Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Rolf,

I don't have time to look into details of your posting at present. 
Suffice it to say that I find Aramaic examples no more relevant than 
Chinese ones, and prefer not to base theories on "Late Biblical 
Hebrew" and poetic ones. I also note that you accept that you have not 
found semantic distinctions between Hebrew verb forms, and must rely 
on your view of the morphology, which conflicts with the view of 
experts in that area like Henry Churchyard.

Your wrote: "This can also account for the several hundred examples of 
YIQTOL with past meaning.... To find an iterative, frequentative, or 
habitual explanation for these YIQTOLs is often forced. I therefore 
find good reasons to say that all examples of the prefix-conjugation 
with and without WAW are imperfective, and all examples of the  
suffix-conjugation with and without WAW are perfective."

Let me respond to that: "... the several TENS OF THOUSANDS (?) of 
examples of WAYYIQTOL with past meaning.... To find an IMPERFECTIVE 
explanation for these WAYYIQTOLs is often forced. I therefore find 
good reasons to say that NOT all examples of the prefix-conjugation 
with WAW are imperfective..."

Peter Kirk