Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

zellmer:
>This seems ad hoc to me.  Hence, I rephrase my
>question: what objective markers are there in BH to show that events are
>sequential or non-sequential?

comparison with old aramaic and persian period aramaic may help. 
when word order constraints similar to BH broke down in imperial aramaic
there was a corresponding dramatic increase in previously rare adverbs used
in the 
narratives, like edayin 'then', bedayin 'then', aHar 'afterwards', qravta
'next'. interestingly, when western aramaic lost its imperial domination
and reverted to more prototypical northwest semitic word order
patterns--you guessed it-- those adverbs dropped out of use. 

so yes, i would say that the almost total lack of any use of adverbials to
control narration points strongly in the direction of something already in
place in the BH language. and just a brief peek leads straight to good old
vayyiqtol. 

ysge shlamxon
randall buth