borges who, once again, excludes time from comment. In Borges’ words, ‘The most solemn of events are 6 Rowner, The

Event: Literature and Theory, 14. Event: Literature and Theory, 6. 8 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 91; G. Mann, Geschichte und Geschichten (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1962). 7 Rowner, The

7. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

281

outside time – whether because in the most solemn of events the immediate past is severed, as it were, from the future or because the elements that compose those events seem not to be consecutive’.9 Subsequently, Rowner turns to the ‘philosophical perspective’ (Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology and post-structuralism) for general clarification on literary event which is ‘the process by which Being gives itself to beings, manifests itself before eyes, and speaks itself through language’.10 From Rowner-Borges’ account, the literary event is not concerned with the consecutive time but with the ‘being’ that is present through language in the literary art. These are two points also made by Weinrich: ‘we comment in the majority of instances things that are directly connected to the speaker and the listener, then these already are current or known things. Situating them in time is not therefore that necessary’.11 The comment sentences of zero degree (in TA that means the xparticiple and the combination of xparticiple and xqetal) offer the possibility of being in charge with these kinds of literary events. A discussion based on the indirect speech of Targum 1Samuel, as set out in this book, is not likely to present definitive answers for the theory of comment, as there is a known correlation between comment and direct speech. However, even at this incipient stage one may ask: after Weinrich has set the cornerstone of the comment register, how can one build the edifice? What is likely to be the main theoretical structure of comment? Without a doubt, comment has to be about participation and about exposing the presence of the author and the characters in communication. The author and the characters are no less ‘anthropologic’ and ‘dialogic’ beings than the one reading or listening to the message. Inadvertently (because he is not aware of Weinrich but shares the same diving chamber of continental philosophy), Rowner brings an array of theoretic pointers as to what comment could indicate. Now, my question is less about what comment is in theory, and more about what type of events board the train of the commented

Rowner, The Event: Literature and Theory, 26; Rowner quotes from J. L. Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories: Emma Zunz (London: Penguin Classics, 1998), 47. 10 Rowner, The Event: Literature and Theory, 28; Rowner’s italics. 11 Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 98. 9

282

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

world. This is a list of items that, I suggest, are likely to be related to comment-like communications: • the events depicted are of a calamity, a shocking fact, or a horrific experience; • the events are corporeally poignant to the reader or the character perceiving them; • the events are aimed at operating change in the soul, creating chain momentous reactions, blowing the cover of tranquillity, and forcing the unearthing of solutions outside the comfort zone of the known; • the communication seeks to dislodge deep-seated assumptions and prejudices by the force of a paradigmshifting event in order to bring the person to new understandings; • a person is exposed (to the reader/listener and/or to the other characters) for what he or she is; one can no more hide under the appearance of sincerity, faithfulness, or decorum. These elements are reflected in Rowner’s analysis of Fable for Another Time by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This piece of literature is a balancing act between two tensioned occurrences, an air raid on Paris during WW2 which is in counterpoint with the jealousy of a man towards his cheating wife. It all begins with a comment-like contrast between Ferdinand (the husband) sitting passively in his prison cell and the events that he recollects from the war while living in occupied Paris. In wartime, he was battling not only the dissolution of the world around him as he knew it, but also the dissolution of his marriage since his wife, Lili, was involved with Jules, the artist. The short fragment from Céline quoted by Rowner, which I abbreviated further, is marked by an abundance of commented remarks on the events: Oh, the brute! Wait! the worst! […] the very worst! the camel’s back! the straw! the dirty low-down trick! Lili! Ole Arlette! Ah, when you think about these dastardly deeds!12

Louis-Ferdinand Céline and M. Hudson [tr], Fable for Another Time (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 181 (as quoted by Rowner, p. 209). 12

7. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

283

A number of significant pointers of comment flood the reader: • the use of present tense; • brief and sometimes verbless sentences intertwined with exclamatory remarks; • the distinctive incidence of the ‘I’ of one character addressing the ‘You’ of the other character and possibly the reader; • the presence of hyperbolic language which refers to the immensity, gutter, chasm, cosmic things (Rowner p. 222); or ‘stylistic pattern of ellipsis, broken lines, onomatopoeia, and exclamation’ (Rowner, p. 226); • the array of human feelings communicated by the text indicate comment; according to Rowner (p. 210), the following feelings transpire from the communication: ‘growing astonishment’ and ‘delirious anger’ (p. 210). These pointers are a reflection of deeper structures of the communication: (1) the poetry of the passage; (2) the contrastive positions of the characters and events; and (3) the blame contest played by the author with his characters. These and other similar structures ought to alert the reader that the text is commenting rather than narrating. They undoubtedly substitute and contrast the pacifying deeper structures of narrating, which are the plot and the passage of time. I leave Rowner to explain the poetry-like composition of Céline (the bombing of Paris): Five corporeal substances feature in this scene: Lili, Jules, the Parisian crowd, Ferdinand, and the airplanes. Céline assembles them in a confrontational relationship and defines the presence of each through their interwovenness. Each of the corporeal substances is bound to the other in a delirious vertical construction. Jules is under Lili’s skirt [the wife of Ferdinand], and above them the stream of people goes up and down the hill […] in a rush either to have a better view of the bomber planes or to take shelter in the metro. The planes surprise the crowd, people are staring upward […]. Ferdinand cannot see clearly what happens between Jules and Lili, […] since the couple is covered under the crowd.13

13 Rowner, The

clarifications.

