Expression of Evidentiality in Hbrew & Arabic—Bo Isakson

8/10/2019 Expression of Evidentiality in Hbrew & ArabicBo Isakson

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Expressionsof evidentiality in two Semiticlanguages - Hebrew and Arabic

Bo Isaksson

1.General remarks

The topic I am about to discuss is a new one in Semitology. As far as

I know there are no special studies on evidentiality in Semitic lan-

guages. I proceed on virgin soil, and what I suggest here are the first

steps in a basic research. As my linguistic tool I have adopted the

scalar concept of focality,

1

which represents a refinement and elabora-tion of previous aspectual terminology. This concept enhances our un-

derstanding of the mechanisms behind the general linguistic phenom-

enon of renewal of the verbal aspect, not the least in the Semitic lan-

guages, and constitutes a pertinent example oftheimportance of intro-

ducing new definitions in scientific analysis.

Unlike some other language families presented in this volume I

have found few traces of a grammaticalization of the category or cate-

gories of evidentiality in Semitic languages. When such are found,they occur in border areas in the periphery of the main linguistic area

where contact phenomena are prominent. For the present paper I have

confined myself to showing how readings of inferential, reportive or

direct evidentiality are expressed in Arabic and Classical Hebrew,2

leaving out for the moment the other branches oftheSemitic language

family.

The Semitic languages basically possess two main verbal conjuga-

tions,with the exception of Akkadian, which exhibits a third tense/as-pect form. The functions of the two conjugations in Hebrew and Ara-

bic are much disputed, of course, and even more in Classical Hebrew

than in Arabic. A reasonable account of the Arabic system is found in

Comrie 1976. In both the mentioned languages the two conjugations

are traditionally called "perfect" and "imperfect". For good reasons it

is commonly held that the Semitic perfectqatal(a)has, or at least had

in Proto-Semitic, a more nominal character, sometimes being equiva-


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384 Bo Isaksson

lent to an adjective in a nominal clause. For most semanthemes, how-ever, this nominal perfect in Classical Hebrew developed into a perfectin the European sense, a post-terminal in the present with at least somefocality. In later Hebrew and already in Classical Arabic the perfect

went further in the process to a straightforward non-focal non-post-ter-minal historical verb form in narrative texts, just as the perfect insouthern German.

The imperfect in Hebrew and Arabic is the verbal conjugation usedfor the focal intra-terminal so-called "progressive" reading. However,the focality of the imperfect is often neutralized to express future ormodal shades of meaning.

The big problem in Classical Hebrew is the functional analysis of

the so-called "consecutive tenses" or "converted tenses", in which thetwo basic conjugations mentioned above miraculously seem to take onthe opposite functions just by the prefixation of the conjunction wa-lwe-(< Proto-Semitic *wa-) 'and'. Prefixation ofwa-to the imperfect

yiq!ol results in the "imperfect consecutive"wayyiq!ol,which consti-tutes the historical narrative verb formpar prfrence. In numeroustextbooks3 the imperfect consecutive is said to "continue" a perfect,adopting its temporal or aspectual value.

Prefixation ofwe

-to theperf.q"!alresults in the "perfect consecu-tive"weq"!al, capable of continuing an imperfect with apparently nochange of meaning.

I shall not further elaborate on the Semitic verbal aspects. What hasbeen stated above is intended only to serve asabackground for the fol-lowing examples from Classical Hebrew.

2.Classical Hebrew

In the narrative from the opening oftheBook ofJob,a dubitative indi-rective is expressed by two post-terminal Hebrew perfects, Job 1:5:

(1) kl 'amar lyyb 'lay hf'- b"n-ayfor PRF-said-he Job: perhaps PRF-have-sinned-they sons-my,'For Job said: Maybe my sons have sinned


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Expressions of evidentiality in Hebrew and Arabic 385

-befk- 'Hhlm bi-lb"b-"mand-PRF-have-offended-they God in-heart-theirand offended God in their hearts.'

The perfects hf- and be#ku are connected by the conjunction 'and' (being a complementary allomorph ofwe- 'and', used before la-bials). In this function of the perfect there is no trace of the much spo-ken of so-called "perfect consecutive". The two verbal items hfand be#ku carry the same non-focal indirect meaning of doubt. Thetransition from basic post-terminal focality of the Hebrew "perfect" toa value of non-focality in both cases is determined by the dubitativeparticlelay'perhaps'. A further example is found in Genesis 43:12

(2) 'lay mi$g h'perhaps mistake it'Maybe it was a mistake.'

