Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rodney K. Duke" <dukerk AT appstate.edu>]

Dave,

Pardon the naive question, as mine always seem to be, to the frustration of 
some on this list.  In
your response to Peter you wrote:

> Subject: Re: Re[6]: The form of weqatal
> From:
> Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 09:57:31 -0700
> X-Message-Number: 2

> <snip>

> It's possible.  My own working hypothesis, built on my work on the
> wayyiqtol, is that there are some basic oppositions in effect in the
> 4 conjugations, based on a combination of syntactic connection
> and mode:
>
> WAYYIQTOL - no syntactic connection, realis mode (indicative)
> QATAL - syntactic connection, realis mode (indicative)
> WEQATAL - no syntactic connection, irrealis mode (modal)
> YIQTOL - syntactic connection, irrealis mode (modal)
>
> I'm defining "modal" as Galia Hatav defines it, which includes
> future, subjunctive, volition, etc.  The place of imperative, jussive
> and cohortative in this pattern I haven't looked into yet.
>

As you know, Furuli has tried to explain the verbal system with a two-fold 
model (all yiqtols are
yiqtols, etc.).  The four-fold model always is left with some unknown 
converting factor, but
usually only able to "explain" ONE HALF of the model, regarding the wayyiqtol 
(e.g. short and long
prefix conjunction, or wa +doubling corresponding to an Egyptian conjunction 
or to an Arabic
conjunction, etc.)  Working with your model, could it be that the "converting 
factor" is word
order, since what one usually has is:

X+YIQTOL - syntactic connection, irrealis mode (modal)
WAYYIQTOL - no syntactic connection, realis mode (indicative)

X+QATAL - syntactic connection, realis mode (indicative)
WEQATAL - no syntactic connection, irrealis mode (modal)

Rodney
--
Rodney K. Duke
Dept. of Phil. & Rel., Appalachian State Univ., Boone, NC 28608
(O) 828-262-3091, (FAX) 828-262-6619, dukerk AT appstate.edu