Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: Re[6]: The form of weqatal

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Re[6]: The form of weqatal
  • Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:51:34 -0700


Peter,
> Sorry, partly my mistake, I meant to suggest that NIMCF) here could be
> Qal "imperfect" 1st person plural. According to BDB this form is not
> found, but this would be the correct form as the 3rd person singular
> is YIMCF). It is presumably a mistake in BDB to list 2 Samuel 7:12
> (where this verb is not found) rather than 17:12 as an occurrence of
> the Niphal.

Thanks for pointing out their typo: I've made the correction in my
copy, and I suspect you've saved me a lot of hair-pulling.

Holladay's lexicon does not list this reference; you are
> apparently referring to the form NOWTAR rather than NIMCF).

Yes, you're right. I got my verbs crossed. Sorry.

The Hiphil
> "imperfect" form here would surely be something like NAMCIY), so can
> hardly be relevant to the pointed text here; and the meaning of the
> Hiphil "cause to find" is hard to fit here. Your Qal meaning is
> possible, as the object is similarly dropped after ):A$ER in an idiom
> in Jdg 9:33, 1 Samuel 10:7, 25:8.

It seems to me that the choice between qal yiqtol and niph`al qatal
will be determined in large part by our understanding of the verbal
system, and hence by what presuppositions we start with based
thereon.

> As for your "can you expand on this", I mean to say this: In all
> languages there are pairs of morphemes (especially word roots, but in
> principle the same can surely happen with affixes) which have the same
> or very similar form but different meanings. From etymological
> research we can sometimes, but not always, determine which of these
> pairs are homonyms in the sense that originally different forms have
> converged because of phonological changes, and which are in fact
> derived from the same root but have acquired different meanings by
> processes of semantic change. But where the etymological evidence is
> insufficient (as may often be the case with biblical Hebrew), my point
> is that it is impossible to tell which of these two is the case with a
> particular pair of morphemes. That is correct, surely? I suspect that
> the alleged two meanings of W:- (and of HA-?) fall into this category,
> that there is simply not enough evidence to determine whether they are
> variant meanings of one original morpheme or originally separate
> morphemes which have almost completely fallen together in form but not
> in meaning.

An excellent point, and I agree fully. In the Hebrew cases, I would
tentatively (and with great fear and trembling) suggest that the
question we must ask is: for which can we develop a more likely
scenario of development? Since I don't buy the hypothesis of two
original prefix conjugations, I lean toward the idea of two originally
separate W- morphemes; perhaps you or someone else could
suggest a scenario in which a single W- morpheme developed two
separate meanings? This is an idea I've never considered, and I
think it bears further examination.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page