Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

 On  05/05/99 (Re: Negative Imperative) Douglas L Kasten wrote:


> Dear Fr. Niccacci, and Lee Martin,
> 
> Your thread regarding the status of weqatal and negative imperative is a
> good one, and I'm following with interest.  Lee writes:
> 
> > Another situation that causes confusion is when a series of weqatals
> occur within a double sentence, e.g.  Deu. 26:1-4, that says:
> 
> Fr. Niccacci, in your response to Lee, you write:
> 
> - The volitive set is as follows:
> 	*speech-initial form: yiqtol (x-yiqtol in some cases) = 3rd person /
> imperative = 2nd person / cohortative = 1st person
> 	*continuation form:weyiqtol -- eventually, a chain of mainline
> weyiqtols
> 	*offline form: x-yiqtol = 3rd and 1st person / x-imperative = 2nd
> person (background)
> 	*negative form of mainline: 'al+yiqtol
> 	*negative form of offline: x-'al+yiqtol.

1) 
> What is your response to the analysis which would pose another text type
> for Dt 26:1-4 as, say, a procedural text (Distinct from narrative, which
> would be classified as another text type), where weqatal would be the
> mainline.  "You do this and then you do that and then you'll do another
> thing...."  
> 
2)
> Though I'm probably not representing Longacre as he'd  wish, I do believe
> that I have the substantial idea in question here:  that there are
> different genres of text types and the 'mainline' of each will be
> different.  I believe Longacre posits 4 Hebrew text types:  Narrative,
> Procedural, Behavioral, and Expository.  Procedural mainline might just
> have weqatal as a mainline verb form.  How about this idea?  Can it be
> incorporated into your analysis, Fr. Niccacci.

______________________________REPLY___________________________________________

Dear Douglas Kasten,

1) I would not make the verbforms dependent on the text types. I would say that the opposite is the case--the text types depend on the verforms used.

2) It seems difficult to me to incorporate Longacre's text types into the analysis I propose. First, the text types usually occur mixed. Second, in different text types the same verbforms occur in many cases, so that there is considerable overlapping.
Identitying the text types, if possible, is useful; however, I would not begin the analysis from the perspective of the text types. As I said, the verforms have their own functions prior to the text types.

You might wish to see my discussion of this issue in R.D. Bergen (ed.), _Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics_, SIL 1994, pages 117-118.

Peace and all good.
Alviero Niccacci