Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Randall  Buth wrote:

I appreciate your personal engagement in the subject. Your explanation
along Blau's lines is a fine hypothesis, but so far I do not see that you
have produced much evidence, just claims.

>
>i think some of the confusion over definitions will clarify itself by
>discussing the following
>
>[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]
>
>Those are three nice questions.
>i have put them in different emails to keep the threads separate.
>
>1. Are there good arguments for WAYYIQTOL being different from YIQTOL?
>yes.
>a. this has extensive different morphology in hebrew, both in the forms of
>the verbs as well as the conjunction. notice the word 'extensive'. there
>are individual cases where 'short' forms of lamed-yud verbs are not used
>and the 1st person forms vacillate between short/long and normal. but the
>overwhelming pattern is there.
>b. confirmation of this historical reality can be found in a clear example
>like arabic with a vestigial 'short prefix verb' used in negated
>perfective/past contexts. ugaritic is supportive but problematic in mainly
>being poetic, where poets can actually play with the forms, and
>fragmentary. phoenician, aramaic, moabite, akkadian all have supporting
>roles to play, though none are hebrew, of course.
>c. vav with prefix verbs are vocalized differently. that is a massoretic
>reality.
>d. vav with suffix verbs pattern with different accents, though
>irregularly.
>e. thousands of times in the bible within sentence-like 'trajectories'
>wayyiqtol will pattern with qatal. also, veqatal will pattern with yiqtol.
>[nb-this does not mean that the semantic tense-aspect-mood is "induced"
>>from one to the other. for induction a single "sequential" form would have
>sufficed. the two forms signal their respective tense-aspect-mood on their
>own.]
>[nb--i do not claim that the vayyiqtol and qatal forms are absolutely
>equivalent, only that the tense-aspect-mood 'stuff' is similar. see email
>question #3.]

I do not question your comments on the syntax and patterns of BH, but I
challenge your interpretation of it. To the best of my knowledge, there
exists no scientific study where the author has studied the mentioned
patterns in the light of the questions: What can be sorted out as semantic
meaning and what is conversational pragmatic implicature. As long as such a
study has not been completed, there is a long row of loose ends, to say the
least.


>f.  ancient translations [lxx, aram] confirm this broad equivalency of
>vayyiqtol with qatal and of veqatal with yiqtol.

Can you refer to any scientific paper where the author has studied the
subject and concluded as you say, or is it just your personal impression?
>



>question 1 has been discussed on this list.
>i think it safe to say that 99% of hebrew scholars acquainted with the
>above evidence have found the above arguments to be overwhelming.
>the same is true of scholars in israel or from israel.
>
>there are always examples of a 1%. there is a well-known linguistic [talmy
>givon, nb-not a biblical hebrew scholar] who got wrong answers to some very
>good questions because he lumped vayyiqtol together with yiqtol [though his
>major mistake was mixing genre: article on word order (1977?) saying that
>BH already shifted to SVO order by second temple times.]



>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."

I protest that my question 2 is not really a question. Its background is
that there is no example in any language that a conjunction has such a
transforming force that is claimed for Hebrew, and other explanations of
what the wa-element , have never been substantiated. How many scholars
accept and how many reject your van-hypothesis? Are 99% for and 1% against?


>[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).


As a matter of fact, we do not have Hebrew manuscript evidence from the
days of David. In fact there is almost no evidence before the 3rd century
BCE. I therefore wonder how you can be so sure about vowel shifts,
apocopation and different verb forms that are supposed to have existed in
the days of David and thereafter. Let me add that I find Blau's system
logical, but its foundation is not of the kind that we can draw sweeping
conclusions about the semantics of verb forms. it is very speculative!

One thing that has intrigued me for some time is: Why has there been so
little, if any distinction made between the notion of past tense and past
time among hebraists? Why has nobody studied this question? You appeal to
the cognate languages. Let me ask you: What are the EVIDENCE that a short
prefix-preterite existed in the cognate languages? Are there examples of
Accadian iprus (short-prefix form) with present and future meaning? Are
there examples of Ugaritic yaqtul ( short prefix form) with present and
future meaning? Is it true that the same prefix form in the Aramaic of
Daniel is used both with past, present and future meaning in the same
context?


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo