Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Matthew Anstey" <manstey AT portal.ca>]

Dear, B-Hevarim,

A while ago there was a discussion about w+qtl vis-a-vis wqtl, that is
conversive and non-conversive waws on the suffix conjugation. Nicacci wrote
and said, as many grammarians now do, that he thinks all these waws are
conversive, that non-conversive-waw + qtl does not exist. If this is the
case, how would we understand Eze 37.11, "Our bones are dired up (qtl) and
our hope is gone (waw+qtl). We are cut off (qtl)."?

Not only do I find Nicacci's verbal system difficult to apply here, I also
cannot see how Hatav's (1997) system works. He would argue (if I understand
him correctly) that the two qatals are "parasitic" on the R-time
(reference-time) of the main action (here it is "speaking") but are
non-sequential. He says that the wqtl is sequential and modal. But how is
"our hope is gone" either sequential or modal here? (Hatav uses modal in a
tense-logic sense, not in a linguistic sense. ie possible worlds and
time-branching tather than subjunctive).

Perhaps both scholars would suggest that this is LBH, I don't know. Any
suggestions? This seems to me to be possible evidence for non-conversive
wqtl.

Matthew Anstey
 By the way, Hatav's book is "The semantics of aspect and modality. Evidence
from English and biblical Hebrew." Studies in Language Companion Series.
John Benjamins. 1997.