Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Part of the point of my posting is to suggest that the verb )HB has 
two sides, a fientive side "fall in love" and a stative side "be in 
love", just like (MD can be fientive "stand up, take one's stand" or 
stative "stand". Many verbs can be divided in this way. I suppose the 
division has something to do with aspect, but it is not the same as 
aspect. (My knowledge of Russian illustrates this: take an 
imperfective stative or semi-stative verb, add the prefix za-, and you 
get a perfective fientive verb meaning to enter a state or begin to be 
whatever). Then Bryan's suggestion would be that the qatal tends to 
correspond to the stative side; perhaps yiqtol and wayyiqtol are both 
more fientive, and the participle is more a repeated or habitual 
fientive. I am only putting out feelers here, not setting forward any 
fixed position, but maybe it sheds some light on a way ahead in this 
discussion.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
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Subject: Re: Qatal, 1 Kings 11:1
Author:  dwashbur AT nyx.net at internet
Date:    23/01/1999 17:17


Peter wrote:
> If we follow the regular understanding of N + qatal in 1 Kings 11:1, 
> the point is not that Solomon "had a thing for" foreign women or
> "habitually fell in love with them". I guess that would require a 
> participle. Here, rather, the sense is pluperfect: at some time
> previous to the events described in the previous passage, Solomon "had 
> fallen in love with" many foreign women and so was, at the narrative
> time, in a state of love regarding them - cf an English or Greek
> perfect or pluperfect tense. Indeed, they had become his wives and
> concubines. I understand Bryan's conception of the qatal as stative as 
> relating in that way to its pluperfect "flashback" sense - is that
> right, Bryan? Maybe the older grammarians were not as wrong as we 
> sometimes think in calling the qatal form "perfect".

My purpose in offering that text was to set a couple of clauses in 
the context of Bryan's fientive/stative context.  If I understand his 
approach correctly, the stative idea that Solomon had an eye for 
numerous foreign women would be the essential force of the qatal
in that verse.  I wouldn't use the expression "fall in love" at all in 
that clause, though "was in love" might be workable.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.

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