Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

re: vayyiqtol differ yiqtol #3

[rolf wrote]
>Do you have good arguments for WAYYIQTOL being different from YIQTOL? 
>How in the world can a simple conjunction have such a tremendous
transforming power? 
>Has anybody explained this satisfactorily?[end quote]

The last question is

3. Has anybody explained this satisfactorily?
Yes and no.

In the 19th century semitists were wont to define aspect in such a way that
it could explain the 'reversal'. or else, psychological models of
'different minds' were proposed.

today, many are happier with the historical approach.

two (proto) hebrew prefix forms existed, 
1*yaqtulu 'he will kill, he was killing'        and 
2*yaqtul 'he killed/has killed, let him kill'.

hebrew used 'yaqtul' in their narrative stories. 
sometime before david ha-melex final short vowels dropped from the
language. 
that left 1*yaqtul and 2*yaqtul looking the same. 
part of the second form 2*yaqtul 'he killed' dropped out of free use. 
in narrative this archaic' function' was preserved either through a.
preserving the 'archaic' conjunction with the addition of a dagesh in the
prefix, or b. a special prefix was used *wan, whose nun assimilated.
(both must assume the the sequential suffix tense veqatal had a different
development since the normal vocalization of vav is used. veqatal is
usually presented as 'later' and 'formed by analogy'.)

this still leaves unanswered what benefit the language achieved from
preserving such complications.

this is the place for linguistic pragmatics. the two tense-aspect-mood
systems allowed for interesting packaging and presentation of the material.

scholars have long noted the word order constraints and patterns on the two
systems and word order is a primary playing field for pragmatics and syntax
in human languages. 

that is also where textlinguistics has a role to play. 
not only in hebrew but in languages like aramaic. 
aramaic was apparently faced with a similar crisis as hebrew-canaanite as
to what to do with 1*yaqtul and 2*yaqtul. old aramaic dropped 2*yaqtul
though preserved the old word order patterns. then, when akkadian and
persian brought about a more-freely styled word order, a second crisis hit,
because word order could not adequately mark sequentiality. so imperial
aramaic developped new conjunctions of its own, beyond 'and',  for tagging
the flow of a story (aHar/qeravta/edayin, bedayin).

the above will grow, change and maybe invert as more texts are processed
from the ancient near east . its a jig-saw puzzle with too many pieces
missing for certainties. 

so, 
1. we have a vayyiqtol -- yiqtol dichotomy in biblical hebrew
2. we accept it because its there
3. we partially understand where it came from or how it developped.

blessings
randall buth