Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

I agree that the waw of wayyiqtol is not just the waw conjunction. But 
I would argue that it includes the waw conjunction. Firstly, wayyiqtol 
is always clause initial and so occupies a place where one would 
usually (not always, I accept) find a waw conjunction. But there is 
never a waw conjunction attached to wayyiqtol. And then Hebrew words 
and forms beginning with a waw which is not the conjunction are 
extremely rare, almost vanishingly so if one excludes textually 
doubtful passages and Persian names (I think only the word WFW is 
clear, and this word for a conjoining device may be derived from the 
conjunction, or from the shape of the letter waw); from this I 
conclude the high probability that in an otherwise uncertain form 
beginning with the letter waw that letter represents the conjunction.

Thus I would prefer an parsing of wayyiqtol as 
conjunction+something+yiqtol. On the other hand, it became impossible 
to split off the conjunction even where it was not necessary, and that 
is why we get wayyiqtol rather than *ayyiqtol at the start of 
narratives e.g. Jonah 1:1.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: The conjunction "and" and sequence.
Author:  dwashbur AT nyx.net at internet
Date:    17/03/1999 19:12

<snip>

But this is exactly the sort of thing that I have been doing in my 
own writings!  I argue at length that, given the usages we see, it 
can't be a conjunction but must be a grammatical formative on the
verb itself, signaling a distinctive function.  The fact that it uses the 
same consonant as the conjunction is no more significant than the
fact that he-interrogative uses the same consonant as the definite 
article.  I won't go into the details here, but I think the answer to 
your question is still "yes, there is a definite morphological 
difference that we can detect based on a combination of word- 
formation, modality and context."

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