Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

{bryan rocine wrote:}
>For instance, I interpret Randall as
>asserting  that weqatal cannot be a continuation form in Jdg 11:8.  I say
>that it is.  It does not continue shavnu, of course. 

of course!?
shavnu is exactly what vehalaxta continues!

vehalaxta continues the sentence with the thematic material.
of course, vehalaxta does not continue the TAM of shavnu. vehalaxta has the
opposite TAM.
that is why BH has two sequential forms. if the author of ju 11.8 wanted to
continue with thematic/sequential material of the same TAM as shavnu then
he would have said 'vattelex'.

ju 13.2 gives another example of this just a few paragraphs later in
judges:

and the angel said to her:
look
at `aqara   (you are childless)
velo yaladt  (and you have not given birth)[suffix TAM marks past here]
veharit (and you will be pregnant)[veqatal marks thematic material and uses
same TAM as a prefix would have]
veyaladt ben (and you will give birth to a son) [ditto]

in narrative this thematicity can be seen in verses like 
isaiah 6.1
bishnat mot ha-melex `uzziah    (in the year of uzziah's death) [not a
clause]
va'er'e et adonai     ('and i saw') [thematic material with TAM equal to
suffix tense]
    (cf. moabite line 5 and 30 for similar construction with vayyiqtol.)

had the suffix tense been used "ra'iti" the material would not have been as
foregrounded, pragmatically.
Here, the "seeing" is a salient event not the background/preparation for
another event.

when a sequential form is desired with the TAM of a yiqtol, then a veqatal
is used.
when a sequential form is desired with the TAM of a qatal, then a vayyiqtol
is used.
the previous verb or material is irelevant because each sequential form
carries its own TAM.
(that is why books can begin with vayehi. the 'and' may suggest that this
is a frozen form but it still carries its own past/perfective TAM.)

the choice of whether to use a sequential form or non-sequential form is
directly related to 'discourse'/'textlinguistics'[i.e. pragmatics]. 
the choice of which TAM to use is directly related to semantics. 

looking for a hypothetical yiqtol or imperative on which to hang a veqatal
is not part of biblical hebrew.
that is why Hebrew required four-way system. it only has two TAMs. one
sequential form would have been enough to mark only 'sequentiality' with
TAM assumed/induced. but the forms mark 'sequentiality' + TAM, so two
sequential forms were necessary.

yisge shlamax
randall buth