Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

> . . . My tentative hypothesis would be that when the present tense was
used as historic 

i suppose this means that you are claiming that both "yaqtul" (singular)
was 'present' and "yaqtulu" (singular) was 'present'? 
and in hebrew would that mean that 
vayYAshov 'and he return*d' and 
yaSHOV 'let him return' and 
yaSHUV 'he will return, used to return' 
were all "present" at one time?

> this became specifically indicated by fronting it in the sentence and 
> linking it with the waw conjunction - this explains why the form 
> without the conjunction (yiqtol) is not mixed with wayyiqtol. At some 
> time in the development of the language, I would suggest, only 
> wayyiqtol and not yiqtol alone became acceptable for "historic 
> present", and so qatal came to be used for cases where the verb could 
> not be fronted 

the above sounds a bit like some arab grammarians i've heard who try to
explain their "lam yaktub" 'he did not write' construction with special
psychological states, without relating it to west semitic yaqtul. "lo
dubbim velo ya`ar", as they say here.

"so qatal came ..." 
yet yiqtol is used in narrative for repetitive, open-ended past
descriptions.

> . . .And I am talking about a time when participles 
> were not in regular use as a present tense, hence no participles.

which would mean you've been describing a hypothetical etymology of
proto-hebrew, 
but not the synchronic hebrew narrative of the bible.
not that i am expressing agreement with the etymologies/hypotheses you
listed, or disagreement, here. 
maybe you'll want to read rainey 1986 in Hebrew Studies, if you haven't
seen it.

braxot
randall buth