The Semantics of Aspect and Modality: Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 269 Reviews grams that serve as excellent visual aids. The work is written in a highly technical language that assumes familiarity with the terminology. shorthand , and conceptual framework of Generative Grammar. and this limits its accessibility and appeal to a wide readership. The inclusion of a glossary andlor a brief overview of this method of linguistic study would help address this problem. The book's title is somewhat inaccurate since it does not offer a truly comparative study of Hebrew and Arabic syntax. It is principally an analysis of Hebrew which makes reference to other languages to explicate and illustrate Shlonsky's ideas on Hebrew. While Arabic is cited more frequently than any other language besides Hebrew. there are lengthy sections of the book in which it never figures in the discussion. For example. there is not a single reference to Arabic in the thirty-page chapter treating subject-verb inversion. A further problem concerns the inconsistent manner in which Shlonsky appeals to the Arabic evidence. Throughout the book, he argues his case by referring to several different forms of the language . including Standard Arabic and the dialects from Palestine. Southern Palestine. Morocco, and Egypt. Each of these is a unique linguistic system that is distinct from the others but Shlonsky does not pay sufficient attention to the differences among them. This method hinders the purported comparative focus of his work since the reader is not sure which Arabic is meant to be the primary point of comparison. Consistent reliance upon one form of the language would have been a more beneficial approach to adopt. Such relatively minor problems do not significantly detract from the many strengths of this volume and the important contribution it makes. Shlonsky's book is required reading for anyone interested in serious study of Hebrew and will be a major work in the field. John Kaltner Rhodes College Memphis, TN 38112 kaltner@rhodes.edu THE SEMANTICS OF ASPECT AND MODALITY: EVIDENCE FROM ENGLISH AND BIBLICAL HEBREW. By Galia Hatav. Studies in Language Companion Series 34. Pp. x + 224. Philadelphia. PA: John Benjamins, 1997. Cloth, $85.00. Originally a dissertation at Tel-Aviv University. this work "aims to provide a general (semantic) theory for temporality...but it also systemati- Hebrew Studies 40 (l999) 270 Reviews cally examines the verb system in Biblical-Hebrew...which lacks tenses, as will be demonstrated, and thus enables us to see the nature of aspect and modality more clearly" (p. I). The author's theoretical assumption is "that TAM, i.e., the Tense-Aspect-Modal system in language, should be defmed within truth conditional semantics, in terms of temporality, rather than within a pragmatic approach which deals with it in terms of perspective, attitude, and the like" (although pragmatics is not ignored altogether, p. 195). Moreover, she seeks to analyze the data within the framework of a threefold distinction. Here she builds on the work of Hans Reichenbach, who argued that the contrast between the time of speech (S-time) and the time in which the event actually took place (E-time) is not sufficient to account for verbal uses. A third category is needed, namely, the time of reference (R-time), a somewhat fuzzy concept that Hatav defmes as a time unit that contains (or is contained in, or is ordered with) the E-time (pp. 3-5). In the introductory chapter the author, after explaining these and other assumptions, surveys previous attempts to account for the verbal system of biblical Hebrew; unfortunately, she seems unaware of Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, Biblical Hebrew Syntax, which gives considerable attention to verbal aspect She further informs us that she examined sixty-two chapters taken from the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets (excluding poetic material, since "poetry often violates otherwise valid linguistic norms," p. 24) and gives us some details regarding her method. Following the lead of discourse-analysis scholars, such as R. Longacre, she argues that "the biblical Hebrew system organizes the text into sequential and non-sequential material," but that in addition to sequentiality, three other temporal parameters are needed. These four parameters are individually considered in the following chapters. Chapter 2, accordingly, deals...