Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear listmembers,

I appreciated the animate discussion on the subject. Two points seems to
emerge: thje question of method, and specifically the function of
wayyiqtol. In my view, a good answer on the latter subject has been given
by Peter Kirk on 26 Apr 1999.

The semantic model proposed by Rolf Furuli and others may be helpful for
describing the verbal system of BH comprehensively, as a living language.
However, one needs first a method to gather the evidence in a correct way,
and this can hardly be done with that method.

Following W. Schneider, E. Talstra and others, I have adopted the
text-linguistic method of Harald Weinrich, _Tempus: Besprochene und
erzaehlte Welt_, a book that started the text-linguistic approach and has
been translated in many languages. As far as I know, Weinrich's method has
been applied to Latin and Italian besides BH. I also made a first attempt
to apply it to Biblical Greek in a couple of essays.

- In my understanding of Weinrich's method, one begins by listing the
verbforms and other constructions that occur in narrative and in discursive
texts.
- One identifies which verbforms/constructions are distinctive of the two
genres and which are common to both.
- One tries to understand the function(s) of each verbform/construction in
relationships to other verbforms/construcions with which they occur in the
texts. At this stage finding good examples with clear text situations is of
paramount importance.
- A basic step is to get the correct analysis of the single sentence in BH.
Word order is of primary importance, especially in historical texts. That
is, a sentence with a finite verb in the first place--i.e., in historical
narrative, wayyiqtol--plays a different function from a sentence with the
verb in the second place--e.g. x-qatal.
- Besides word order, the other basic principle is foreground, or mainline,
versus background, or offline, information. The task is to identify the
respective verforms and constructions that BH uses to express foreground
and background both in narrative and in discursive texts.
- As soon as possible, from clear cases one formulates a working
hypothesis, which is then tested and refined by further reading of texts.

- E.g. there are clear cases of wayyiqtol versus x-qatal of the same root
that refer to the same event that provide a clue to understanding their
relative function in narrative texts.
See e.g. Gen. 1:27 for mainline information with *wayyibra'* versus
specification, or background information, twice with X + *bara'*--"God
created the human being in his image; it is in the image of God that he
created him; it is male and female that he created them"--,
or Gen. 1:5, 10 for mainline information with *wayyiqra'* versus
background, coincidental information with X + *qara'*--"God called the
light day while the darkness He called night."
- Similarly, in discursive texts there are clear examples to show, e.g.,
the correspondence between wayyiqtol for historical information and qatal
or x-qatal for oral report. See e.g. 2Sam. 12:26 (historical information
with wayyiqtol) and 12:27 (oral report with qatal).

- These are only a few points to show how we can learn from the texts, and
need to. I see no other way.
- The knowledge drawn from the texts is valid in all similar cases. E.g.,
the function of narrative wayyiqtol for mainline in narrative and that of
x-qatal for offline, or background information, in historical narrative are
valid for every comparable case. They are not context-bound nor pragmatic
products. What is context-bound and pragmatic are the semantic
specifications that wayyiqtol and x-qatal assume in the different contexts.
E.g., the fact that narrative wayyiqtol designates sequentiality ("and then
... and then ...") holds true for most cases, but there are cases where
wayyiqtol does not designate temporal, but rather logical, sequentiality,
or the like. However, wayyiqtol's main function of conveying mainline
information remains in all the cases.
Similarly, with x-qatal. It assumes different semantic connotations
according to the context. In _Syntax_ ##39-49 I have listed six of them.
However, x-qatal's main function of conveying background information
remains in every case.

- By putting the different bits of infromation together, one gets a
broader, and I think a coherent, view of the situation. Actually, I am
convinced that we can speak of a system.

Peace and all good.
Alviero Niccacci.