Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

Hi Lee,

I am
checking with the experts here, like you.

You wrote:

> Dear Dave,
> Rolf Furuli says wayyiqtol is imperfective (tenseless);
> Vince DeCaen says it is modal/sequential;
> Randall Buth says it is perfective (past tense);
> Bryan Rocine says it is imperfective/sequential;

I say it is perfective in aspect and so very compatible with past time. 
But the wayyiqtol does also have the intrinsic value, along with other
prefixed forms, of describing emerging action.  This is in opposition to
the suffixed forms which, taken together, represent the state the subject
is in at the time being talked about.  I will say the prefixed forms are
the only truly fientive verb forms in standard BH.  The situation changes
as the language evolves and the qatal ultimately replaces wayyiqtol.
Although we see hints of this change in the BH corpus, it is not in full
evidence in any section of the corpus.

> Many traditional scholars say it is equivalent to qatal.

A tangential point:  I think I recall Christo van der Merwe suggesting in
one paper that traditional teaching grammars are designed(who knows if it
was conscious?) to serve source criticism.  I think he may have been
quoting someone.  If you are really interested, I think I can look it up. 
In any case, one of our friends on list here mentioned the flood account as
an important proof-text for documentary hypotheses.  But it is only strong
for DH, says I, if the wayyiqtol and qatal are considered equivalents,
which I don't.  If the wayyiqtol is thought of as a perfective past in the
account and the qatal as providing stative-type background, the text as-is
starts to make a lot more sense.

> Niccacci focuses on discourse function rather than aspect and tense.
> You are saying that it is perfective, but not necessarily sequential.
> (If I have misrepresented anyone, please correct me.)

I think you are right on Niccacci, but that locks him out of BH poetry
wherein the conventions are more closely related to expository discourse, a
genre which is rarely well-developed in the primarily narrative books.

> 
> Dave, my questions for you (and anyone else) are:
> 1) What is the origin and function of the Wa+Dagesh morpheme?
> 2) Is it of any significance that wayyiqtols are normally shortened
forms? If so, what
> is the significance?
> 
> I believe that Vince has said that the Wa prefix signals sequence, and
the shortened
> form proves modality.  Rolf has said that the Wa was invented by the
Masoretes. I'm
> not sure what other people think.

I agree with Vince on this point.  I could make up stories for why it took
place, but the fact of it still remains.  I would say, in essence, that the
va with gemination evolved to create a distinction between the
clause-initial narrative yiqtol(with the marker) and the clause-initial
modal yiqtol(without the marker).  I just don't understand the connection
between modality and a story-telling form...yet!  ;-)

> 
> I am leaning in the following direction:
> 1) QaTaL is perfective, thus it defaults to past tense (but pragmatics
does not allow
> it to be used for narrative).
> 2) YiQToL is imperfective, and thus can be used for past repeated
actions, future
> actions, and  modal / volitional actions.

Historically, there is a perfective yiqtol which does stick up its head in
the Biblical corpus here and there, a celebrated case being the phrase 'az
yiqtol as in Exo 15:1.  The naked, clause-initial yiqtol(un-bound with vav,
probably the shorter version) was probably the predecessor of the
wayyiqtol.

> 3) The Participle is adjectival, describing an ongoing characteristic of
the subject.

Well...I'll say *like* the qatal but a little different, too.  The
participle, IMO, can indeed be a verb, and as such is the imperfective par
excellance.  Whereas the qatal expresses the state of things(even a state
of activity), the participle expresses unbounded activity.  For stative
roots, the participle is definitely adjectival.
 
> 4) Wa+Dagesh signals narrative (sequence being a natural part of
narrative).
> 5) It was the convention of old BH to present narrative as modal, thus
the shortened
> form.
> 6) Neither, tense, aspect, or discourse function, etc.  is sufficient in
isolation to
> explain / describe the Hebrew verb system.  All linguistic categories 
must considered
> when building a model of the language.

Great point.  In addition, aren't all categories necessary for studying the
verbal system in *any* language?  In addition, an explanation of the Hebrew
verbal system should exhibit some degree of inter-connectedness between the
categories.  For instance, we expect to see a verb form which is
essentially perfective as a sequential form(if one exists) and the mainline
of historical narrative.  Since the qatal is *not* used to move forward
narrative time in standard BH, generally speaking, I will question whether
it is intrinsically perfective.  I am not, contrary to Rolf's concerns,
trying to assign verb forms meaning by discourse analysis alone.

> 7) I have few problems relating my model to any and all Hebrew texts
(although that
> does not prove that I am correct. It could just prove that I am good at
twisting the
> facts).  There is really only one aspect of the BH system that I am
struggling with --
> the WeQaTaL.  Most traditional scholars called it "conversive," in order
to match the
> wayyiqtol as "conversive."  But if wayyiqtol is *not* conversive, then
why should we
> assume that weqatal is conversive.  Niccacci calls the weqatal
"continuation."  And he
> seems to be accurately describing the data.  If a weqatal follows a
yiqtol (habitual),
> then it is translated as habitual.  If a weqatal follows an imperative,
then it is
> translated as an imperative. If a weqatal follows a yiqtol (future) then
it is
> translated future.  If a weqatal follows a wayyiqtol, then it is
translated past
> tense.  The weqatal seems to have no life of its own.  Although the
weqatal has been
> sufficiently described, it has not been *explained.*
> 
> I would very much like to have feedback on this (from anyone).

Weqatal is a parasite as to modality and time, of course.  I think this
amounts to rewording Niccacci's assertion that it is a continuation form. 
It gets its modal/non-modal meaning from the context.  It also gets it's
time reference from context, i.e., non-past in a character's text and past
in the narrator's text.  The prefixed vav and the weqatal's necessarily
clause-initial position make it a sequential form.  The suffixed form, as
always, represents the state the subject was(or will be) in at the time
being talked about.   So a series of future indicative weqatals represent a
series of states the subject will be in at a sequence of forward moving
"times being talked about."    

In summary, I think a few of the powerful influences upon the evolution of
the Hebrew verbal system as follows:

1)  The importance of the clause-initial position as a marker of mainline.
2)  The need to disambiguate between the prefixed forms.
3)  The distinct meanings of suffixed forms on the one hand and prefixed on
the other.

Shalom,
Bryan


B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13208

315-437-6744(w)
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