Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

> Alviero, for instance, assumes that there is a semantic difference
between
> wayyiqtol and yiqtol, and that makes his system completely different from
> one assuming that both were similar.

bravo for alviero. by acknowledging the BH distinction he can proceed to
explain BH. 
deleting the distinction would create a different language. a fictive
language.
yet the BH that we know is self-consistent as pointed out in the past with
the regular correspondence of veqatal with yiqtol and vayyiqtol with qatal.
this is also reflected already in the LXX translation by their regular
pairing of aorist indicative with both vayyiqtol and qatal.

>The 500+ yiqtols with past meaning in the Bible are often described as
> "durative past". But this is really nonsensical!  Durativity is an
> Aktionsart term, and aspect does not make a verb more or less durative.
In
> the Nehemiah verses above, the yiqtol of bfnf is used, but bfnf "is born"

relevance theory asks readers to assume sense, first of all. you will find
that english writers mix aktionsart from the lexical sphere defining the
kind of an event/process and aktionsart as a synonym for aspect. 
yes, such mixing is to be regretted, ..alas Haval alas :-(...[end of
regret], but it has been in english literature ever since they borrowed the
german word. in your above example, 'durative' is whatever the author
intended but it is obviously not to be taken as an aktionsart technical
term in the restricted sense. whoever wrote that may have intended an
open-ended, in process past, or a repetitive (=iterative) past, or probably
both. by the way, bana is 'built'.

braxot
randall buth


braxot 
randall buth