Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Friends,
I'm working on developing a more formal analysis of the weqatal 
form along the lines of what I've already done with wayyiqtol, and 
I'm wondering about something.  For some time I had doubts that 
there was such a thing as a separate weqatal conjugation, mostly 
because there's nothing really phonetic to distinguish it from the 
simple qatal with a simple conjunction (I have doubts about the 
validity of the occasional accent shift, and even if it's accurate it's 
only an occasional phenomenon).  So here's what I'm wondering, 
and I'm hoping some of you comparative semiticists can help me: 
is it possible at all that this form, in BH times, was pronounced 
differently than the Masoretes pointed it?  Specifically, I'm 
wondering if there's any possibility that it used an A-class vowel 
and gemination along the lines of the wayyiqtol?  So e.g. in Gen 
40:13 we would have, rather than W:NFTAT.F, perhaps something 
like WAN.FTAT.F with the geminating prefix.  Is this completely off 
the wall, or could such a thing be possible?

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.