Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Studium Biblicum Franciscanum <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>]

Dear Moon,

Thank you for your interest. I try to answer your two questions.

1) Yes, there are offline verbforms constructions also in direct speech,
corresponding to offline verbforms and constructions in historical
narrative.

The best way to see the situation is to read the parallel texts from Exodus
26:1 ff. (God's instructions) with Exod. 36:8 ff. (execution of the
instructions).
Take for instance the construction of the tabernacle in 26:1-6
(instructions) and 36:8-13 (execution).
You shall see that
- initial x-yiqtol--mainline, simple future: *we'et-hammi$kan ta`seh*
 becomes wayyiqtol *wayya`asu ...* == Both are mainline.
- the following x-yiqtol *$e$ ... ta`seh 'otam*
becomes x-qatal *$e$ ... `asah 'otam* == Both are offline, or marked
contructions, signalling a special emphasis on *$e$ ... * and other
specifications, i.e. they indicate how exactly to do the curtains.
- there follows a description of length and width (26:2 // 36:9), with
nonverbal sentences both in the instruction and in the execution. The
English equivalent in the instrction shall be future: "the length of each
curtain shall be 18 cubits... the width shall be..."; in the execution the
English equivalent shall be the imperfect: "the length of each curtain
was...".

By such a parallel reading, one gets an excellent viewpoint on the
correspondences between direct-speech and historical-narrative verbforms
and constructions and their respective functions. If you have my _Syntax of
the Verb_ you could check ##58 and 59.

2) My reply to your second question is no. There is no difference in terms
of syntax between x-qatal or x-yiqtol and waw-x-qatal or waw-x-yiqtol. What
matters is the place of the finite verb in the sentence.
Despite the fact that Waltke-O'Connor draw a long list of "functions" of
Waw (see #39.2), these are simply semantic or interpretive specifications
with no syntactic basis. Of course waw is significant when it is an
integral part of the verbform as in wayyiqtol, weqatal and weyiqtol.

Peace and all good.

Alviero Niccacci





On  03/15/99 (Re: Tilburg Paper (To Alviero))  Moon-Ryul Jung wrote:


> Dear Alviero:
>
        <. . . . >
>
> 1) Are there "offline constructions" in direct speech, which correspond to
> "offline constructions" in narrative?
>
> 2) Are there no differences between x+qatal (without the initial "we" like
>    in Gen 1:1) and we+x+qatal,
>    and between x+yiqtol (without the initial "we") and we+x+yiqtol?
>

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