The So-Called Preterite Prefix Conjugation in the Aramaic of the Bible and Qumran: The Beginnings of a New Synthesis of the Aramaic Verb.

• Author: Daniel, Andrew Glen

(1.) INTRODUCTION

No longer can it be said that "the Aramaic verb has received relatively little scholarly attention .... A monograph on the verbal system of pre-modern Aramaic has yet to be written." (1) A span of a decade and a half has witnessed the publication of three significant monographs (2) treating the verb in Imperial Aramaic (IA) to varying extents, each employing unique methods, and ultimately arriving at contradictory conclusions. Nowhere is this disparity more pronounced than in their respective treatments of the prefix conjugation (PC) in syntactically independent narrative clauses--a phenomenon that occurs nowhere in the Elephantine Papyri, (3) twenty-nine times in the Aramaic sections of Daniel, (4) and in two definitive cases in the Genesis Apocryphon (see [section]2.4).

Largely due to this unique linguistic structure, Stanislav Segert has stated, "Die reichste Ausbildung der durch das Perfekt, Imperfekt und pradikativische Partizip gebildeten Ausdrucksmoglichkeiten kann in den umfangreichsten A[ltaramaisch] literarischen Texten, den Daniel-Erziihlungen D[aniel] 2-6 und der Vision D[aniel] 7 beobachtet werden." (5) Numerous explanations have been offered to solve the conundrum of the so-called preterite PC, but the present investigation suggests a novel proposal: All of these occurrences are best explained not in terms of tense (whether absolute or relative), imperfective aspect, or as a preterite PC like the Hebrew wayyiqtol, but in terms of modality--a complex linguistic category that F. R. Palmer defines as "concerned with the status of the proposition that describes the event" and is generally subdivided into realis and irrealis. (6) This opposition, according to D. N. S. Bhat. represents "a distinction between events that are portrayed as actualized or as actually occurring on the one hand, and the ones that are portrayed as still within the realm of thought on the other." (7)

The implications of such a thesis extend beyond the narrow corpus of Daniel and the Genesis Apocryphon with consequences for the historical development of the Aramaic verbal system (AVS), the Northwest Semitic verbal system, and linguistic methods presently en vogue. After setting the stage with a critical history of research, a synthesis of all the occurrences of the PC follows, which both builds on the recently published monographs of Gzella, Shepherd, and Li, while simultaneously exposing the inadequacy of their respective theses to account for the so-called preterite PC.

(2.) THE STATE OF THE QUESTION

2.1. Standard Reference Grammars

The standard reference grammars typically describe the AVS as grammaticalizing aspectual oppositions between the suffix conjugation (SC; perfective aspect) and the PC (imperfective aspect). Thus, Kautzsch writes, "Wie in den ubrigen semitischen Dialekten dient das Imperfect zum Ausdruck von noch unvollendeten, kurzere oder langere Zeit andauernden Handlugen oder Zustanden, mogen dieselben nun in die Vergangenheit, Gegenwart oder Zukunft fallen." (8) But the PC in narrative is not always imperfective, according to Kautzsch:

Seltener dient das Imperfect als erzahlendes Tempus.... Sichere Beispiele finden sich nur Dan. 4:2.... die Ablosung des Perfects durch das Imperf. mit [phrase omitted] entspricht hier ganz der Ablosung des hebr. Perfects durch Imperf. eonsecutivum und es ist nicht unwahrseheinlich, dass hier die Gewohnung an die hebr. consecutio temporum einen Einfluss ausgeiibt hat. (9) Hermann Strack describes this phenomenon similarly in terms of aspect. (10) Yet, like Kautzsch, he lists some notable exceptions (4:31, 33; 6:20; 7:16)--exceptions that are distinct from those Kautzsch catalogues--where aspect does not explain their use. (11)

Bauer and Leander continue the imperfective trope, (l2) but, appealing to parallels in Arabic and Akkadian, contend that an essential element of the PC in narrative is that its occurrences are dependent on SC verbs, either expressed or implied. (13) Whether the author chose to portray the action as independent or dependent is a subjective choice left to the author's predilection. (14) Like Kautzsch and Strack before them, Bauer and Leander acknowledge several cases that can be understood to have a preterite meaning (such as Daniel 4:2, 31, 33; 6:20; 7:28). (15) Segert similarly sees continuation and repetition as characteristic functions of the PC, but unlike his predecessors, Segert makes no mention of a preterite use. For him, all of the functions of the PC are the result of imperfective aspect. (16) If Segert represents the aspectual extreme, David Cohen embodies the other, arguing that because these functions appear to have neither progenitor nor progeny, they stem from Hebrew influence, perhaps even as a translation of a Hebrew original. (17)

