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  • From: peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[3]: Tidbits from Ruth
  • Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 18:35:55 -0400


Dear Rolf,

See my interleaved comments.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re[2]: Tidbits from Ruth
Author: furuli AT online.no at internet
Date: 28/04/1999 03:01


Dear Peter,

I have never claimed to have hundreds of examples of non-sequential
wayyiqtols, as you wrote in your last post, because sequentiality has been
of secondary importance to me. But I do claim to have several hundred
examples of wayyiqtols with non-past meaning, which also in many cases may
imply non-sequentiality. My examples from Ruth do not belong to the
mentioned list, but were just stray examples I gathered when I recently
read the book.

PK: Sorry if I confused the issues here. Let me rephrase to make my
point clear and precise: If the hundreds of examples of non-past
wayyiqtol which Rolf claims to have found (in narrative) were no more
certain than these examples of non-sequential wayyiqtol, I would have
to conclude that there is no definite evidence for any non-past
wayyiqtol (in narrative).

I appreciate that you have reached the conclusion that sequentiality is a
pragmatic implicature as far as wayyiqtol is concerned, and not its
semantic meaning. Randall also seems to have reached the same conclusion
although his language is ambiguous. So in this respect we all three seem to
agree. But then I do not understand why you are so zealous in using all
kinds of strange arguments to defend the sequentiality of wayyiqtol if you
agree that this property is pragmatic rather than semantic.

PK: My point is to demonstrate that in each specific case we must be
certain that the verb is non-sequential, non-past etc., rather than
just preferring such an interpretation to another which is sequential,
past etc., before using that case as evidence for a theory. The
correct method is to examine all of the data carefully and discard any
which has a possible different interpretation. This is all the more
important for your method which in principle takes even a single
counter-example as decisive - it can only be decisive if it is
unambiguous.

To admit that wayyiqtol may express a coordination of two verbs
("hendiadys" to use your words) is tantamount to saying that the
way-element in such situations is nothing more than a simple cunjunction.

PK: I disagree. For example, Azerbaijani has a similar hendiadys idiom
for "eat and drink", "yeyib ichmek" ("-mek" is the infinitive ending,
"ye-" is "eat" and "ich-" is "drink"). There are several similar
hendiadys idioms in the language. By your argument "-yib" must be
"nothing more than a simple conjunction". But that simply does not fit
the facts: "-(y)ib" is a gerund type verb ending which usually denotes
sequentiality, thus (if this were not a special idiom) one would
translate "having eaten, drink". Incidentally, re 1 Kings 18:41, in
Azerbaijani one would use the hendiadys in most verb forms, but not in
the imperative which is not "yeyib ich" but simply "ye, ich".

.. So again the map must be modified to fit the scenery! If the
way-element in some cases is just a conjunction, how do you know that it is
not a simple conjunction in *all* instances? (See situations with handiadys
without wayyiqtol, 1 Kings 18:41 "eat and drink", Jer 2:19 "know and see",
Isaiah 2:3 "go and ascend"). I have earlier shown that Origen did not
differentiate between wayyiqtol and weyiqtol and that there is no
difference between the forms in unpointed texts.

PK: This may simply be evidence that Origen didn't know much Hebrew.
One would hardly expect him to, for he was a Christian of Greek origin
living in a city where Hebrew had not been spoken as a living language
for hundreds of years (hence the need for the LXX translation
centuries earlier).

.. Let me add another argument, namely, that there is evidence that shewa
at Qumran was pronounced with an "a"-sound. This would reduce or blot out
any difference between a wa(y)- element and a we-element. One piece of
evidence is Isaiah 34:6 where the word for "kidneys" in MT is written as
KILE:YOT and the great Isaiah scroll has KL)YWT (shewa is written plene as
aleph). If this is not a scribal error it suggests that shewa was
pronounced as "a".