Event: Literature and Theory, 211; the brackets represent my

284

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

While a narrated story elides such subtleties by retaining a more straightforward, black and white presentation of events, the comment register portrays the reality in the brightest of colours. The other two deeper structures of commenting exemplify the powerful contrast between the two sides of Jules’ and Ferdinand’s characters. The character relating the events, here Ferdinand, is not exactly blameless: while his wife betrays him, he is a traitor because he collaborates with the occupier; again, neither the character nor the reader can remain indifferent to the events. One the one hand, Jules is the lover of Ferdinand’s wife; on the other, he hands Ferdinand to the authorities (as the latter was a collaborator with the occupation). These commented events contain a mixture of negative and positive features to which other characters and the reader cannot stay indifferent; commentative participation is required as characters and readers alike are forced into taking sides, according to their judgement of the situation. Comment is all about making a decision, about who is in the wrong and, in most cases, the reader ends up with the other burning question of ‘with which character do I identify more?’ In sum, the pointers listed above constitute a more visible presence of comment. They can be broadly classified under stylistic devices (ellipsis, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, exclamation), syntactic strategies (use of comment tenses, verbless sentences, ‘broken lines’), and semantically charged context and vocabulary (tensioned events). These, however, seem to be the expression of charged emotions and situations, or deeper structures of communication, which cannot go uncommented by the reader or the characters. They lure all into the realm of the story as characters and readers are predestined by the author to empathise, asses and make judgements of value. By that, the reader becomes a participant in the story.

ANNEX 1: DIVISION OF EPISODES This annex exhibits the length of the episodes and of their respective panels (if the episode can be divided in two or more panels). For each episode, I recorded each the prelude forms employed. ‫ והוה‬is counted as wqetal form. The focus of this annex is the division in episodes, not those in panels, so the latter is not always recorded. Sequence Type

Episode Targum Initial form Summary of episode number 1Samuel

1

1:1–19

wqetal

2

1:20–2:11 wqetal (‫ )והוה‬The promise is fulfilled: birth of Samuel

3

2:12–17 Nominal Clause

4

2:18–21 wxparticiple The childhood of Samuel; Hannah bears other children

5

2:22–36 wxqetal

6

3:1–15

chronological promise and fulfilment

chronological vision

Promise of a child: Panel 1: 1:1–11: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, Samuel’s family Panel 2: 1:12–19: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, Hannah’s meeting with Eli and the oath

The sins of Eli’s sons

Eli rebukes his sons; a prophet prophesies to Eli their demise from God; (2:26 reminds Samuel is faithful which suggests contrast with Eli’s sons)

wxparticiple Samuel’s vision about his prophetic calling

285

286

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Sequence Type

Episode Targum Initial form Summary of episode number 1Samuel

(3:1) and its recounting (3:16) simple chronology

chronological events on the ark

simple chronology with 8:1–22 chronological development of the theme ‘Saul as king’

7

3:16–21 wqetal

Samuel recounts the vision to Eli

8

4:1–22

wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Israel loses the battle at Rock of Help and Aphek; Eli dies Panel 1: 4:1–11: wqetal, Battle with Philistines Panel 2: 4:12–18: wqetal, death of Eli Panel 3: 4:19–22: xparticiple, birth of Ichabod and dead of his mother

9

5:1–12

wxqetal

10

6:1–7:1

wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Philistines return the Ark to Israel Panel 1: 6:1–12: wqetal, the counsel of the Philistines regarding the Ark Panel 2: 6:13–7:1: wxparticiple, Israel receives the Ark

11

7:2–17

wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Samuel and the war with Philistines

12

8:1–22

wqetal (‫ )והוה‬The people require a king (sons of Samuel are unsuitable to lead)

13

9:1– 10:16

wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Presentation and anointing of Saul as king Panel 1: 9:1–26a: wqetal, Presentation of Saul

The Philistines take the Ark from Israel

ANNEX 1 Sequence Type

287

Episode Targum Initial form Summary of episode number 1Samuel

(8:1 to 12:25)

Panel 2: 9:26b–10:16: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, Saul is anointed king 14

10:17–27 wqetal

The election of Saul as king (casting lots)

15

11:1– 12:25

Saul becomes proper king with the victory against Amon Panel 1: 11:1–4: wqetal, Nahash the king of Amon against Jabeshgilead Panel 2: 11:5–10: (‫)הא‬, Saul introduced and the promise to Gilead Panel 3: 11:11–12:25: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, the battle with the Ammonites; Samuel’s farewell discourse

wqetal

The narrative thread resumes from a temporal moment sometime after 11:1–12:25

simple chronology

chronological command and disobedience

16

13:1–23

Nominal Clause

Saul disobeys the first time and is rejected as king

17

14:1–23 wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Jonathan and his armour bearer take on the Philistines

18

14:24–52 wxqetal

Saul’s oath and his wars Panel 1: 14:24–46: wxqetal, Jonathan and Saul’s oath Panel 2: 14:47–52: wxqetal, Saul, his battles and his family

19

15:1–9

wqetal

Samuel orders the destruction of Amalekites

20

15:10– 35b

wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Rejection of Saul for disobedience: the confrontation between Saul and Samuel, the

288

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Sequence Type

Episode Targum Initial form Summary of episode number 1Samuel

latter regrets having chosen the former as king. 21

15:35c– 16:13

wxqetal

Samuel is sent to anoint another king in Bethlehem Panel 1: 15:35c–16:5: Samuel is sent to Bethlehem Panel 2: 16:6–13: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, Election of David (David appears for first time into the narrative thread)

22

16:14–23 wxqetal

Saul is tormented by the evil spirit; David comforts him (David appears the second time in the narrative thread as musician at Saul’s court)

The narrative thread resumes with a prelude wqetal from either 15:35b or 16:23 (in the former case, there is an intermezzo focused on David made up of two episodes: 15:35c–16:13 and 16:14–23)

23

17:1–11

wqetal

Philistines attack: the provocation of Goliath and the reaction of Saul and his army

24

17:12– 18:5

Nominal Clause

David kills Goliath; David and Jonathan are friends Panel 1: 17:12–17:54: David introduced the third time: the people do not know him and neither does Saul; David kills Goliath Panel 2: 17:55–58: wxqetal, Reactions to killing Goliath Panel 3: 18:1–5: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, Jonathan and David become friends; 18:1 cannot be prelude as there is no independent

