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  • From: Vadim Cherny <vadimcherny AT mail.ru>
  • To: colin AT s-m-i-t-h.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] re:mystery of the vav
  • Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:20:23 +0400


> Also, I'm not sure I understand >>At any rate, waw is the oldest device for
> creating future tense.>> Which "future tense" was created by a vav before
> any verbal form?

I mean that waw reversed past tense, likely the oldest verb form, into the
future tense. Later, because of the confusion between waw-reversing and
waw-conjunctive (wecatav. and he said vs. he will say), future tense became
constructed in the modern form, from imperative, ctov - ichtov instead of
wecatav.

> The "stressed vav" - as opposed to simple vav preceding the prefix
> conjucation which often marks what Jouun/Muraoka refer to as the indirect
> volitive - with doubling is what marks the wayyitqtol. Simply prefixing a
> vav would not demand any concommitant phonetic necessity.

Well, I wouldn't be sure about that. In Russian, similar conjunctive
prefix-preposition is certainly semi-stressed. Perhaps, semi-stress in
waw-conjunctive is weaker than in waw-reversing, but it is likely present.
True, waw-conjunctive is unstressed in nouns, but intonation is different in
verbs.

> Changes in
> stress are certainly valid grammatical markers, e.g. English CONvict noun
> vs conVICT verb. But, without some consonantal marker, such as a vav or
> doubling, the change of stress would not be of much use in an unvoweled
> text. N'est pas? Or am I missing your point?

Now, I'm not sure I understood your point :-)
Certainly, stress did not show in unvowelized text. It could be reconstructed
from vowels, though, quite unambiguously (Ashkenazim had to change the vowels
because they moved the stress).
I invoked stress only to explain Masoretic doubling after waw. Masoretes
heard the semi-stress, and consequently heard the doubling.

Vadim Cherny




  • Re: [b-hebrew] re:mystery of the vav, Vadim Cherny, 06/01/2005

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