Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

No, Dave, you did not use these terms. Rodney wrote "to start a new 
story, to pick up after some digression in a story", which suggests to 
me he was thinking of major breaks. You seem to agree with me, against 
Rodney's suggestion, that these are not signalled by WAYYIQTOL.

However, in your translation you used full stops (periods), which 
suggests that you had in mind significant breaks. You may not wish to 
describe these breaks as "major", perhaps you are right. But my point 
is that WAYYIQTOL does not express a break of any sort but rather a 
continuation, and so your translation with full stops is misleading. 
Also you wrote "does this story provide a full acount of usage of the 
wayyiqtol?  Hardly." I agree with you, but in the context you did seem 
to be suggesting support for Rodney's point by hinting at another use 
of WAYYIQTOL in accordance with his suggestion. It is now clear that 
you do not support Rodney's point. Thank you for the clarification.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: More ?'s about verbs
Author:  <dwashbur AT nyx.net> at Internet
Date:    17/01/2000 07:05


Peter,
> I agree that this example is one of many difficult to interpret on a
> strictly sequential view of WAYYIQTOL, and so I no longer hold to that 
> view. My point here was that it is simply wrong to think of each
> WAYYIQTOL as in some way a new beginning. Your suggested translation, 
> while not wrong in point of fact, is at the level of a 3-year-old's
> picture book. No, Hebrew used other devices, not the ubiquitous (in
> narrative) WAYYIQTOL, to start new stories or new sections of stories, 
> or to pick up after digressions.
>
> Of course I don't claim that this verse exhausts the possibilities for 
> WAYYIQTOL. But can you show me cases where WAYYIQTOL alone signifies a 
> major break? I doubt it, because it can and very often does (as here) 
> signify no break at all, and so there would be no way to distinguish a 
> major break from no break at all.

Do me a favor and show me where I used expressions like "new 
beginning" and "major break"?  I've explained before that this is not 
what I mean by "syntactic break" and in fact I claim no such thing. 
Major breaks and new beginnings, while often begun with
wayyiqtol, are signaled by context, not grammatical forms.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; 
give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.
                                   Psalm 86:11