2.2. Influential Articles

Two significant articles both appeal to the Akkadian preterite PC to explicate the PC in Daniel. Based on this alleged Akkadian parallel and the Greek translators, H. B. Rosen has argued that the PC serves as narrative tense for durative or linear verbs, while the SC is generally not a narrative tense in Daniel. (l8) In contrast, for "point aspect verbs," the participle supposedly serves as the narrative tense. (19) His analysis that the PC may be a preterite finds support in the standard reference grammars, but Rosen applies this thesis to every example. His argument that the suffix conjugation is not a narrative tense, however, is most unlikely.

Similarly, Stefan Bombeck also appeals to the Akkadian preterite to solve the problem of the PC in past-time contexts, but Bombeck explains the preterite uses of the PC as a stylistic device imitating the Akkadian iprus. (20) According to Bombeck, the PC is a preterite almost exclusively in contexts when the king is involved or when God is portrayed as the king. He argues that using the PC as a simple past tense verb would strike the audience as curious, but by exploiting this literary device sparingly in certain contexts, the author could give the impression that the texts were from the Neo-Babylonian period and originated in the royal court. (21) His thesis is imaginative, but unverifiable.

2.3. Recent Monographs

Gzella's tome, the first monograph-length treatment of the AVS, sets out to avoid forcing the raw empirical data into the theoretical system of any one linguistic school. (22) Employing synchronic functional analysis, diachronic reconstruction, and typological comparison, (23) Gzella contends, "Sowohl das Dogma aspektbasierter Verbalsysteme... als auch die Hypothese relativer Tempussysteme... treiben das Streben nach Abstraktion zu weit. Damit liefern sie jeweils nur ein sehr einseitiges Bild der sprachlichen Wirklichkeit." (24) He maintains that the opposition between the SC and PC in narrative is not aspectual, between perfective and imperfective aspect, but between foreground and background: (25) "Bei aller Verschiedenheit der syntaktischen Umgebung ist diesen 'Imperfekta' ihre Funktion gemeinsam. Sie bezeichnen keinen Handlungsfortschritt, sondern die Umstande, unter denen sich eine mit einem 'Perfekt' versprachlichte Haupthandlung abspielt." (26) This analysis of the PC in pasttime contexts, perhaps more than any other verbal phenomenon, most clearly fits his overall thesis that the verbal forms in Aramaic do not possess a one-to-one correspondence with the semantic category of tense or aspect. As he writes in his English summary, "The hypothesis that there is a basic function, that is, something like the essence of a certain grammatical category, which lies at the heart of the manifold individual functions within the actual usage of a given language has to be abandoned," (27) which of course is an attempt to push back at structuralist approaches to Semitic verbal syntax.

Intriguingly, Shepherd notices the same problem as Gzella--the verbal forms do not have clear oppositions between tense and aspect--but Shepherd advocates a methodology diametrically opposed to that of Gzella: text-linguistics and distributional analysis. For Shepherd, since Biblical Aramaic is a dead language and there are no living informants, (28) readers are not in a position to describe the verbal system in terms of tense and aspect, but must be content with descriptions involving text-immanent categories. (29) Thus, Shepherd argues the straightforward thesis that the SC is a narrative form and the PC is a discourse form. Not denying the reality that tense and aspect are present in Aramaic texts, Shepherd maintains that for Aramaic, "verbs are not the primary carriers of such concepts," (30) even going so far as to allege that tense and aspect are "function-oriented categories borrowed from Greek and Latin."-" When it comes to the PC in narrative, Shepherd must explain why a discourse form appears in narrative. He is left appealing to the very reference grammars whose analysis he seeks to replace: "The yqtl in narration functions as background .... That is the yqtl in narration, like the nominal clause with or without a participle, seems to be used for description, establishment, and staging." (32)

Most recently, Tarsee Li has utilized grammaticalization theory (33) to argue the Aramaic of Daniel represents a verbal system in transition from a formerly aspect-prominent language to a tense-prominent language. Consequently, elements of an older aspectual system persist in the language, while the renewal of innovative constructions overlays older features. Thus, according to Li, the PC has an array of functions: "the expression of the future, modality, general present, and past imperfective," (34) the most problematic being the occurrence of the PC in past time. For Li, all of the above functions "are diachronically related." (35) The PC in Daniel is grammaticalizing "from an earlier general imperfective to an aspectual future." (36) Moreover, the modal functions are best explained as an extension of the future. (37) The...