Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On  04/15/99 (More on wayyiqtol-resent) Rodney K. Duke wrote:


> 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!)

        <snip>

> *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?


Dear Rodney Duke,

Thank you for sending again your message, which I read now for the first
time (I have been away from internet for about 20 days).
Unfortunately I have not much to say about your ideas. As you may know, I
take a different position.

I think that narrative wayyiqtol is a tense in BH. It begins and carries on
the main line of communication in historical narrative. It has a definite
time reference by itself and is aptly translated with the simple past in
English.
I distinguish narrative wayyiqtol from continuation wayyiqtol. The latter
has no time reference by itself but continues the time reference of the
preceding verbform or construction.

An example, which I have already put forward more than once, shows these
two kinds of wayyiqtol:
- 1Sam. 25:1 vs. =1Sam. 28:3

- wayyamot $emû'el  wayyiqqabeTSû...  wayyispedû-lô     wayyiqberuhû bebêtô...
= û$emû'el met                        wayyispedû-lô...  wayyiqberuhû baramâ...
- Then Samuel DIED     and all Israel ASSEMBLED and MOURNED for him and
BURIED him...
= Now Samuel HAD DIED, and all Israel HAD MOURNED for him and HAD BURIED
him in Ramah...

In 1Sam. 25:1 we find a chain of narrative wayyiqtol. They give historical
information still unknown to the reader. Instead, in 1Sam. 28:3 we find
continuation wayyiqtols, which carry on the information conveyed with
waw-x-qatal. Waw-x-qatal is a common way of beginning a narrative, as is
well known. In 28:3, the waw-x-qatal resumes an information already known
to the reader--"recovered information" in the terms of H. Weinrich. This
past information is recalled in order to provide the setting for the
following story about the dead Samuel and the medium of Endor. It is as if
the writer would say: "In order to understand the following story, the
reader needs to remember that..."
The two wayyiqtols in 28:3 continue the waw-x-qatal construction; they do
not start the main narrative line as the comparison with 1Sam. 25:1 clearly
shows. These two continuation wayyiqtols carry on the same time reference
of the preceding waw-x-qatal and are therefore correctly translated with
the pluperfect.
This distinction between narrative and continuation wayyiqtol helps
overcome the desperate situation described in standard grammars, where
wayyiqtol is said to be translatable with every verbform--past, present,
and also future--, and every aspect--single and habital action/information.
Continuation wayyiqtol is also used in direct speech, i.e. in an oral
narrative, while the narrative wayyiqtol is not. This means that an oral
narrative begins with first-place qatal or with x-qatal--not directly with
wayyiqtol-- and continues with wayyiqtol, for the main line; it shifts to
x-qatal and other verbforms and constructions to express a secondary line
of communication. In other words, the beginning of an oral narrative is
different from that of the historical narrative while the continuation is
the same.
As examples of an oral narrative one can read, e.g., Deut. 1:6 ff., or  5:2 
ff.

Peace and all good,

Alviero Niccacci

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