Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bryan Rocine <brocine AT earthlink.net>]

 Dear Rodney,

It is always good to hear from you on list.  Of course, I am not a linguist 
either,
just a 'gentleman linguist,' but I would like to make a suggestion for your 
query
below.

Rodney K. Duke wrote:

> A question on translating the qatal with a wayyiqtol into English:
>
> (It makes sense to me to see how an initial qatal can establish the
> state, background, or summary/intro of a following historical narrative
> in which the action begins with a wayyiqtol.  And it communicates well
> in English to translate a background X-qatal as a past or past
> perfect.)  I'm at a loss, however, on how to translate into English the
> sense--as I now see it--of a wayyiqtol event that is completed by a
> qatal.  For example, given the thesis above, I would now understand a
> construction such as found in Gen 1:5 as:
>
> "And God calls [wayyiqtol: new R time, action moving 'forward'] the
> light 'day', and the darkness he call/s/ed [X-qatal: same R time, but
> event completed] 'night'."
>
> How can we capture the sense of the qatal, above, in English?
>
> Rodney
>

I have no problem with your translating wayyiqtols with the historical 
present.  I was
quite tempted to teach doing so in my first year grammar, but shied away from 
it
because I was already "pushing the envelope" on some issues.  I admit to 
having been
intimidated by the extant traditions and wanting to choose my battles.  More 
important
to me than anything in my grammar, of course, was to organize the 
presentation largely
by a discourse model.  Be that as it may, I think, given a translation of the
wayyiqtol with the Eng historical present,  you know how I would translate 
Gen 1:5.  I
am assuming, by the nature of your query, that you won't mind if the 
translation
sounds a bit awkward or wooden.  I assume you are looking for something that
represents the particular sense of the Hebrew rather than smooth-flowing 
English per
se.  I.e., we already have enough smooth-flowing, beautiful translations.  My 
take is
as follows then: "And God calls the light Day, while it is the darkness that 
He is a
caller (of it) Night."  I will explain a couple of my decisions.  First, 
"while" is
used to communicate the sense that the X-qatal does not move the narrative 
time
forward.  Rather, in the terminology of Galia Hatav, it is parasitic as to 
reference
time, living off the wayyiqtol.  Second, I use "it is...that" to reflect the 
idea of
the old Arab grammarians, Niccacci, et. al. that a clause which begins with a 
noun is
nominal.  Lastly, I use "caller" to reflect the qatal's inherently attributive
meaning.  Being required to render a "pretty" version, I would go with "And 
God calls
the light Day, while the darkeness He calls night."

just my 2 shkalim!

Bryan