Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

re: vayyiqtol differ yiqtol #2

[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]

2. How in the world can a simple conjunction have such a tremendous
transforming power?

firstly, one can argue that it is technically not the conjunction that
transforms. see email #3.

secondly, question 2 isn't really a question.
[vayyiqtol and yiqtol are different tense-aspect-moods, however those are
defined. see email #1.]

This question 2 is actually a rhetorical statement, the equivalent of 
"i strongly don't believe that ...a simple conjunction can have such
transforming power." 

fair enough. 
most people react with surprise or incredulity when they first are
introduced to the system. 
[running an immersion ulpan long enough in biblical hebrew might be a way
around this, but because of time expediency and the social pressure to get
into the literature we explain this in foreign languages here.]

even israeli kids are uncomfortable with the forms at first, since their
mother tongue doesn't use the 'sequential' forms. 

in israel, foreign students in the ulpans quickly learn two words. 'lama?'
'kaxa'. 
[='Why?' 'That's the way it is'.] 
that is part of the process of language learning. 
the ulpan teachers also know that the 'answer', if they know it correctly,
doesn't speed up learning, just the opposite. so the best answer for
students is often 'kaxa'.

later on when the language is learned a person can have the leisure of the
rest of one's life for 'explaining' things. that goes on in every language.
and is necessary.

biblical hebrew is special. 
it is not a living language but it never died either. [what?!]

it has a history of continuous broad knowledge of over three thousand
years, though it hasn't been written by those whose mother-tongue was
hebrew for almost 1900 years, or by those with a 'classical hebrew dialect
for 2500 years. the knowledge of that language did not preserve full
understanding of rare forms or rare constructions. 
fortunately, vayyiqtol is about the most common thing going in classical
hebrew. 
also, the knowledge of that language was continuous and preserved in
parallel with the massoretic vocalization BEFORE anyone tried to analyze
and explain the system. the late-medieval grammarians came after the fact.
so while there are no mother-tongue speakers today, biblical hebrew is not
in the same 'fog' as say, ugaritic.

So the answer to question 2:
How in the world ...?
Because it's there. KAxa

which leads to question #3 in the next email

blessings
randall buth