Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

Hi John,
You wrote:

> 
> Anyway, your allowance for flexibility in the way a series
> of events is represented in narrative could also extend to
> the interpretation of a series of wayyiqtols, couldn't it?
> (I.e. why the straitjacket of sequence?)

Well, it's not really a straightjacket.  It's more like one of those leash
lines people use for their dogs--you know, the dog's leash is attached to a
wire, and the dog can pull his leash up and down the wire?  ;-)

Wayyiqtol shows up in some pretty interesting centexts, even in the
imperfective contexts of the generic (clauses which talk about the kind of
thing the subject does), for instance, we have talked about Pro 31.  How
about Pro 20:26:  "A wise king winnows (participle) the wicked, and then
makes (wayyiqtol) the wheel return over them."

BTW, the 97+% for sequence for wayyiqtols (in prose) comes from Galia
Hatav, __The Semantics of Aspect and Modality: Evidence from English and
Biblical Hebrew_ (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1997)

Shalom,
Bryan



B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
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