ANNEX 1 Sequence Type

289

Episode Targum Initial form Summary of episode number 1Samuel

subject in this verse (theme David is presupposed from 17:58)

chronological development of the theme ‘Saul chasing after David’

wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Saul’s anger for David’s greater popularity

25

18:6–9

26

18:10–16 wqetal

Saul’s first attempt to kill David

27

18:17–30 wqetal

The second attempt to kill David by the hands of the Philistines; David receives Michal’s hand in marriage

28

19:1–24 wqetal

The third attempt by javelin (10) and later at his house in Michal’s bed (17), and in Ramah (19)

29

20:1–21:1 wqetal

Friendship between Jonathan and David, Jonathan acknowledges Saul hates David and sends him away Panel 1: 20:1–24a: wqetal, Jonathan and David are friends Panel 2: 20:24b–34: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, Saul is still planning to kill David Panel 3: 20:35–21:1: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, Jonathan alerts David of Saul’s intention

30

21:2–16 wqetal

David flees to Ahimelech (a priest in Nob) and then to Achish (the Philistine king of Gath)

31

22:1–23 wqetal

From Achish, David escapes to Adullam, Mizpeh of Moab, and Hareth in Judah;

290

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Sequence Type

Episode Targum Initial form Summary of episode number 1Samuel

Saul kills Ahimelech (of Nob); Abiathar the priest (Ahimelech was his father) escapes to David with an ephod

chronological development of the theme ‘The battle

32

23:1– 24:1

wqetal

David and his help in Kehila, Saul is in his pursuit again; David escapes to Ziph, Maon, and En-gedi

33

24:2–23 wqetal

David spares Saul’s life the first time

34

25:1a–d wqetal

Death of Samuel

35

25:1e–44 wqetal

In Paran desert, David enters in dispute with Nabal (his wife Abigail intercedes); the latter dies unexpectedly; David takes Abigail as wife Panel 1: 25:1e–37: wqetal, David and Nabal; his wife Abigail saves the house Panel 2: 25:38–44: wqetal (‫)והוה‬, David marries Abigail after Nabal’s death

36

26:1–25 wqetal

David spares Saul’s life a second time (in Zif)

37

27:1–12 wqetal

As there is no place for him in Saul’s kingdom, David goes to Achish and resides in Ziklag

38

28:1–25 wqetal (‫ )והוה‬Saul and the diviner in Endor in view of the upcoming battle

39

29:1–11

wqetal

David’s presence is unwanted in the Philistines’ camp

ANNEX 1 Sequence Type

with the Philistines’

291

Episode Targum Initial form Summary of episode number 1Samuel

40

30:1–31 wqetal

David pursues and retrieves the people and goods stolen during a raid of Amalek against Ziklag

41

31:1–7

wxparticiple Death of Saul: Because it starts with an xparticiple, this episode is not subsequent to the end of the preceding episode in 30:31. Episode 31:1–7 occurs after 29:11. David does not participate in the battle in which Saul is killed.

42

31:8–13

wqetal

Account of what happened with the bodies of Saul and his sons

ANNEX 2: REPORT ON THE SIGNIFICANT VARIATIONS OF THE CRITICAL TEXT OF TARGUM 1SAMUEL

The analysis of the texts presented in this book may be extended to the critical apparatus presented by Alexander Sperber. The examination is restricted to the wqetal, wparticiple, xparticiple, xqetal, xyiqtul forms in indirect speech. All in all, the textual variants of Sperber’s critical aparatus do not influence the results of the book. These are the main syntactic changes: • from wqetal to wparticiple. This means change from foreground to background narrative and is recorded in: 2:16a; 2:20b; 2:22b; 25:42d; • from wparticiple to wqetal, which means change from background to foreground narrative: 2:16e (‫ ;)אמר‬3:3b; 5:7c (‫;)אמר‬ 14:37a; 14:52b; 17:14b; 19:23cd; • omission of wqetal: in 1:15, the omission of ‫ ואתיבת חנה‬is not of consequence as it is followed by ‫ ואמרת‬supposing Hannah as answering to Eli’s interpellation; in 10:25, the omitted wqetal is preceded and followed by a wqetal forms—no change; 30:1c (‫ )ומחו ית ציקלג‬no syntactic change; • omission of qetal: 3:3c (it turns into a nominal clause); • xqetal instead of xparticiple in 1:10a (narrative contrast); 3:15c (narrative contrast); • xparticiple instead of xqetal: 6:12b (comment zero degree); • cqetal to wqetal: 4:7d (narrative foreground); 4:19d (this wqetal continues 19c in cqetal so it stays on the same line); 293

294

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

• •

10:26c (the explanation is presented with narrative foreground instead of cqetal subordination); ‫ והוה‬singular (regular) instead of plural in 13:2c in fragments from Targum Genizah; ‫ והוה‬singular (regular) instead of wparticiple in 13:21a and 22a; 16:23.

