Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Peter:



>One for Dave to duck, or to try to answer:
>
>If weqatal is nothing but qatal which happens to have a conjunction,
>why are the instructions for building the tabernacle (for example)
>full of weqatal's and yiqtol's but no qatal's; where the corresponding
>account of the building is largely identical except that it has
>wayyiqtol's and qatal's but no yiqtol's?

Can the reason be the choice of word order and emphasis?  As an example,
compare Leviticus 14:6 and 51. In both verses do we find LQX with future
meaning,  in v 6 as a yiqtol and in v 51 as a weqatal. It seems to me that
the reason for the difference is that "the bird" is fronted in v 6 because
of emphasis. Both verses also have another weqatal with future meaning,
which is not forbidde by the word order, and which also points in the
mentioned direction.

The division of the promised land in Joshua 13-19 will, In addition to the
building of the tabernacle, be a very fine place to compare verb forms.
Here we find the same static situation of how the borders of the inherited
lots "go out/went out", "pass/passed", "go up/went up", and "turn/turned".
I can see no reason why the different verbs describing this static
situation should have different meaning.

Look at Joshua 16 and 17.

16:1 : One wayyiqtol and  one participle
16: 2-3: four weqatals
16:5: Two wayyiqtols
16: 8: One yiqtol and one weqatal
17:10: One wayyiqtol and one yiqtol

Do you see any temporal or aspectual difference between these forms?
>
>If we look at the clause level, I am not sure how to account for this
>data apart from a "traditional" four component model with something
>like a "waw conversive". Then there is a separate issue of deciding
>how this strange system arose (but there are many very strange things
>in real human languages!)
>
>If we are to move anywhere beyond such a traditional view, I am sure
>we need to look above the clause level. So my advice to Dave would be
>to brush up his discourse studies before taking his studies further.

Is it true that to study the text above the clause level demands several
more assumptions than a study of small/the smallest linguistic units? Is it
true that it is much more difficult to test conclusions based upon the
study of big chunks of text than those reached on the basis of smaller
units? If not, please tell me how we can test conclusions drawn about the
meaning of the Hebrew conjugations on the basis of discourse analysis
alone. For instance, is the view that weqatal has the same meaning as
yiqtol falsifyable?


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo