Verbal Semantics

• Grammar
• Semantics
  • Semantics/Lexical Semantics
  • Phrase-Level Semantics
  • Verbal Semantics
  • Semantics/Story behind the Psalm
• Exegetical Issues
• Discourse
  • Participant Analysis
  • Macrosyntax
  • Speech Act Analysis
  • Emotional Analysis
• Poetics
  • Poetic Structure
  • Poetic Features
• Synthesis
  • Verse-by-Verse Notes
  • Translation and Performance Notes
• Close-but-Clear
• Videos
  • Overview
  • Top 3 Exegetical Issues
  • Top 3 Poetic Features
• Post to wiki

A fuller discussion may be found here.

Key Concepts

Layer Overseer: Elizabeth

This visualisation focuses on the relationship between verbs, time and modality. These are important categories for interpretation and translation, and how one analyses a verb can have a significant effect on how it is rendered. For example, notice how differently this selection of English versions translates the same verbs in Ps 3:8:

הִכִּ֣יתָ אֶת־כָּל־אֹיְבַ֣י לֶ֑חִי // שִׁנֵּ֖י רְשָׁעִ֣ים שִׁבַּֽרְתָּ׃

• You strike . . . You shatter . . . (ESV, GNT)
• You have struck . . . You have shattered . . . (KJV, NASB)
• Strike . . . ! Shatter . . . ! (NIV, NLT, CEB)
• You will strike . . . You will shatter . . . (NET)

This layer has been through several iterations, as it strives to accomplish two things:

1. Transparency for the native Hebrew structures
2. Transparency for the interpretation necessary to translate the verbal semantics into other languages

Tense

• Relative tense: a situation’s location in time relative to a given reference point (anterior, simultaneous, or posterior)
• Absolute tense: a situation’s location in time relative to the moment of speech (past, present, future, timeless/unmarked)

'Tense' refers to the situation’s location in time: past, present, future, or timeless. These terms are actually a simplification, which is possible when the reference point is the time of speech:

• past = prior to speech time (anterior)
• present = simultaneous with speech time
• future = after speech time (posterior)

When a different reference point is used, it is more accurate to simply speak of time anterior, simultaneous, or posterior (if marked at all for location in time). When speech time is always assumed as the reference point, it is called absolute tense. When the reference point depends on context, it is called relative tense.

Hebrew has a combination of absolute tense and relative tense. Precisely because the tenses can be relative, it is vital to know what the reference point is -- what reference point the relative tense is relative to. (This is the reason for including reference point movement, below.)

Relative tense of event	Reference point	English label	Example
Anterior	Past	Pluperfect (past-in-the-past)	He had built the temple.
Anterior	Present	Present perfect (past-in-the-present)	He has built the temple.
Anterior	Future	Future perfect (past-in-the-future)	He will have built the temple.
Simultaneous (English) but Posterior (Hebrew)	Past	Past habitual (present-in-the-past)	He would build temples.
Simultaneous (English) but Posterior (Hebrew)	Present	Present habitual (present-in-the-present)	He builds temples.
Simultaneous (English) but Posterior (Hebrew)	Future	Future habitual (present-in-the-future)	He will build temples.
Posterior	Past	(future-in-the-past)	He was going to build a temple.
Posterior	Present	(future-in-the-present)	He will/is going to build a temple.
Posterior	Future	(future-in-the-future)	He will be going to build a temple.

N.B.: This may be misleading, if one is thinking of the action itself. Simultaneity in terms of ongoing action is represented in Hebrew by the participle, not yiqtol or qatal. Yiqtol can present English simultaneity in terms of relevance of a future action, just as qatal can present English simultaneity in terms of relevance of a past action.

Aspect

• Aspect: the 'temporal constituency' of a situation as portrayed (e.g. stative, continuous, or repeating)

Tense and aspect are conventional analytical categories, with situation aspect increasingly well established (particularly in its more limited form, lexical aspect). A former iteration of our verbal semantics tracked situation aspect for each verb, but it was not clear that the effort required had sufficient exegetical payoff. This version of verbal semantics does not track situation aspect. Instead, it tracks a more generic aspect that mostly coincides with viewpoint aspect in its more specific imperfective manifestations (continuous vs characteristic vs stative).

Aspect is determined from a combination of situation aspect and verbal conjugation. In Ps 29:5a, the plural 'cedars' suggests that the participial phrase YHWH's voice is breaking cedars is repetitive. In Ps 29:9c, it is unclear if everyone is saying 'Honour! Honour! Honour!' repeatedly (in which case it would also be repetitive aspect) or if there is a drawn-out ceremony that, altogether, declares the honour of God. In that case, it would be continuous aspect.

Aspect requires more development, so in part this is a placeholder. This may also be used for phrasal aspect, such as ingressive aspect (inceptive for actions, inchoative for states) or completive aspect (e.g. 'eat up' rather than just 'eat').

