Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Lee,


>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.


The explanation of qatals with enclitic "we" must be rooted in the
definition of the nature of the two conjugations in which we both believe.

My approach to the problem is simple: Past tense represents uncancellable
semantic meaning. Thus a verb form marked for past tense is past tense in
under any circumstances.  10 per cent of the wayyiqtols of the MT have
non-past meaning, and they cannot, if we use sound linguistic principles,
be explained as preterits being used under special circumstances. If this
is true, the only possible conclusion is that the past-time use of the
wayyiqtols is conversational pragmatic implicature. The same can be shown
to be true for the future use of waqatal, so the Hebrew verbal system has
no grammaticalized tenses.

The alternative is that the two conjugations are aspects. A discussion of
the nature of Hebrew aspect would need much space, but even the traditional
definition of the perfective aspect as a view from the outside and the
imperfective aspect as a view from the inside, would be somewhat helpful.
(We need a much more sophisticated definition if we shall account for all
the different uses of the verbs, though.)  There is no one-to-one
equivalence between past time and one of the aspects or future time and one
of the aspects, so if tense is nonexistent in the system, we would expect
both aspects being used for past, present and future. And this is also the
case!

I understand your problem to be that when qatal is used with future meaning
it often has enclittic "we", and even if weqatal does not constitute a
separate conjugation, it is strange that it so often has this enclitic
particile when it has futurte meaning. I see four points here which should
be considered:

(1) According to L McFall, 1982, "The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal system",
Appendix, the RSV translated 255 qatals and  2932 weqatals with English
future. A good many of the 2454 qatals which were translated by present do
also refer to the future. This suggests that the perfective aspect used
with future meaning is not reserved to weqatal.

(2) "Linguistic convention" is a very much neglected category in Hebrew
studies.  To understand this, Niccacci's system is really valuable. It
reveals different patterns in the choice of forms. But this need not be
semantic, it need not be anything but linguistic convention. (The system is
circular if verbal meaning is sought.) The use of wayyiqtol in past
narratives and weqatal in future contexts tell us that this was the way
that was natural for the Jews, and I see no problem here.

(3) I sometimes wonder if commentators have forgotten that waw is a
conjunction that is used as a conjunction. I see arguments about
consecutive forms making this and that sequence or connection. But this is
simply the function of the conjunction waw, and there is nothing mystic in
this. When a sequence of events in the past is narrated, there is nothing
strange that a waw connects one stage with the next. And when a qatal is
used with future meaning together with other verbs, it is not strange that
a waw connects them (In contrast, Middle Egyptian did not have the
conjunction "and" at all, so asyndeton was the linguistic convention in
that language.)

(4) English aspect is connected with time. An anderstanding of Hebrew
aspect as not connected with time (I do not say "tense") and that the
perfect aspect does not represent "completED" events, will help us better
understand how both aspects can be used for past, present and future,
because this makes aspect more versatile.


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semiticv languages
University of Oslo