Other types of changes: • 1:7: the change from xyiqtul to xparticiple—there is no change, see discussion in section ‘Backgrounding xparticiple and xyiqtol’; • 1:12a: The translation of BH wqatal with TA wyiqtul (‫)ויהא‬ proposed by the Antwerp Polyglot Bible (in Sperber this is version ‘o’) is peculiar for indirect speech. In the 16 cases where the original BH shows wqatal, TA translates with ‫ ויהי‬only in direct speech (10 cases: 2:36; 3:9; 10:7; 16:16; 17:25, 36; 23:23; 24:16; 25:30; 27:12); the remaining occurrences are in indirect speech with wparticiple (13:22; 16:23), and the other 4 with wqetal (1:12 ;10:9; 17:48; 25:20). • 2:15b wparticiple to wyiqtul; 2:15a contains an adverb-yiqtul continued by a wparticiple of 2: the change from wparticiple to wyiqtul in 2:15b does not make a difference, see section ‘Backgrounding xparticiple and xyiqtol’; • omission of ‫( והוה‬MS) and protasis in 5:10b—wqetal in 10a continues with wqetal 10c; • 14:16b omission of the qetal ‫( אתבר‬in Ms. Or of British Museum: 1471 and 2371): the subject-qetal form is reduced to the subject, which acts as nominal predicate for ‫;והא‬ • 14:19b: the xparticiple ‫ והמונא דבמשׁרית פלשׁתאי אזיל מיזל‬becomes ‫—והמונא דבמשׁרית פלשׁתאי ואזל מיזל‬a casus pendens with wqetal followed by participle; • omission of ‫—תבו‬the waw-adverb-subject-qetal becomes a nominal clause; • replacement of the participle ‫ מחייב‬in xparticiple in 14:47c with the yiqtul ‫—יחייב‬there are too few occurrences of yiqtul in Targum 1Samuel indirect speech to indicate the impact of this change;

ANNEX 2 • • • •

295

addition of wqetal sentence ‫ ואגח קרבא‬in 15:5—no change as this is a sequence of wqetal foreground; replacement of the wqetal ‫ והוה‬with ‫ הא‬in 20:25d—this book has discussed only marginally the latter so it is premature to argue the impact of this replacement on syntax; the wparticiple forms ‫ ונסיב לבושׁין‬or ‫ ומני‬are inserted in after 27:9c—this is a series of wparticiple with no change; wqetal of ‫ ואכל‬is turned into infinitive 30:11d—it becomes part of the preceding wqetal.

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Firbas J., ‘Some Thoughts on the Function of Word Order in Old English and Modern English’, SMFPUB A5, (1957), 72–100. ———, ‘It Was Yesterday That ...’, SPFFBU A15, (1967), 141–46. ———, ‘A Functional View of “Ordo Naturalis”,’ BSE 13, (1979), 29– 59. ———, Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication (Cambridge: CUP, 1992). Fludernik M., The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction (London: Routledge, 1993). ———, ‘Narratology and Literary Linguistics’ in The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, edited by R. I. Binnick (Oxford, New York: OUP, 2012), 75–101. Fowlie W., ‘Review: ‘Proust and the Sense of Time’ by Julia Kristeva’, The Sewanee Review 102, No. 1 (1994), xix–xxi. Genette G., and Jane E. Lewin [tr], Narrative Discourse (Figures III: Discours du récit) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972/1983). Goethe Johann Wolfgang von, Johann Peter Eckermann, John Oxenford, and J. K. Moorhead, Conversations with Goethe (Da Capo Press, reprint of the 1930 London edition, 1998). Greenfield J.C., ‘Standard Literary Aramaic’ in Actes du premier Congrès international de linguistique sémitique et chamito-sémitique, edited by A. Caquot and D. Cohen (The Hague/Paris: Mouton, 1974), 280–89. Gülich Elisabeth, Makrosyntax der Gliederungssignale im gesprochenen Französisch (München: W. Fink, 1970). Gzella H., Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004). ———, A Cultural History of Aramaic (Boston: Brill, 2015). Hamburger K., and M. J. Rose [tr], The Logic of Literature (Bloomington: IUP, 1971/1993). Harrington D. J., and A. J. Saldarini, The Aramaic Bible 10: Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets (Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1987). Holladay W., A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids/Leiden: Eerdmans/Brill, 1988).

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Hopper P. J., ‘Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse’ in Discourse and Syntax, edited by J. M. Sadock and T. Givón (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 213–40. ———, Tense–aspect: Between Semantics & Pragmatics (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1982). ———, ‘Dispersed Verbal Predicates in Vernacular Written Narrative’ in Directions in Functional Linguistics, edited by A. Kamio (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1991/1997), 1–18. ———, ‘When ‘Grammar’ and Discourse Clash’ in Essays on Language Function and Language Type, edited by J. L. Bybee, J. Haiman and S. A. Thompson (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1997), 213–47. ———, ‘Hendiadys and Auxiliation in English’ in Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse, edited by J. L. Bybee, M. Noonan and S. A. Thompson (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 2001), 145-73. Hopper P. J., and S. A. Thompson, ‘Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse’, Language 56, No. 2 (1980), 251–99. Jastrow Marcus, A Dictionary of the Targumim (London: Luzac & Co., 1903). Johnstone B., ‘Discourse Analysis and Narrative’ in The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, edited by D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen and H. E. Hamilton (Malden, Mass./Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 635–49. Kaufman St. A., ‘Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and Late Jewish Literary Aramaic’ [In English], 11, No. 1 (2013), 1. Klein W., Time in language (London/New York: Routledge, 1994). Kristeva J., and S. Bann [tr], Proust and the Sense of Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Kuty R. J., Studies in the Syntax of Targum Jonathan to Samuel (Leuven: Peeters, 2010). Labov W., and J. Waletzky, ‘Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience’, Journal of Narrative and Life History, No. 7 (1967/1997), 3–38. Li, T., The Verbal System of the Aramaic of Daniel: An Explanation in the Context of Grammaticalization (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Loesov S., ‘Review of H. Gzella. Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen’, Babel und Bibel 3, (2006), 627–34. Longacre R. E., The Grammar of Discourse (New York/London: Plenum Press, 1983/1996).

