Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

There are two points here:

1. The sequence "wayyillachamu ... wayyapol": here, can we not 
understand "wayyillachamu" as "started to battle", "entered battle"? 
If not, why not?

2. The sequence "wayyapol ... wayyamot": logically, each person first 
falls down then dies. I don't think we need to take this to mean that 
first they all fell, then after the last one fell all died.

With this analysis, no question of imperfectivity I think, all 
wayyiqtols are perfective.

(Actually, since the "doing battle" may have consisted of firing off 
one volley of arrows (v.20), one could actually say that the doing 
battle finished before the falling started, and then all fell before 
the first one died, but I won't insist on that interpretation! ;-)

I wonder whether (given the disjunctive accent on "wayyamot") the 
subject of "wayyamot" is in fact "some of the servants", and "gam 
'uriyyah" is a sort of afterthought (more technically, a right 
detached or right dislocated element). So perhaps translate "some of 
David's servants fell and died - Uriah the Hittite as well."

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Perfectivity of wayyiqtols
Author:  <manstey AT portal.ca> at Internet 
Date:    18/10/1999 15:46


Gday,

In searching for answers for my own question, I have found a very good 
example of interrupted wayyiqtols (with no verbs of motion). 2 Sam 11.17 
has:

     wayyillachamu          'et-yo'ab     wayyapol     min-ha`am ...
     and they battled      Joab          and they fell     some of the people 
     wayamot      gam      'uriyyah.
     and he died     also     Uriah.

It is quite impossible that there was a battle THEN some of the army died 
THEN Uriah died! Do you think these wayyiqtols are "functionally" 
imperfective? If not, what are they aspectually? and If so, how would the 
reader know not to link these sequentially, or to see them as perfective. 
Why isn't the Hebrew, wayhi behillachem wayyapol ...?

With regards,
Matthew Anstey


>Genesis 37.28 vayya`avru ... vayyimshxu
>and they passed by...and they pulled up (before 'passing by' was complete!) 
>ruth 1.6 vattashov no`omi
>and Naomi returned (but she didn't really return until verse 19) 
>
>these are fairly unambgious and helpful examples for the relative nature of 
>hebrew aspect as long as one first admits that vayyiqtol is perfective.
>
>braxot
>randall buth
>


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