Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Peter wrote:
> Dear Galia,
> 
> Thank you for your helpful comments, also for Bryan's further comment. 
> Just to clarify things, I was not trying to suggest a perfect 
> correspondence, rather that the differences were not great and that it 
> might be instructive to examine them. It still seems to me that for 
> non-stative verbs the difference is small: simple past and wayyiqtol 
> are generally sequential but can be used (though perhaps not 
> preferred) for past within past; whereas the preferred form for past 
> within past is past perfect and X-qatal. One more difference is that 
> in Hebrew X-qatal is continued with wayyiqtol, whereas English 
> continues with past perfect.

Well, yes and no.  See Jung's examples in his most recent post.  I 
would argue that sequence (or lack thereof) is a feature of either 
discourse or pragmatics (not sure which at this point, and for my 
purposes working at clause level, it really doesn't matter to me) 
apart from the use of the WP form.  As the subject line says, the 
question is whether sequence is a necessary part of the form; I say 
no.  YMMV.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.