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Mann G., Geschichte und Geschichten (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1962). Margolis M. L., A Manual of the Aramaic Language of the Babylonian Talmud (München: Beck, 1910). Mathesius V., and L. Dušková [tr], A Functional Analysis of PresentDay English on a General Linguistic Basis (The Hague: Mouton, 1961/1975). Mauchline J., 1 and 2 Samuel (London: Oliphants, 1971). McNally L., ‘Semantics and Pragmatics’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 4, No. 3 (2013), 285–97. Meister J. C. ‘Narratology.’ In The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by Peter Hühn and et al Hamburg: Hamburg University; URL: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/narratology [consulted 26/03/2016], 2011, revised 2014. Müller G., ‘Erzählzeit und erzählte Zeit’ in Festschrift fur Paul Kluckhohn und Hermann Schneider (Tübingen: Mohr, 1948; reprint in Morphologische Poetik (Tübingen: 1968)), 195–212. Niccacci A., Sintassi del verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum‒Analecta 23, 1986). ———, ‘An Outline of the Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in Prose’, Liber Annuus 39, (1989), 7–26. ———, ‘Sullo stato sintattico del verbo HĀYȂ’, Liber Annuus 40, (1990), 9–23. ———, ‘Dall’aoristo all’imperfetto o dal primo piano allo sfondo’, Liber Annuus 42, (1992), 85–108. ———, ‘Marked Syntactical Structures in Biblical Greek in comparison with Biblical Hebrew’, Liber Annuus 43, (1993), 9–69. ———, ‘Simple Nominal Clause (SNC) or Verbless Clause in Biblical Hebrew Prose’, Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 6, (1993), 216–27. ———, ‘Diluvio, Sintassi e Metodo’, Liber Annuus 44, (1994), 9–69. ———, ‘Essential Hebrew Syntax’ in Narrative and Comment: Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider, edited by E. Talstra, H. Blok, K. Deurlook and P. van Midden (Amsterdam: Kok Pharos, 1995), 111–25. ———, ‘Syntactic Analysis of Rut’, Liber Annuus 45, (1995), 69–106. ———, ‘Syntactic Analysis of Jonah’, Liber Annuus 46, (1996), 9–32. ———, ‘Workshop: Narrative Syntax of Exodus 19–24’ in Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible: Papers of the Tilburg Conference

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———, ‘Statt einer Entgegung an Professor Pollak [Instead of a Reply to Professor Pollak]’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 84, (1968), 617. ———, ‘Tense and Time’, Archivium Linguisticum 1, (1970), 31–41. ———, Grammaire textuelle du français (Paris: Didier/Hatier, 1982/1989). ———, Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache (Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1993). ———, On Borrowed Time (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2008). Weinrich H., et al., ‘Discussion organisée par le THEDEL: Harald Weinrich et la “Grammaire textuelle du français”’, La Linguistique 30/2, (1994), 139–56. Wellek R., and E. A. Warren, Theory of Literature (London: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949). Weninger S., ed. The Semitic Languages, (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011). Wittgenstein Ludwig, G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte, Philosophische Untersuchungen / Philosophical Investigations (Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).

INDICES INDEX OF AUTHORS



Abraham, W., 4–5 Andrason, A., 14–15 Atwood, M., 23–24 Bar–Hillel, Y., 100n4 Bauer and Leander, 58, 60n138 Barthes, R., 2, 16n9 Beaugrande, R., 78, 254–256, 272n27 Benveniste, É., 2 Binnick, R. I., 102 Borges, J. L., 280–281 Brinker, K., 15 Bronzwaer, W., 99n2 Bühler, K., 4–6, 16 Buth, R., 2, 13, 58–70, 74, 90, 183; on word order in Aramaic, 59n137 Camus, A., 198–200 Céline, L.–F., 282–283 Condrea, V., 2n4, 14n1, 61n144, 199n36, 257n10 Cook, E. M., 58–60 Cook, J. A., 28n49, 31n82, 54–58, 88–89, 181–182 Culler, J., 196n27 Daneš, F., 15 Degen, R., 58 Derrida, J., 6, 195–196, 200–201, 251n107 Dijk, T.A. van, 15, 182n4 Dik S. C., 58, 66, 71n172, 78 Dressler, W. U., 17, 254–256, 272n27 Dry, H., 102, 277 Dušková, L., 41n90, 113n24

Fajen, F., 80 Firbas, J., 41–43, 79n197, 123, 131– 132, 151–152, 167n31, 182n6, 244n100, 251n106 Flaubert, G., 174 Fludernik, M., 99n2, 128n62 Genette, G., 104, 124, 125–128, 260 Goethe, J. W., 26, 158 Greenfield, J.C., 12 Gülich, E., 15, 95n236 Gzella, H., 2, 9–13, 77–86, 90 Hamburger, K., 2, 6, 16, 221–222 Harrington, D., 9, 116–117, 133n72, 135n76, 141, 145, 161, 164, 166, 168n33, 173, 190n21, 229n77, 231n79, 232, 238n90, 241n94, 248–250 Hopper, P., 3, 6, 13, 27–29, 60– 61, 64, 67–69, 72, 75, 82, 87, 99n1, 103, 121, 123, 195, 276– 277 Ibn Yaʿīš, 40n89, 41 Johnstone, B., 67 Kaufman, St. A., 12 Klein, W., 15, 99n1 Koschmieder, E., 81 Kristeva, J., 104, 124–125, 129, 277 Kutscher, E. Y., 58, 60n138 Kuty, R. J., 10n23, 11–12, 13, 66–76 Labov, W., 3, 6, 82, 103–104, 108n19, 189n19, 215, 222, 276– 277 Lambrecht, K., 81 Larochette, J., 2, 234n83

