Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lee R. Martin" <lmartin AT vol.com>]

Dear Paul & Yochanan,
An x-qatal is any clause/sentence where any element precedes a qatal verb.
This includes nouns, adverbs, prepositional phrases, and particles.  Normally,
1) when x is a particle (ki, or asher) the x-qatal is "retrospective."
2) when x begins a narrative (before any wayyiqtol) it is antecedent.
3) when x is within a narrative it presents recovered information.
See Niccacci Sections 8, 15-21
Lee R. Martin

Paul Zellmer wrote:

> Yochanan Childs wrote:
>
> > OK.  You all are calling this and x-qatal precisely why?  Because it 
> > comes in the
> > midst of a series of otherwise unbroken wayyiqtols?  I hope you don't 
> > mind these very
> > elementary questions.
>
> Yochanan,
>
> I kept looking for a response to this very good question, but I haven't 
> seen one yet.  I
> was gone on a short trip when you asked your question, so I apologize for 
> not responding
> myself.
>
> The term X-qatal refers to qatal clauses whose verbs are not clause 
> initial.  X simply
> stands for a word or phrase which stands clause-initial.  However, many if 
> not most would
> exclude words like 'asher and lo' from qualifying for X.  Normally, we have 
> the clause's
> subject or one of the types of objects in the fronted position of the 
> X-qatal.