Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Alviero Niccacci <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>]

Title: Re: WAW the conjunction

On  07/01/00 (WAW  the conjunction) Rolf Furuli wrote:

Dear list-members,

        Rolf Furuli has brought to our attention a very interesting text.
- Josh 18:4 contains a series of instructions by Joshua to the men chosen by the different tribes. The instructions start with an imperative and continue with a series of weyiqtol indicating the purpose, or the mission committed to them.
- In Josh 18:8 Joshua repeats some of the instructions directly to the men chosen using imperative forms--*lekû wehithallekû ba'arec wekitbû 'ôtah we$ûbû 'elay* "Go, travel all over the country, describe it, and come back to me". These correspond to the indirect orders conveyed with weyiqtol in 18:4--*weyaqumû wehithallekû ba'arec weyiktebû 'ôtah lepî naxalatam weyabo'û 'elay* "(Provide three men for each tribe...) in order that they may set out, travel all over the country, describe it according to their inheritance, and come back to me."

This correspondence between weyiqtol and imperative shows, among other things, that weyiqtol is jussive; actually it is used in place of an imperative when the instruction is conveyed in a direct way as an order (on the contrary, weqatal is not jussive but indicative; it conveys nonvolitve, simple future).

- In Josh 18:9 we read the execution of the orders above; it is narrated with wayyiqtol--*wayyelekû ha'ana$îm wayya`abrû ba'arec wayyiktebûhâ ... wayyabo'û 'el-yehô$ua`* ... "So the men went, passed up and down in the land and set down in a book a description of it ..., and then they came back to Joshua ..."

        Everything is in order, and each verbform plays its usual function.

        For R. Furuli the Waw is simple conjunction. The reason is not clear to me. It seems that in some cases the verbforms *connected* (in his opinion) with Waw do not represent different *events*. Here are excerpts of his post:

> The first WEYIQTOL (§LX) of v 4
> illustrates the importance of WAW. This is
> the first WEYIQTOL in a chain, and as a conjunction it is
> therefore
> superfluous (there are some examples of WAWs where the conjunctive
> force
> even is used first in a clause; the meaning in such cases is
> "so"). It may
> be used to signal that the verb is not modal. I see only two
> different
> "events" expressed by the five WEYIQTOLs,i.e. two different
> RTs (reference
> time): (1) "send","rise","go", and
> "write" ("Map"), and (2) "enter". It
> is
> impossible to say that first Joshua would send them, then they should
> rise,
> then they should go (throughout the land),and then they should map
> it, and
> then they should enter the place where
> Joshua was.

        < ... >

But what are the WAWs doing? In all three instances the events are the
same, and it is very difficult, at least in my mind, to take them in all
instances as anything but conjunctions. The reason why the five WAWs of the
five   WEYIQTOLs do not represent five events but just two,the reason why
three IMPERATIVEs  connected with waw represent one event, and the reason
why seven WAYYIQTOLs represent three events and not seven, is the same,
namely lexicon. Because of the meaning of the verbs we can see that each
WAW  does not signal a new RT (reference time),i.e. something occurring
after another event in a chain. There is of course a difference between
"going throughout" and "mapping", but still the verbs signal one event (if
we by event mean something with a new RT).
One may call some of these "hendiadys", something I will not do, but
regardless of what they are called, they are expressed by WAYYIQTOLs and
WEYIQTOLs, and these forms can express actions and states that occur
simultaneously.

        I think that these Waw's are part of the verbforms not simple conjunctions. Waw is nowhere superfluous. Each verbform (with Waw!) plays its expected function. BTW weyiqtol IS a verbform of its own--not a combination of copulative Waw+yiqtol. It is a verbform in its own merit, although it is not usually recognized as such, because it has a distinctive morphology and a distinctive function. These two elements give a certain item the status of an independent verbform in BH verb system.

        Similarly weqatal is an independent verbform because it has a distinctive morphology --is is not the result of copulative Waw+qatal. Actually in my opinion the so-called copulative weqatal--in the weqatálti form as opposed to weqataltí, see Joüon-Muraoka #119z--is not existent in BH. Usually, even the difficult cases can be explained with the usual functions of weqatal, which are two--first, to indicate simple, indicative future in direct speech, and, second, habit or description in narrative. These two functions are also recognized by traditional grammars.

        Besides, if the Waw is a simple conjunction, and its vocalization (e.g. WAY- or WE-YIQTOL) does not depend on the verbform--in other words, if e.g. wayyiqtol and weyiqtol are not distinct because they are different verbforms but only by chance, how can we decide when they refer to the past or to the future? If there are no criteria, the analysis is only personal interpretation and we are at loss. Each one is allowed to decide as he wishes.