A doubt about a historical event is expressed by a stative simple nom-inal clause introduced by the dubitative particlelay. h'is the 3 pers.mase. sing, personal pronoun. In Joshua 9:7 (3) and Lamentations 3:29(4) a nominal clause receives a nuance of doubt by being prefixed by

lay:(3) 'lay be-qirb- 'att" ysb

perhaps in-vicinity-my MS-you PART-live

'Perhaps you live near me [and not, as you allege, far away].'

A state expressed by a pronoun and the active participleyosbgets a

dubitative nuance of suspicion by means of the particlelay.

(4) 'lay ys tiqw"perhaps EXT hope'Perhaps there is still hope.'

In (4) doubt about the present state is expressed by a verbless nominalclause consisting of the dubitative particle, an existential particle ys'there is', and a nountiqw" 'hope'.

To sum up so far, in Classical Hebrew a dubitative reading can beachieved by means of the particle 'lay followed by 1) the perfect of


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the verb, or 2) a simple nominal clause. And the two constructions arenot exhaustive, of course. The dubitative particle "lay is capable ofattaching a nuance of doubt to every Hebrew proposition. However, anevidential reading may be expressed without special particles, as the

inferential meaning in Genesis 28:6 shows:(5) wa-y-yaf 'sw kl brak Yi%h"q

and-iPFC-he-saw Esau that PRF-has-blessed-he Isaac'Then Esau realized that: Isaac has blessed

'et YcCqb we-$illah 't Paden-& Ar"mACC Jacob and-PRF-has-sent-he him Padan-LOC AramJacob and sent him to Padan Aram

l"-qahat l- mi$-$am 'i$$afor-iNF-taking to-him from-there wifeto take a wife from there'.

This example could easily be taken as a simple statement of fact,"Isaac has blessed Jacob", but such is not the case. Esau's conclusionthat Jacob has received the blessing results from the fact that Jacob issuddenly absent. And his inference is introduced byki,which like its

English counterpart "that" is a demonstrative in origin: "Then Esaurealized this: Isaac has thus blessed Jacob and sent him ...". The infer-ential is expressed by the post-terminal in the presentbrak (perfect)which is then continued by the proclitic conjunction we- and thepost-terminal in the present (+POST (-PAST))$illah(perfect). Also inthis example we may observe that there is no trace of a perfect con-secutive equalling an imperfect. The two perfectsbrakand$illahbearthe same post-terminal low-focal if not high-focal reading.

In Hebrew the presentative particlehinnhas the nuance of vividimmediacy, the here-and-now-ness, of the situation, as Lambdin(1971:168) says. It functions as a bridge in narrative contexts for theintroduction of a perception,prima facieevidence with nuances of as-tonishment, indignation or shock (WaltkeO'Connor 1990: 676).Such a function naturally is capable of expressing an immediate infer-ence from the perception of a situation, as in 1 Kings 10:7:


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(6) we-l' he'

emant la-d-d'b"rim 'ad '"$er b't

but-not pRF-believed-I for-DET-words until that PRF-had-come-I

'But I did not believe the reports until I had come

wa-t-ti#na 'n-ay w'-hinn l' huggad l-i

and-iPFC-saw-they eyes-my and-behold not PRF-had-been-told to-meand my own eyes saw: Behold, not even half hadbeen told to me!'

ha-hs

DET-half

The queen of Sheba visited king Solomon, and when she saw his splen-

dour with her own eyes she realized with astonishment that she had

been misinformed. The particlehinnis followed by the Hebrew per-

fect in the passive,huggad'has/had been reported'. We may infer that

afterhinna post-terminal easily takes on an inferential meaning as in

many other languages. This is illustrated by a few more examples be-

low. 1 Samuel 30:3:

(7) wa-y-y"bo' D"widwa-"n"s-"w 'el-h"-r w1-hinnand-iPFC-came-he David and-men-his to-DET-city and-behold'David and his men came to the city, and behold,

s'mf" b"-es u-n'i-hem u-b'n-hemFS-PASS-PART-burned in-fire and-wives-their and-sons-their

it (is/was) burned down, and their wives and sons

-b'nt-hem ni!bu wa-y-yi$$& D"wdand-daughters-their PRF-has-been-taken-captive and-iPFC-lifted-he Davidand daughters were taken captive! Then David

w'-h"-'"m '"$er 'itt- 'et-ql-m wa-y-yibkand-DET-people which with-him Acc-voice-their and-iPFC-wept-theyand his men lifted up their voice and wept.'