Reference point movement

• Reference point movement: whether or not the expected reference point in this discourse is updated after a situation, stereotypically tracking with perfective (movement) vs imperfective (no movement)

The category of reference point movement is exploratory. It holds the potential to explain the difference in English translation of Hebrew verbs, as a category that Hebrew does not distinguish but English does. The below diagram illustrates how reference point movement distinguishes between an English simple past and present perfect, as well as between an English future or imperfective present. Hebrew distinguishes neither of these pairs.

The nature of an ongoing text is that there is always a reference point for the next expected situation. With each new situation, the reference point may or not be updated. It is the expectation of reference point movement that matters here. The default for a narrative backbone is that the reference point advances with each action, leading the reader to expect What comes next? The default for a descriptive or non-narrative text is that the reference point not advance, because not chronology but some kind of logic drives the text. The reader expects, then, What are the consequences now? of the most recent situation described. These two options are demonstrated below for Psalm 29:10. The essential point is that this category explains the need to distinguish between forms in English where no such distinction is needed in Hebrew.

• Modality: the effective modality as would need to be translated into English (e.g. imperative, jussive, subjunctive, conditional, wish)

Imperatives, jussives and cohortatives are volitional modals, by morphology. We-qatal and we-yiqtol are often also purpose/result modals. Clause-initial yiqtol, if in an a-line, should be presumed purpose/result modal unless proven otherwise.

Other forms of modality, such as wish, possibility, permission, conditionals and some purpose are often indicated by discourse markers, such as לו, אולי, פן, בעבר, etc. This kind of modality will be expressed morphologically in English and many other languages, and therefore we will track it, noting how it is marked in Hebrew by means other than morphology.

Steps

Before you begin...

• Copy the verbal semantics template and paste it onto your MIRO board.
• Copy the verbal semantics legend and paste it onto your MIRO board.
• Copy and paste the English and Hebrew texts in the relevant text boxes.

Overview:

1. Split the Hebrew text into lines according to verbal instances. Colour the Hebrew verbs (in the second column) according to morphology.
2. Identify the verb's root, stem, conjugation, person/gender/number, and any suffix.
3. Identify the verb's relative tense (e.g. yiqtol=posterior, qatal=anterior) and absolute tense (nearly always present) and place the appropriate arrow for the relative tense into the appropriate Fut/Pres/Past column.
4. Identify any nuance of modality (specifically continuous, iterative/habitual or stative).
5. Determine the expected movement of the reference point for each clause.
6. Specify the effective modality of every finite verb. Specify the reason for the chosen modality.
7. Make the verbal gloss in the Close-but-Clear bold and coloured according to effective verbal semantics (so waw-conjoined forms will merge with their governing verbs and ambiguous yiqtols will be coloured for either any semantics they effectively have).

(For more information, click "Verbal Legend" below.)

Verbal Legend

Conjugations
qatal	yiqtol-jussive
wayyiqtol (following qatal)*	cohortative
yiqtol	participle
wayyiqtol (following yiqtol)*	wayyiqtol (following participle)*
weyiqtol	inf. construct
weqatal	inf. absolute
*Wayyiqtol is colored a darker version of the conjugation it follows.

Relative tense arrows
Relative tense arrows (placed within the appropriate 'Fut/Pres/Past' column) are color coded according to the conjugation of the verb. The arrows in the table below are colored according to the typical uses of the conjugations.
After/posterior/future	Imminent future	Simultaneous/right now	Recent past	Before/anterior/past
← ←	↤	↓↓↓	↦	→ →

Aspect
	Continuous	Habitual or iterative	Stative	Perfective
Encoded in words	⟲	⟲⟲⟲	⎯	•
Inferable from context	⟲	⟲⟲⟲	⎯	•

Reference point movement
Movement	No movement
⇐	⇍

Modality
indicative	purpose/result
jussive	necessity
imperative	possible
cohortative	probable
wish	ability
(past) conditional	interrogative, etc.

If an emendation or revocalization is preferred, that emendation or revocalization will be marked in the Hebrew text of all the visuals.

Emendations/Revocalizations legend
*Emended text*	Emended text, text in which the consonants differ from the consonants of the Masoretic text, is indicated by blue asterisks on either side of the emendation.
*Revocalized text*	Revocalized text, text in which only the vowels differ from the vowels of the Masoretic text, is indicated by purple asterisks on either side of the revocalization.

1. Lay out the Hebrew text

Copy the table from the verbal semantics template and lay out the Hebrew text in the second column (one row per verb, whether finite, infinitive or participial; also one row per nominal clause). Use OSHB for the Hebrew text. You should also be able to find it on the forum.

