Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Ronning <ronning AT ilink.nis.za>]

Hi Bryan,

You wrote,


> . . . .
>
>
> I would imagine any clause type can advance the story-line of a narrative
> if the world knowledge of the reader over-rides the typical significance of
> the pragmatic convention.  One reason is because the reading activity
> itself implies the forward movement of story time.    The propositions
> represented by each clause come to the reader during the reading process in
> a sequence, because of the somewhat linear nature of the reading activity.
> The reading experience therefore has a kind of "reading time," which is
> very easily interpreted as the forward movement of story time.  As we
> analyze any one clause which seems to move forward the story time, the
> question is what mechanism or combination of mechanisms moves the story
> time forward.  In BH the wayyiqtol can do it by virtue of its inherent
> meaning.  I suppose the X-qatal may do it exceptionally by virtue of the
> reader's world knowledge, the reading process itself, and maybe some other
> stuff.

Bryan, I think one could say about the wayyiqtol form what you are saying 
about the X
+ qatal.  I.e. the fact that the vast majority of verbs used to carry forward 
the
story line are wayyiqtols is dictated by something other than the inherent 
meaning of
the form.

Why are the vast majority wayyiqtols?  Because (1) standard Hebrew prose word 
order is
verbs first; (2) the fondness for joining clauses together with waw.  These 
two
dictate that wayyiqtol will be used because, for some mysterious reason, 
weqatal is
generally reserved for the equivalent of yiqtol (or weqatal as past was too 
easy to
confuse with weqatal that is equivalent, roughly, to yiqtol).

Thus wayyiqtol can be viewed simply as a fossilized preterite form with no 
inherent
sequential meaning, and it could be just an illusion to say it has such 
inherent
sequential meaning.

When the standard Hebrew prose word order is departed from, it likewise 
dictates
(usually, at least) that something other than wayyiqtol will be used, even if 
the
change in word order occurs when the story is still being carried forward, 
because the
waw is  separated from the verb in such cases, and for some mysterious reason 
the old
preterite is only retained when preceded by wa-. Thus I view Gen 18:7 we'el 
habbaqar
rats Abraham as functionally equivalent to wayyarots Abraham 'el habbaqar, 
and the
question for the interpreter is not "why the change in verbal form" (the 
change is
dictated by the change in word order), but "why the change in word order"?

Is the above grammatical heresy?

Yours,

John