305

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SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Lausberg, H., 2 Li, T., 77n192, 116, 137n78 Loesov, S., 77n192 Longacre, R. E., 27, 55–57, 78, 181– 182 Lötscher, A., 15 Lowery, K., 58, 60 Mann, G., 280 Margolis, M. L., 155 Mathesius, V., 41n90, 113n24, 151n104, 182n6 Mauchline, J., 119n38 McNally, L., 70n168 Motsch, W., 15 Müller, G., 16 Müller–Kessler, C., 11n26 Niccacci, Al., 1, 13, 30–31–34, 38– 56, 58, 78, 90, 91, 100n7, 120, 130–131, 134–138, 181, 183, 195, 214–215, 254, 257–258, 278 Oelsner, J., 77n192 Palek, B., 15 Pat–El, N., 77n192 Peer, W. van, 27–28 Pollak, W., 80 (see also note 202) Polotsky, H. J., 31, 38–44, 54 Radford, A., 151n103, 197n28 Reichenbach, H., 14, 78, 81–82, 85 Reinhart, T., 61n144, 88 Ricoeur, P., 16n7, 43n94, 56 Robar, E., 78–80, 87–89 Rosenthal, F., 58, 60n138, 155 Rowner, I., 125n58, 279–283 Saldarini, A., see Harrington Saussure, F. de, 6, 42, 54, 196–198, 200–201

Schneider, W., 1, 13, 30–37, 51, 59– 61, 78, 90–91, 183, 195, 214 Schoenke, E., 15, 78 Sperber, A., 8, 293 Spivak, G. C., 196n27, 201 Staalduine–Sulman, E., 9, 73n179, 106n17, 114n26, 116–119,132n71, 135n76, 145, 148, 162, 164–166, 189, 191, 194, 206, 220, 232, 242–243, 248, 250, 268 Sten, H., 234n83 Strunk, K., 14n2, 80 Stutterheim, Ch. von, 16 Talstra, E., 37n81, 55–56, 58 Taylor, B. A., 193n26 Thompson, S., 29, 67n161, 73n177, 75, 87n220 Thurmair, M., 81n205 Trask, R. L., 67 Viehweger, D., 15 Austin, J. L., 15 Waletzky, J., see Labov Warren, E. A., 255, 272n17 Weinrich, H., 1–7, 13–30, 32–33, 35, 42, 44–57, 64–65, 69–70, 77–91, 100n7, 102, 130, 155– 161, 183–188, 195–204, 221– 222, 233–234, 235, 247, 250, 255–256, 275–276, 277–281; 282–283; annotated glossary 91–95; function of tenses in modern languages 96–97 Wellek, R., see Warren Weninger, S.,11n24 Willkop, E. M., see Thurmair Wittgenstein, L., 19n16, 65

INDICES

307

INDEX OF SUBJECTS



Aramaic periodisation and dialects, 9–12 Biblical episode, 104, 155, 215, 253– 274, 279 Biblical panel, 255–257, 259 Coherence, 120, 253–256, 272– 273, 279 Contrast, 50, 73, 74, 149, 150–151, 188–195, 219–220, 232, 278– 279 Dialogic linguistics, 20–21, 55–57, 65, 272–273 Double sentence (with ‫)והוה‬, 104, 130–154, 156, 246–247, 278 Emphasis, 29–30, 39–42, 131, 134, 149–151, 151n105, 167, 182n6, 233, 278 Evaluative (Labov & Waletzky), 103n14, 215 Foregrounding, see Relievo Genre, 38–39, 55–57, 82, 103n14, 186, 251, 253 Hendiadys, 103, 105, 108, 111–113, 120–123, 164n24, 166, 242n97 Instructional linguistics, 13, 18, 61, 91–93, 185 Latin tenses, 83–85 Linguistic attitude, see Register Linguistic perspective, see Perspective Linguistic sign, 17–22, 30, 43, 65, 85, 92–93, 95, 97, 101, 103n14, 123–135, 129, 185, 195–202, 251, 254, 272 Nominal clause (TA/BH), 7 Paradigmatic vs syntagmatic, 42– 43 and note 94, 197–201 Perspective, 5–6, 14, 18–19, 22–24, 47, 53–55, 85–86, 93, 185, 197, 276 Postlude, 174, 189, 215, 245, 249, 251, 254 Prague School, 15, 28, 30–32, 41– 42, 78–79, 123, 131–132, 151, 182, 244n100, 251–251, 255n8

Prelude, 7, 149, 153, 156, 170–174, 215, 218, 235, 245, 254, 264– 271, 273 Psychology and syntax, 16, 60– 65, 91; Gestalt, 61n144; 65–66 Redundancy, 120, 203, 213–214, 216, 218, 238–239, 241–243 Referential (Labov & Waletzky), 103n14, 153, 156, 159, 195, 215 Register, 5–6, 17–18, 21–22, 27n42, 36–37, 46, 52–54, 65, 86, 90, 92, 184–188, 203, 213– 214, 221, 236, 249–251, 272– 273, 275, 278, 279–284 Relevant semantic features, 17– 20, 46, 95, 185 Relievo, 6, 25–32, 44–46, 85–86, 93–95, 156–161, 183–184, 233– 235, 249, 279; and topicalization, 79; and tempo, 45, 61; (lento and/or presto tempos), 6, 26, 33, 44–46, 85, 91, 129– 130 Report (comment register), 52– 54, 186, 203–205, 207, 210– 213, 240 Semantic vs pragmatic, 56, 62– 66, 68–71 Sentence, 7, 152–154; Niccacci on BH sentence, 38–44; the Aramaic sentence, 59n137; Quality-scale sentence (Prague School), 132n69; Presentation-scale (Prague School), 131-132, 132n69, 166-167, 167n30, 244n100 Speaker–hearer, 4–6, 18–22, 50, 52, 58, 92–95, 186–187, 198, 234, 272–273, 275–276, 281 Synchronic vs diachronic, 4, 54– 57 Tense, 17; tense form and function, 46–48, 94–95; not time, 14, 16n9, see also Barthes, Hamburger, Müller, and Weinrich