2. Morphology

Identify in the table the root, stem, conjugation, person/gender/number and suffix of every verb. If there are multiple options, duplicate the row and colour the background of the non-preferred row grey. When you have settled the alternative (viable) option, then merge all cells that have identical data to draw attention to those areas where the interpretation is different.

These should be relatively uncontested entries.

Following the template, colour the text of the Hebrew of each verb according to its morphological conjugation (e.g. qatal light blue, wayyiqtol dark blue when following qatal).

3. Time

Tense

Identify both the relative tense (anterior, simultaneous or posterior, if tensed at all) and the absolute tense (future, present or past, if tensed at all). In the absolute tense column (usually 'Pres.'), put the arrow appropriate to the relative tense. Colour the arrow according to the conjugation.

Posterior	←
Simultaneous	↓
Anterior	→

If tense is not applicable to the verbal form (as with many participles and nominal clauses), leave the columns blank.

Note that, the relative tense follows automatically from the conjugation (understanding that wayyiqtol, for instance, derives its values from a preceding verb, so the dark blue will repeat a preceding arrow).

Aspect

The Aspect column is for tracking nuances of aspect. We begin with tracking continuous (ongoing action at the time of the reference point), habitual or iterative (starting and stopping and resuming regularly) or stative (no change) aspect. We may track more aspects as we find them exegetically significant.

Place the appropriate character in the Aspect column. Note that these are not images but actual characters. (Images make working with MIRO tables difficult. Everything in this table will be an actual character.)

Continuous	⟲
Habitual or iterative	⟲⟲⟲
Stative	⎯

Expected movement of the reference point

Indicated the expected movement of the discourse (advance movement for narrative sections, no movement for descriptive or logical sections) with the appropriate arrow. Set the background colour of cells with movement to grey (#808080) with 20% opacity. This will highlight stretches of possible narrative portions.

Expected movement	↶
No expected movement	↓

When you have finished, merge contiguous cells so you can see how reference point movement spans a stretch of discourse.

4. Modality

Modality is much less developed in Hebrew than in English. This column will make use of distinctions made in English, as the effective modality of the verb.

In the first modality column, specify the effective modality, coloured according to the template. If you have another kind of modality to specify, include it tentatively and, if a Live Review confirms it, it will be added to the template.

In the second column, specify the reason for your effective modality. Potential reasons include:

• morphology
• word order (clause-initial yiqtol is often modal)
• modal particles (e.g. פֶן, אִם)
• a preceding modal verb
• location within a conditional
• intertextual echo (e.g. echoing the Aaronic blessing)

6. Close-but-clear

Using the Close-but-clear (or the developing version), bold and colour the translation of the verb according to the conjugation and effective modality (effective modality trumping conjugation, where they differ).

7. Notes

Indicate anything relevant to the verbal semantics that is not obvious from the rest of the chart. For example, if you have an auxiliary verbal construction, like ישמחו וירננו, "let them shout joyfully", include a note to this effect, e.g. "Auxiliary verb construction >> acts as an adverb, 'joyfully'". Make sure this is reflected in the CBC.

8. Prepare for Live Review

Submit your draft for written review.

After completing a full draft according to the guidelines above, find your visualisation's "task" in ClickUp and update its status to "under review." Assign the task to the layer overseer (Elizabeth), who will provide written review notes on Miro. Note: you may also create a ClickUp “subtask” for review, and assign the subtask to the layer overseer. Either way, make sure to update the main task status to “under review.”

Make revisions.

Based on the written feedback provided on Miro by the layer overseer on Miro, revise your draft and complete any remaining research needed. Update the ClickUp task to reflect its status (as in #1 above). More than one round of revisions may be necessary. The visualisation should be as polished as possible (content and formatting) before its Live Review.

Identify issues that need Live Review.

After revising your draft in dialogue with the layer overseer, list any remaining questions or issues that require group expertise or discussion. Important: this short list should be limited to issues that you and the layer overseer were unable to resolve. Before the Live Review, type these questions in a Miro text box (titled "Live Review Issues" above the visualisation to be reviewed. This will help ensure that the Live Review effectively addresses the most important issues.

Attend Live Review.

The goal of the Live Review is to make any remaining revisions and approve the visualisation(s). If the group determines that further work is needed, then this should be done in dialogue with the layer overseer.

9. Revise and send for final checks.

Make final revisions.

After the Live Review, make any remaining revisions as promptly as possible. Contact the layer overseer if you have questions.

Send for final checks.

In ClickUp, change the task status to “ready for final checks.” Make sure to assign the task to the layer overseer, so that they are notified. The layer overseer will take care of final checks and publication.

