Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Galia Hatav <ghatav AT aall.ufl.edu>]

Dear Peter Kirk,

You wrote:

>But with this theory how would you explain the English past tenses,
>the past simple and the past perfect? These are in an analogous
>(though not identical of course) complementary distribution with
>wayyiqtol and X-qatal. But that does not make the English simple past
>necessarily and inherently sequential; rather, like wayyiqtol, in
>narrative it is usually sequential but in some cases (e.g. unmarked
>temporal overlay) it is non-sequential. Is there a significant
>difference between how the English and Hebrew tense pairs are used
>within narrative, with respect to sequentiality?
>

        I believe there is a crucial difference between English and BH
concerning narrative sequence.  The tense used in English for narrating the
series of events occuring in the past is the simple past. However, the
simple past is used also for reporting overlapping states or activities, as
in the following examples:

        1. Mary felt happy.
        2. Mary went home. She felt happy.
        3. Mary sang and danced.
Note, furthermore, that English allows past simple to report past in the
past, although it prefers the past perfect for that function.
Contrary to English, I argue, in BH there is a specific form for marking
sequential clauses in the narrative: wayyiqtol. Therefore when a stative
verb appears in wayyiqtol it is interpreted as an inchoative event as in
*wayhi lenahash* 'and it turned into a snake', *wathi nciv melah* 'and she
turned into a pillar of salt'. When it is accompanied by a durative such as
in *wayhi moshe bahar arba'im yom warba'im layla* 'Moses was on the mount
for fourty days and fourty nights', the stative verb is understood to
delimit the duration of the state, giving it 'endpoints', which places it
on the narrative time-line.

Galia
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator
>_________________________________
>Subject: Re: wayyiqtol test, dave:necessary
>Author:  ButhFam at CompuServe
>Date:    19/02/1999 06:08
>
>
>> But I have yet to see an answer to my question, which I am asking
>> now for the third time:
>> what is there in this form that makes sequence a
>> *necessary* and *inherent* property of it, and why?
>
>i will answer again: it is an inherent property due to its existence,
>an existence in complementary distribution of the semantic TAM with [x-]
>qatal.
>languages do not develop/preserve two verb systems in order to mark the
>same tense-and/or-aspect-and/or-mood or to 'mark' word order!
>however, languages do have special narrative, mainline and sequential
>forms.
>
><snip>
>
>
>---
>You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: ghatav AT aall.ufl.edu
>To unsubscribe, forward this message to
>$subst('Email.Unsub')
>To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.