Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Rolf Furuli wrote:

If discourse analysis is going to help us at all in our study of the 
Hebrew Bible, we *have to* answer the following questions  in our own 
mind BEFORE we start with it:

(1) Are YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, QATAL, and WEQATAL four different 
conjugations with different semantic meanings, or is there just one 
prefix-conjugation (YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL) and one suffix conjugation 
(QATAL AND WEQATAL)?

Dear Rolf,

I think you have made it abundantly clear why you can never agree with 
most others on this list. Most of us are making it the aim of our 
study of the Hebrew Bible (using discourse analysis as one tool among 
others) to answer your question (1) amongst others. But you seem to be 
requiring us instead to prejudge the answer before we even start our 
study. Is this really the proper scientific approach?

As for the poetry issue, perhaps we should take seriously the words of 
Comrie. And please can you name the book you are quoting from, if only 
out of courtesy to its author.

Peter Kirk