Examples

Psalm 24:2 (qatal and yiqtol in parallel)

כִּי־ה֭וּא עַל־יַמִּ֣ים יְסָדָ֑הּ

וְעַל־נְ֝הָר֗וֹת יְכוֹנְנֶֽהָ׃

Morphology					Time					Modality
Root	Stem	Conj	PGN	Suffix	Fut	Pres	Past	Aspect	Movt	Modality	Reason	Close-but-clear
יסד	Qal	qatal	3ms	3fs		→			↓	indicative		because he has laid its foundations upon the seas
כון	Polel	yiqtol	3ms	3fs		←		⟲		indicative		and keeps it established upon the oceans

Psalm 24:3 (yiqtol with permissive modality)

מִֽי־יַעֲלֶ֥ה בְהַר־יְהוָ֑ה

וּמִי־יָ֝קוּם בִּמְק֥וֹם קָדְשֽׁוֹ׃

Morphology					Time					Modality
Root	Stem	Conj	PGN	Suffix	Fut	Pres	Past	Aspect	Movt	Modality	Reason	Close-but-clear
עלה	Qal	yiqtol	3ms			←			↓	permission	interrogative pronoun + context	Who may go up on the mountain of YHWH?
קום	Qal	yiqtol	3ms			←				permission	interrogative pronoun + context	And who may stand within his holy place?

Bibliography

Cook, John. “Actionality (Aktionsart): Pre-Modern Hebrew.” In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. Edited by Geoffrey Khan. Consulted online on 22 September 2021 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2212-4241_ehll_EHLL_COM_00000203>.

Fleischman, Suzanne. Tense and Narrativity: From Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010. PDF here.

Gentry, Peter. “The System of the Finite Verb in Classical Biblical Hebrew.” Hebrew Studies 39 (1998): 7–39. Link here.

Hornkohl, Aaron. “Biblical Hebrew Tense–Aspect–Mood, Word Order and Pragmatics: Some Observations on Recent Approaches.” Open-access version here.

Hovav, Malka. “Lexicalized meaning and the internal temporal structure of events.” Pages 13–42 in S. Rothstein (ed.), Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008. Available as PDF here.

Kroeger, Paul. Analyzing Meaning: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Textbooks in Language Sciences 5. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2018. Part VI, “Tense & aspect” (pp. 377–446). This title can be downloaded here.

Levin, Beth. “Lexical Semantics of Verbs” course handouts. UC Berkeley, 2009. Course Page here. See especially “Lecture 4: Aspectual Approaches to Lexical Semantic Representation” (link). Cf. also Levin’s paper “Verb Classes within and across Languages,” 2013. (link)

McIntyre, Andrew. “Tense, Aspect and Situation Type."

Nadathur, Prerna. “Lexical Semantics” course handouts. Institut für Sprache und Information Heinrich Heine Universität, 2019–20. Course page here. See especially “Week 11: Aspect and aspectual classes I” (link).

“Tense, Aspect, and Modality with Nora Boneh (Part 1 of the Verbal Systems of the Biblical Languages series). The Biblical Languages Podcast. Biblingo, 2021. Link here.

Vendler, Z. “Verbs and Time.” Pages 97–121, Chapter 4 of Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967. Link here.

Glossary

For terms not included here, please see SIL’s “Glossary of Linguistic Terms.”

Accomplishment: a situation type in which the event happens over time (durative), but does have a natural endpoint (telic). Unlike semelfactives (e.g. blink), accomplishments involve a change, e.g. run a mile; build a house.

Achievement: a situation type in which the event does not happen over time (punctual), but does have a result state. Achievements occur at a single moment, e.g. reached the top; find; win.

Activity: a situation type in which the event happens over time (durative), but doesn’t have a natural endpoint (atelic).

Aspect: a grammatical category which refers broadly to the relationship between a situation and time; cf. situation type; viewpoint aspect.

Atelic: see telicity.

Durativity: This aspectual property asks if the situation starts and stops. A durative situation extends over time (includes states, resultant states, and continuous action). E.g., She was swimming. A punctual situation is presented as happening instantaneously (includes repetitive actions). E.g., He kicked the ball (single), or He was kicking the ball (repetitive).

Phasal aspect:

Punctual: see durativity.

Semelfactive: a situation type in which the event is punctual, but without any resultant state.

Situation type: sometimes referred to as Aktionsart or situation aspect. The most basic distinction is between state and event. A state is a situation characterised by durativity and lack of change, e.g. possessing, desiring, loving, ruling, believing. An event is a situation in which something “happens,” e.g. eating, listening, teaching. An event may be one of four different situation types, see accomplishment; achievement; activity; semelfactive.

Telicity: the property of a situation which indicates whether or not the situation has a natural end point; a situation is either telic or atelic.

Tense: refers to a situation’s location in time.

Viewpoint aspect: sometimes referred to simply as aspect. The traditional distinction in viewpoint aspect is between perfective and imperfective aspect. This category is concerned with how the situation is represented, not its inherent properties. See perfective; imperfective.