Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dave wrote:
>Galia wrote:
>> Dave wrote:
>>
>> >Prof Jung wrote:
>>
>> >> Dear Peter,
>> >> unitl I see a strong evidence for Galia's assumption that
>> >> wayyiqtol is different from English simple past (minus stative verbs),
>> >> I would agree to what you wrote below. But I think that in English
>> >> simple past clauses can continue past perfect clauses. Consider:
>> >>
>> >> a. John went into the florist shop.
>> >> b. He had promised mary some flowers.
>> >> c. She said that she wouldn't forgive him if he forgot.
>> >>
>> >> Clause a establishes the reference time for clause b.
>> >> The reference time of clause c is set to the event time
>> >> of clause b, which is before the reference time of clause b.
>> >>
>> >> If this example can be acceptable to English speakers, then
>> >> we must say that simple past can continue past perfect.
>> >
>> >Yes, clearly it can.  And as Galia points out in her book, we know
>> >this from pragmatic considerations, not syntactic ones.  Examples
>> >such as these keep me believing that, while it's true that all
>> >features of the grammar - syntax, semantics, pragmatics,
>> >discourse frame and all the rest - have a hand in forming clauses (I
>> >avoid the term "sentence") and larger units, if we're going to make
>> >real progress in understanding the syntax of Hebrew verbs we have
>> >to keep them separate for purposes of study.  [climb down off
>> >soapbox]
>> >
>> >WRT the above clauses, I would suggest that Hebrew would have
>> >had the first one in a WP (wayyiqtol), the second with an x-qatal,
>> >and the third with another WP.  What do you think?
>> >
>> >Dave Washburn
>>
>>      I agree, except that (c) has TWO clauses. The second one would be
>> in qatal.
>
>Hmm, now that you mention it, (c) has THREE clauses.  I agree
>that the second one (more or less indirect speech) would be in
>qatal, if by KIY, or possibly an infinitive clause if not.  Things are
>further muddied by the fact that it's a negated clause.  Your theory,
>if I understand it correctly, predicts that the third clause would be in
>yiqtol preceded by )IM.  That sounds good to me.
>
>Dave Washburn

        Yes, (c) has THREE clauses; what was I thinking? Now what would I
predict for (c)? Gee, this is tough. I cannot recall an example of indirect
speech with a conditional. So let me first see how it would be with direct
speech.
        (c') She said: "If you (had) forgot(ten) I would not have forgiven
you."
Would you agree that (c') is the direct speech equivalent of (c)? So what
we have here is a counterfactual. Counterfactuals in BH are expressed
(usually) by qatal, and therefore I expect both clauses within the direct
speech to appear in qatal.  I don't recall an example of counterfactual
within indirect speech, but I would have to assume that in such case, too,
the verbs will be in qatal. By the way, I do not have an explanation for
why counterfactuals have qatal verbs rather than yiqtol or wqatal. But the
problem is not limited to BH. Palmer 1986 illustrate other languages which
use the perfect for counterfactuals (such as English).
        Galia
>http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
>A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.
>
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