In this examplehinnintroduces a moment of shock and indignation.David and his men arrive at Ziklag and realize with consternation thatit has been burned down by the Amalekites. The sight of the burnedcity makes them realize that their wives, sons and daughters, includingDavid's two wives, have been taken captive. The Amalekites are not


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there. The fire is probably not even burning anymore. Yet, what hashappened is immediately clear to the men ofDavid.The wives and thechildren are not present before their eyes, yet their state of being cap-tive is inferred from the sight of the burned city. In this example the

inferential markerhinnis followed first by a nominal clause consist-ing of the adjective serf'burned' (passive participle) + the adverbialphraseb"-es 'in fire', then secondly by a further inference expressedby the Hebrew perfectnisb '(they) have been taken captive'.

The particle hinn together with its short form hen occurs 1,157times in the Old Testament, and I would propose that it must be re-garded as the foremost inferential marker in the Hebrew language, al-though it does not introduce inferential readings in every occurrence.It should be pointed out that hinn is not a marker of the primaryorientation point (Os), that is, of the orientation point of the speechact. Instead, it is a macro-syntactic4sign used in a narrative to emphat-ically create a deictic centre of its own, somewhere in the text world,that is, in the localization point (0L or O2). The effect of the particlehinn is that the chain of events in the main narrative thread is inter-rupted, a dissociation is introduced, and the following text is markedas an impression of some kind, not necessarily visual.5In this examplethe narrative chain is represented by the non-focal or, at most, low-focal so-called "imperfect conscutives", wa-y-y"bo\ wa-y-yiss"\wa-y-yibk, being non-post-terminal past verbal items. The narrativechain is interrupted by the macro-syntactic marker hinn that in facthas two functions: firstly, it marks the following post-terminal clausesas a description of an impression; secondly, by emphatically pointingto the localization point in the text world, it marks the same clauses asa whole to be part of the larger narrative web, which is continuedby the non-post-terminal items wa-y-yi$$& 'and lifted up' andwa-y-

yibk'and wept'. We could say thathinnas a macro-syntactic markertells the reader or listener, "Be watchful now, the narrative chain isbeing interrupted by an impression, but only temporarily, it will soonbe continued!". In this function hinn is similar to another frequentmacro-syntactic marker in Classical Hebrew, namely wayhi with atemporal clause, which is used to mark a circumstantial temporalclause as part ofalarger narrative unit. However,wayhidoes not seem


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capable of determining evidential nuances and so has no bearing forthe topic of the present volume.

Naturally, the deictic character ofhinn,drawing the attention to theorientation point 0Lof the text, makes it suitable to readings of direct

evidentiality. The first example is taken from the well-known storyabout the two women quarrelling about a child before King Solomon.One of the mothersin fact the real mothersays (1 Kings 3:21):

(8) w"-'"qum ba-b-boqer lr-hnq 'et-benand-iPFC-I-went-up in-DET-morning for-iNF-nursing ACC-son-my

'I got up in the morning to nurse my son,

w'-hinne met

and-behold deadand behold: he was dead.'

In this example, and the one to follow,hinnfunctions as a marker of

direct evidentiality. It directs the attention to what is directly per-

ceived, namely, her son lying dead (Heb.met) before her eyes. The

verb followinghinnin the example is a Hebrew perfect that is a focal

post-terminal nearly equivalent to a stative or an adjective: "dead" or

"is having died" or "is being dead". We may note that the presentative

particlehinnis never followed by the historical verb form "imperfect

consecutive". Whether the clause to follow expresses inferentiality or

direct evidentiality,hinnalways introduces a nominal clause or one

with a post-terminal perfect. A case withhinnand a nominal clause

expressing direct evidentiality is found in 1 Samuel 10:10:

(9) wa-y-yb' Mm ha-g-Gib'"t-", we-hinnand-iPFC-arrived-they there DET-Gibeah-LOC, and-behold

'They arrived there at Gibeah, and behold:

hebel n"bT-Im liqr't-procession-csTR(of) prophets against-hima procession of prophets (was coming) against him.'

The example exhibits a rather common construction,hinndirects theattention of the reader to the sight of Saul and his companion, which isexpressed simply by a nominal clause with a noun phrasehebel rfbm


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Expression of Evidentiality in Hbrew & Arabic—Bo Isakson