PK: I am not sure what MT you are referring to, but BHS has K.IL:YOWT
here, and the schwa is silent after a short I. So this is no evidence
for the pronunciation of a vocal schwa in a quite different
phonological environment. Probably what has happened is that the
writers of the Isaiah scroll read instead of the construct form
K.IL:YOWT the absolute form K.:LFYOWT as in Jer 11:20 etc. and added
their aleph according to that pronunciation. Or perhaps at that time
the construct was pronounced more like the absolute. If so, I think
this must be a special feature of this word. By the way, I would take
the decisive difference between wayyiqtol and weyiqtol to be the
doubling of the consonant rather than the vowel sound, and your
example does not address that issue.

Two more questions:
(1) When you say that wayyiqtol is "past tense", do you defferentiate
between "past tense" and "past meaning"? And if so, how do you know that
wayyiqtol is "past tense" and not only "past meaning"?

PK: Well, what I mean is that in narrative wayyiqtol is used only in
past contexts and is the most common verb form in such contexts. And
in my posting which you quoted I am summarising the views of several
list participants rather than trying to prove them.

(1) You say that X-qatal is "semantically marked for background". Can you
tell what you includ in X-qatal? Do you really mean that what you include
in X-qatal in any context in the whole Bible must be background
information? And how do we identify "background information"? Is the
definiton of "background" that which is expressed by qatal, or is there an
independent method apart from the use of qatal by which we can find what is
background, and thereby test whether qatal always is background?

PK: Same disclaimer as above about summarising the views of others. I
am talking about narrative not poetry, which I know is a methodology
which some question. If I understand Prof. Niccacci correctly, this is
what he is saying from his much deeper understanding than mine, so
perhaps you should ask him to answer this question.

I made some searches in three narrative books to find coordinated
wayyiqtols. Some of them are:
Deuteronomy
3:1 "turned and went"
4:11 "came near and stood"
8:3 "humbled, caused to hunger, caused to eat" (hendiatris)
9:26 "prayed and said"
17:3 "gone and served"
29:26 "went and worshiped"
Joshua
8:11 "drew near and came before"
8:14 "hurried, rose early, and went out" (hendiatris)
11:17 "struck and killed"
22:9 "turned and left"
24:9 "sent and called
Judges
4:6 "sent and called"
9:7 "went and stood", "raised his voice, cried, and said" (hendiatris)
10:8 "shattered and crushed"
13:10 "hurried, ran. and told" (hendiatris)
13:11 "arose and went"
15:15 "took out his hand, took, and struck (hendiatris)
19:6 "sat, ate, and drank" (hendiatris)
19:14 "passed and went"
20:47 "turned and fled"

You can hardly say that all the examples above are idioms. Rather, some of
them are examples of how the Hebrew mind liked to express the same thing in
two ways (paralellism). Even if all examples were special idioms, this
would not blot out the important fact that the way-element of wayyiqtols
serves as a simple conjunction.

No, I don't say these are all idioms. Many of them can simply be
understood as normal narrative sequences e.g. Deuteronomy 3:1, 4:11,
8:3 (?), 17:3, 29:26, Joshua 8:11, 22:9, Judges 9:7a, 10:8, 13:10
(ran, then told), 13:11, 15:15, 19:6 (sat, then ate and drank), 20:47.

.. Too often we hear explanations of difficult passages such as: "But
this is poetry", "But this is prophetic perfect", "But this is this.", and
"This is that", as if such arguments would explain everything. Poetry does
not change the semantic meaning of a verb and a label such as prophetic
perfect does not blot out the fact that the qatal has futute meaning.
Problematic passages must be explained by lexical, grammatic and syntactic
arguments (and of course by the context) and not by the help of labels.

PK: I understand your doubts about labels. In your terms, I suppose
the alleged prophetic perfects would be cases in which the prophet is
projecting him/herself into a reference time at the consummation of
the prophecy or in the last day and so looking at all events as past.
If so one would at least expect consistency within a passage. But I
don't see why you are so strongly saying that verb forms cannot be
used differently in different genres composed at different times. I
would expect to find some differences between Shakespeare's use of
verbs and modern English prose usage.

Regerds
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo

<my previous posting snipped>

Best wishes,
Peter Kirk





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