Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Thanks, Alvieri, for your last.  The following pertains to
our discussion of Exod 16:13. You wrote:


> - Exod. 16:13 narrates the realization of God's promise.
> In 13a the narrative follows the pattern of the promise:
> *ba`ereb* is a circumstantial sentence or protasis, and *
> watta`al* is the main sentence or apodosis. The initial
> *wayehii* is added in order to connect the double sentece
> (protasis + apodosi) to the narrative mainline of the
> preceding wayyiqtol's. In this way the writer avoids a
> break in the flow of communication. In other words,
> *wayehî* makes the whole double sentence (protasis +
> apodosis) verbal; otherwise it would be nominal, i.e.
> non-verb initial, and would constitute a break in the line
> of narrative.
> - In Exod. 16:13b there is a change in the pattern in the
> sense that in the apodosis we have a qatal instead of a
> wayyiqtol; i.e. *ûbabboqer* is the protasis and *hayetâ*
> is the apodosis. This interchangeability of wayyiqtol and
> qatal (as well as x-qatal), when the time reference is the
> past, was disturbing to me for some time until I realized
> that this double construction is a special syntactic unit.
> It is an expansion of the sentence type x-finite verb (or
> verb-second), in which the *x* element constitutes a
> sentence by itself. We cas affirm this because it
> paradigmatically exchanges with complete sentences like
> *'im + finite verb* or *kî + finite verb*. Then I
> understood that the verbforms of the apodosis, although
> they represent the main sentence, are actually non-initial
> verbforms just because they are preceded by a
> circumstantial clause (the protasis). In this special
> syntactic unit--the double sentence with protasis +
> apodosis--there is no difference in function between
> wayyiqtol, qatal and x-qatal. Similarly, when the time
> riference is future, we find weqatal, yiqtol as well as
> x-yiqtol playing exactly the same function. For a fuller
> discussion I would refer again to my _Syntax_ #127.
> Actually the whole chapter 8 of _Syntax_ is devoted to the
> typology of the double sentece (called with the rather
> unfortunate, long name of "The Two-Elelement Syntactic
> Construction"). I would stress that that
> interchangeability of
> different verforms only happens in the special case of a
> double sentence.
>

I guess this is where my reference to complicated theories
comes in.  Do you think that someone who grows up hearing BH
spoken and read, will conclude from such cases where
wayyiqtol and qatal are interchangeable in prose past
narrative, that such interchangeability is only permissible
because there is somehow a "double sentence"?  Would he even
know there is such a thing?



>it is very good that we take nothing as "programmed" nor we
keep "complicated >theories" in our heads. Let us simply
learn from the texts.
>I hope this is understandable. Peace.
>Alviero Niccacci

Well said (and most of it was understandable), but
apparently we all hear quite different messages from the
texts!

What I "hear" the texts "saying" is that in prose narrative,
the qatal is often used for verbs that would be wayyiqtol
except for the fact that they weren't so lucky to have the
way- in front of them.  Consequently, I don't find cases
where wayyiqtol and qatal act interchangeably to be
"disturbing," as you once did.

After all, if lo' qatal is a negative wayyiqtol, why can't
qatal function as a wayyiqtol without the conjunction?

Yours,

John Ronning