        IMO the fact that a verbform indicates or not a separate event, is basically irrelevant. As I already observed in a previous post, the actual course of the events remains outside the text. The verbforms do not indicate primarily how the events happened but rather how the author/writer organized his information; in other words, the text represents the way the author/writer told his story, not necessarily how the story actually happened. H. Weinrich is very clear on this point. _Tempus_/tense is distinct from _Zeit_/time. The *ordo rerum* or actual course of events may or may not coincide with the way the author/writer tells the story for his own purpose, or his strategy of communication. Normally, however, we can recover the actual course of events from the text by interpretation.

        As a consequence, it is not appropriate IMO to argue as follows: e.g., a certain event happened before the other one, THEREFORE the wayyiqtol needs to be translated with a pluperfect, or it happened after, THEREFORE the verbform must be translated with the future.

        In the case of Josh 18, the chain of selsame verbforms--weyiqtol, imperative, or wayyiqtol--conveys a series of pieces of information that are given on the mainline of communication in different genres (direct speech or historical narrative). Each piece of information stands on the same line with the others. They are usually successive one to the other, but they can also be explaining or conclusive. Successive, explaining, conclusive, etc. are semantic specifications of the basic function that is mainline (as opposed to background, used for comment, circumstance, specification, and the like).

> We also find in these verses an example
> of a common procedure in Hebrew
> that seemingly few persons have noticed, namely that when we have one
> or
> more WEYIQTOLs in a context, and we, because of the same time
> reference and
> consecution would expect another WEYIQTOL, we find a YIQTOL. The
> reason is
> that there is a word before the YIQTOL, and the WE  is attached
> to this
> word. We find one example in the YIQTOL §LK in v 8. This is
> unproblematic,
> as far as the number of verbal conjugations are concerned, because
> all
> would say that WEYIQTOL  and YIQTOL  belong to the same
> conjugation.

        What R. Furuli calls "a common procedure in Hebrew that seemingly few persons have noted" is indeed worth consideration. I  would only remark that in the case cited (Josh. 18:8) the yiqtol--actually x-yiqtol--does not follow a weyiqtol but rather a series of imperatives. However, x-yiqtol is indeed used in BH after weyiqtol in order to communicate background information. As weyiqtol is a volitive verbform, that x-yiqtol is also volitive. See e.g. Exod 25:2-3: "Command [IMPERATIVE] the Israelites to take [WEYIQTOL, volitive] an offering for me: IT IS from anyone who is moved by his heart to give THAT you shall take [X-YIQTOL, also volitive, for specification of from whom one has to take] my offering."

        A similar x-yiqtol construction is also well attested to convey background information to weqatal--both nonvolitive, indicative verbforms. See e.g. Exod 26:4 "And you shall make [WEQATAL, mainline in direct speech] loops of blue on the edge of the outmost curtain in the first set; and likewise you shall make [WAW-x-YIQTOL, background, stressing KEN = likewise] loops on the edge of the outmost curtain in the second set."

        It is most noteworthy that in the parallel passage that narrates the execution of the instruction in Exod 26:4, wayyiqtol corresponds to weqatal (both are mainline in historical narrative and in direct speech, respectively), and x-qatal corresponds to x-yiqtol (both are background in historical narrative and in direct speech, respectively)--Exod 36:11 "And he made [WAYYIQTOL] loops of blue on the edge of the outmost curtain of the first set; likewise he made [X-QATAL] them on the edge of the outmost curtain of the second set."

> However, this "common
> procedure" is also used in many cases, where we in a
> context with WAYYIQTOLs, because of the same time reference and
> consecution, would expect another WAYYIQTOL we find a YIQTOL. And
> exactly
> the same is true when we expect a WEQATAL we find a QATAL. When I
> finish my
> work, I will publish complete lists of the mentioned examples, and if
> we
> did not have any other arguments, these lists alone would represent
> strong
> arguments for the view that WAW is never anything but a conjunction,
> and
> that there is no semantic difference between YIQTOL  and
> WAYYIQTOL  and
> between WEQATAL and QATAL.

        < ... >

        One would need to see clear examples of yiqtol supposedly attested "where we ... would expect another wayyiqtol", as well as of qatal where we would expect weqatal. Indeed a tense transition wayyiqtol -> x-yiqtol (or -> weqatal) is attested; however, x-yiqtol / weqatal do NOT play the function of wayyiqtol, instead they convey background information such explaining a custom, or describing something. Wayyiqtol corresponds to the simple past tense while x-yiqtol / weqatal correspond to the imperfect (I mean the imperfect of the classical and Neo-Latin languages).

        Similarly with weqatal and qatal. In direct speech weqatal indicates simple future, while qatal simple past. In historical narrative both weqatal and qatal (actually x-qatal, because first-place qatal does not usually occur in historical narrative) are background verbforms but the first indicates custom, repetition or description, while the second indicates a unique circumstance, or the like.

Sorry for the long post. Peace and all good.

Alviero Niccacci

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