Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lee R. Martin" <lmartin AT vol.com>]

Dear Rolf,
Thanks for restating your view.
As I wrote in response to Dave, I do not believe in a 4 component model; I
accept only 2 components to the finite verb system of BH.  And I am aware of
the statistics below.  However, your statistics do not explain the weqatal,
its origin, or its function.  Your post is a good example of what I said
earlier.  The weqatal has been described, but not explained.
Lee R. Martin

>Some statisticts: Looking at qatals with prefixed waw in 1st and 2nd person
>singular, I found 1637 examples in BHS. Of these, 1222 had ultimate stress
>(including 83 of the lamed aleph and lamed he groups), and 415 had
>penultimate stress (including 278 of the lamed aleph and lamed he groups).
>Of the verbs with ultimate stress 1082 evidently have future meaning, and
>of the verbs with penultimate stress 148 evidently have future meaning.
>
>The fact that 12 per cent of the weqatals with penultimate stress do not
>have a future meaning and that 36 per cent of the weqatals with penultimate
>stress have future meaning accords with Dave's suggestions above.