308

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC

Tense metamorphosis, 104, 123– 126, 128–130, 277–278 Tense metaphor, 124–125, 277– 278 Tense shift, 100 Text, 253–259; according to Weinrich, 17, 42–45, 255; according to Niccacci versus Weinrich, 42–45 Text time, 22–25, 82, 85, 91–93; and linguistic sign, 22–23 Text–linguistics, 91–97; other schools, 15; and time, 86 Threshold of termination, 255– 257 Topicalisation, 78–80 Trace, 195–203; 208, 212, 214–215, 226, 231, 246; list of traces of comment, 202, 250–252 wayyiqtol (BH), 8, 32–35, 36–37, 47–48, 52, 60–65, 74, 87–90, 169n34, 182, 193n26, 233, 278 weyiqtol (BH), 33, 38, 72 wparticiple (BH), 8 wparticiple (TA), 7–8, 59n137, 62, 71–72, 75, 89, 99, 101, 129–130, 141, 153n109, 155–



180, 222–223, 226–227, 232, 235, 242n98, 245, 253, 276, 279–280 wqatal (BH), 8, 33, 137n81, 141, 163–164, 180n60, 180, 226, 231 wqetal (TA), 7–8, 72, 99–154, 226, 279–280 xparticiple (BH), 8, 33, 222, 226, 231, 240n93 xparticiple (TA), 7–8, 181, 188, 221–233, 247–249, 279 xqatal (BH), 8, 33, 51, 63n149, 138n84, 193n26, 226, 280 xqetal (TA), 7–8, 181, 188, 249, 279; of foreground (contrast) narrative, 189–194, 219–220; of comment retrospective, 203–219; of foreground comment (with xparticiple), 221– 245 xyiqtol (BH), 8, 33, 222, 226, 231, 236n89, 246, 247–248 xyiqtul (TA), 7–8, 172, 181, 184, 188, 226n74, 236n89, 246– 249, 279



INDICES

309

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Genesis 4:2–4 7:17–20 30:41 38:9

50n118 50n118 180n61 180n61

Exodus 17:11 18:25 33:7, 8, 9

180n61 35 180n61

Judges 11:1

63

1 Samuel 1:1–19 1:2 1:3, 6–7, 9–11 1:4

1:5 1:5–6 1:7 1:10 1:11 1:12 1:12–13 1:14 1:15 1:20 1:20–2:11 1:23 1:24 2:12–17 2:15 2:16 2:18 2:18–21 2:19 2:20 2:21

171, 261, 285 117, 169n35, 172 171 73, 73n179, 114n25, 172 73, 73n179 76 226n72, 247–250, 294 226n72, 242n97, 293 134, 259, 262, 267n18, 287 246–248, 250, 285, 294 141, 247 226n72, 247 293 76, 149 261, 265, 285 142n91 142, 191 177–279, 265, 267, 269, 273, 285 156, 180n60, 226n72, 247–248, 250, 294 177, 293 267–268 177, 265, 285 167, 226n72, 247– 249 293 268

2:22 2:22–36 2:23 2:26 2:27–36 2:34 3:1 3:1–15 3:2–4 3:9 3:15 3:16–21 3:19 4:1 4:1–11 4:1–22 4:5 4:10 4:10–11 4:10–13 4:11 4:12–18 4:13 4:15 4:17 4:18 4:18–19 4:19 4:19–22 4:20 4:22 5:1 5:1–12 5:3 5:3–6 5:4–5 5:6–7 5:7 5:9 5:10 5:11 5:12 6:1 6:1–12 6:1–7:1 6:10–16 6:12

293 265, 267–269, 285 269n21 164n24 267 206 215, 230, 267–268 261, 265, 285 141, 246 294 293 260–261, 286 194 119, 193 207, 245n101, 289 207, 260, 265, 286 142, 148n97 114n27, 206, 208 205–207, 245n101 237–238 208, 268–269 245, 289 206, 237, 239 231 206n48, 207–208, 75, 142, 191, 206, 239 245 293 286 127–128 269 240, 269 261, 265, 286 216, 240, 242 240 216, 237, 239–242 226n72 156, 170, 293 114n27, 142 134n74, 142, 294 75–76, 253 216 269 209, 213, 286 206, 209, 261, 286 209–213 231, 293

310 6:13 6:13–19 6:14–19 6:15 6:16 6:19 7:2 7:2–17 7:5–7 7:9 7:10 7:12 7:13–15 7:14 7:15 7:14–15 7:16 7:17 8:1 8:2 8:3 8:5 8:6 8:1–22 8:19 9:1–27 9:1–10:16 9:5 9:9 9:11 9:14 9:14–15 9:15 9:17 9:26 9:26–10:16 9:27 10:1–8 10:7 10:9 10:11 10:16 10:17–27 10:20–21 10:21 10:23–24 10:25 10:26 10:27–11:1

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC 286 211, 214 209, 212, 214 217 213, 217, 232, 294 205 149, 176, 269 105n16, 261 108–109 139–140 136, 139, 246 120, 123 114 226 74, 176, 242n97 161n18, 242 72, 74, 76, 121n42, 161, 164, 176, 226n72 176 142 176 176 142n91, 176 142 176, 261, 286 253 242–246 262, 286 73, 243 243 244 244 246 244, 246 244 134 287 245 180 294 142, 180 141 243, 262, 286–287 105n16, 262, 287 106 72, 76, 106 110, 157n5 106, 192, 293–294 294 117

11:1 11:1–10 11:1–12:25 11:4 11:5 11:5–10 11:6 11:8 11:9 11:11 11:11–15 11:15 11:22 12:1–12:25 12:8–10 12:11–12 13:1 13:1–23 13:2 13:2–7 13:10 13:16 13:17 13:17–18 13:21 13:21–23 13:22 13:23 13:27 14:1 14:1–23 14:2 14:3 14:4–5 14:14 14:15 14:16 14:16–19 14:19 14:20–23 14:24 14:24–46 14:24–52 14:25 14:26 14:27 14:31 14:37

