Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <brocine AT earthlink.net>]

Dear Rolf, thank you for taking time out of your busy
schedule to keep us posted as to your research.  In the
past, I studied some four to five hundred weyiqtols in the
"prose-only" books, including the corpus to which many
linguists who study BH limit themselves.  The corpus I used
is basically Gen through Ki (so popular among linguists),
plus I included Chron.  I realize that my corpus for study
is more restricted than yours.  I found the weyiqtols in
this more restricted corpus to be approximately 98% modal.
Assuming for the moment that both your categorization and my
categorization of the weyiqtols are correct and similar, can
you explain the different percentage of modal weyiqtols
found in my slightly more restricted corpus vs. your
all-inclusive corpus?  Would you surmise that the difference
may be the effect of linguistic convention that prevails in
my corpus rather than the grammatical meaning of the form
itself?  I am inclined to believe that my 98% figure is
indeed the result of linguistic conventions that are at work
in my chosen corpus because, while I have not performed a
dedicated examination of the forms in other books, simply my
day-to-day reading has suggested to me that weyiqtols are
*not* 98% of the time modal.

Now let's not assume that our two categorizations of the
weyiqtols as modal or indicative are the same.  Might you be
able to break out your statistics for Gen-Ki plus Chron
minus any short poetic sections (such as Exo 15, Jdg 5,
etc.) to compare with my finding of 98% modal?

Shalom,
Bryan

> Dear list-members,
>
>
> A short time ago there was a discussion about WEYIQTOL,
whether or not it
> is a fifth conjugation, expressing modality. I have
finished my study and
> mapping of all the examples of the MT, save about 100
which are listed by
> Accordance as WAYYIQTOLs, to which I will return. Perhaps
some of you would
> be interested to hear the some of the results.
>
> There is no significant difference in the occurrences of
the form, which
> can be related to the age of the books,or to a change in
the meaning of the
> verbal system through time. Of the 1217 examples, I
interpreted 434 (35,6%)
> as indicative and 783 (64,3%) as modal (including
volition,finality,
> purpose etc

<snip>


B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
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