Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rodney K. Duke" <dukerk AT appstate.edu>]

Dear Colleagues,
A form of this post appeared at the end of last Saturday's list of
messages.  I had hoped to get a response from Furuli and Hatav, and
possibly from Niccacci, Washburn, Kirk, Martin, et al.  I'm not sure if
the silence meant rejection or what.  (Rocine responded and Randall Buth
sent me some bibliography that will show the following suggestion to be
wrong.  Even such corrective comments are welcome!)

More on wayyiqtol: [new (?) suggestion at point #4, below]

I would like to offer a synthesis of what I have understood of some of
the arguments of Furuli and Hatav and to offer one more suggestion,
which would simplify our understanding of wayyiqtol.

1) If we accept as correct the concept that 'aspect' reveals the
speaker's perspective of an event/action, and that the 'aspect' of
yiqtol is a partial view of the action as opposed to seeing the action
as a whole event, which would be expressed by the qatal (I believe this
is
what Furuli has argued), then this concept ties in well with Hatav's
thesis that,

2) yiqtol is modal--understanding modality in a broad sense as that
which has not yet become actual (I think this is what Hatav says.)  If
an event is not yet viewed as complete, then it would not yet belong to
realis/actuality.  
[To use different terms, perhaps yiqtol presents a perspective of ACTION
and qatal presents a perspective of EVENT.  This synthesis also seems to
tie in well with Rocine's thesis that yiqtol is fientive and qatal is
attributive.]

3) Hatav also seems to be correct when she sees wayyiqtol as
establishing a new Reference time that initiates a forward moving
sequence, as opposed to a sequence created by a backward connection.
(Sorry, if this is not what she said.  Our library does not have her
work and I have only been able to skim part of it on an occasion.)

*4) I would add one more suggestion. In storytelling, particularly in
oral storytelling, it is not unusual for the narrator to assume a
SPEAKING TIME that is con-temporary with the events being told.  (In
Hatav's terms this artificial Speaking time (distinct from the real
Speaking time of the narrator) would coincide with the Reference time
and Event time.)  When reporting an historical narrative from this
perspective, the Hebrew narrator would be viewing/presenting the story
in real time as emerging and as not yet actual, since it is not yet
complete;
therefore, the verb form to use would have to be yiqtol.

Such a thesis, if correct, simplifies our understanding of wayyiqtol. 
The result of this line of thinking is that the wa+doubling is not seen
as "converting" anything, not a future to a past or a perfect to an
imperfect or a modal to a nonmodal.  The wa+doubling (whether or not an
invention of the Masoretes - Furuli) just seems to function as a marker
of historical narration,  of forward-moving, sequentiality, maybe akin
to Arabic fa as some of you have described it.  Perhaps the best way to
capture this in English would be with the present tense (i.e. the
historic present): "They go to him and they stand before him and they
say..."

What do you think? 


Rodney

--
Rodney K. Duke
Dept. of Phil. & Rel., Appalachian State Univ., Boone, NC 28608
(O) 828-262-3091, (FAX) 828-262-6619, dukerk AT appstate.edu