118 105n16 262, 287 122, 287 73, 128, 142n91 287 142, 216 114 128 134 262 76 72 262 208n52 208n52 142, 268–269, 273 261, 265, 287 114n25, 294 194 141 242–243 176, 243 224–226, 231, 247– 248 294 168–169 169, 294 176 152n108 165, 176 261, 265, 269, 287 269 75 176 114n27 194 161, 164, 217, 294 165 141, 164, 242–3n97, 294 217 142n91, 218, 269-270 287 265, 287 114n25, 218 218 142 76 293

INDICES 14:41 14:47 14:47–52 14:47–48 14:49 14:52 15:1–9 15:10–35 15:11 15:34 15:35–16:5 15:35–16:13 16:1 16:6 16:6–13 16:13 16:14 16:14–15 16:14–23 16:16 16:18 16:21 16:21–22 16:23 17:1–11 17:2 17:12 17:12–54 17:12–18:5 17:13 17:14 17:14–15 17:15 17:16 17:20 17:25 17:31 17:36 17:40 17:41 17:45–47 17:48

192–193 294, 218, 226n73, 247–249 287 247n104 118 114n28, 163n21, 169n34, 177, 180, 226n72, 293 261, 266, 270, 287 261, 266, 270, 287 76, 253, 270 73, 189 288 266, 270–271 270 134 266, 288 270 73, 270 170 105n16, 168, 170, 174, 266, 270, 288 294 121, 123 115–116, 157n5, 175 113, 116, 175 72, 168, 175n56, 177, 222–223, 226n72, 288, 294 266, 288 232 268, 271, 273 105n16, 266, 288 105n16, 266, 271, 288 122 293 242 242n97 74, 76, 121n42 216 294 128 294 76 165–166, 167n30, 232 180 122, 142, 148n98, 166n27, 180, 294

311 17:49 17:52–53 17:54–57 17:55 17:55–58 17:57 17:58 17:58–18:2 18:1 18:1–3 18:1–5 18:5 18:6 18:6–9 18:8 18:9 18:10 18:10–16 18:14 18:15 18:16 18:17 18:17–19 18:17–20 18:17–30 18:19 18:22 18:25 18:29–30 19:1 19:1–4 19:1–24 19:2 19:6 19:7 19:9 19:10 19:18 19:19 19:20 19:21 19:23 19:24 20:1–21:1 20:1–24a 20:18 20:24b–34 20:25 20:27

121n42, 180 107, 222–223 143 142, 149 266, 288 142, 149 145, 289 145–147 142, 288 145–149 144–145, 266, 288 226n73, 247–249, 271 134, 142, 149 262, 289 76 119 149, 232 262, 289 118 177 177, 242n97 195 150 154 289 150 127 73n179, 195, 220 135 219 127–128 105n16, 262, 289 127 127 117, 128 127, 232 195 128 127 227, 229, 230–231 128, 230 167, 226, 293 247–250 263, 289 289 118n34 289 118, 295 134

312 20:35 20:35–21 20:36 21:1 21:2–16 21:5 21:6 21:7 21:11 21:11–14 21:13 21:13–15 21:14 22:1–23 22:2 22:6 22:9 22:20–22 23:1 23:1–24:1 23:5 23:6 23:6–7 23:9 23:10–12 23:13 23:13, 16, 24 23:18 23:23 23:25 23:26–27 23:27 24:2 24:2–4 24:2–23 24:4–5 24:5 24:5–6 24:5–7 24:6 24:7 24:8 24:9 24:16 24:17 24:23 25:1a–d 25:1e–37 25:1e–44 25:13

SYNTACTIC STUDIES IN TARGUM ARAMAIC 134 289 207 73, 190 105n16, 263, 289 121n56 118, 121n56 230 122–123 111–112 111, 120, 223 161–162, 222, 226n72 161, 163n21, 180, 223 263, 289 114n25, 116n31 232 227, 230–231 142 127 105n16, 263, 290 142 151–152 141–142 152 152 72, 122n49 122n49 189 294 128 246 151–152 127, 142, 149 228 105n15, 127, 189–190 227–228, 231 122n49, 135 132–133 136 133n72, 134–135 135 220 122n49 294 142, 148n98 128, 189–190 263, 290 290 263, 290 192

25:14 25:19 25:19–21 25:20 25:21 25:30 25:37 25:38 25:38–44 25:42 25:42–44 26:1–25 26:2 26:5 26:7–8 26:25 27:1–12 27:2 27:8 27:8–10 27:9 27:12 28:1 28:1–25 28:3 28:4 28:5 28:10 28:20 28:20–21 29:1 29:1–3 29:1–11 29:10 29:11 30:1 30:1–3 30:1–31 30:9–10 30:11 31:1 31:1–7 31:1–13 31:8 31:8–9 31:8–13 31:9–10 31:11 31:13

138, 219 180 137 136–138, 180, 294 138n84, 219 294 134, 142, 220 134 290 116, 293 220 263, 290 122n49 122n49, 231 225–226, 231 190–191 263, 290 122n49 226n72 163–164 161, 163, 295 294 149, 263, 271 105n16, 264, 266, 290 216 271 112, 157n5 127 111, 122n48, 157n5 111 271 224–226, 231 264, 266, 271, 290 164 189, 291 142, 293 143–149, 153 264, 266, 271, 291 219–220 295 271 264, 266, 291 105n16 149 109 264, 266, 291 109 109 263

INDICES

313

2 Samuel 1:4 8:1 12:27 13:15 14:31 15:5 19:33

76n190 72 120 76n190 72 180n61 76n190

John 1:44 2:8–9 3:1, 23 8:1 11:1 13:1 20:1

258n12 258n12 258n12 258n12 257–279 258n12 258n12

Jonah 1:16–21

62

Acts 10:34

120

Job 32:2–3

50–51

2 Corinthians 4:3 39–40