Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Galia,

The WAYYIQTOLs with Cohortative ending occurs in the following books (I
list the *possible* occurrences in parantheses, and then the percentage of
the possible occurrences):

Genesis: 2 (42) - 4,7%
Numbers: 1 (3) - 33,3%
Joshua: 1 (14) - 7,1%
Judges: 4 (11)  - 36%
Samuel: 6 (25)  -24%
Ezekiel: 3 (54) - 5,5%
Psalms: 7 (13) -53,8%
Job: 4 (12) - 33,3%
Eccl: 1 (1)     100%
Daniel: 9 (19) - 47,3%
Ezra: 16 (18) - 88,8%
Neh: 28  (55) - 50,9%


53 (64,6%) of the examples occur in Daniel, Ezra and Nehemja. Because of
the spread of the remaining 29 (35,4%), we cannot conclude that the
phenomenon of WAYYIQTOL plus Cohortative is a late phenomenon. A fact
speaking in the same direction, is that 93 (22%) of the possible ocurrences
consists of the verb )MR- a verb whose WAYYIQTOL only takes Cohortative in
Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemja (17) with the only other example in Judges 6:10.
Another fact speaking against the phenomenon as late, is that although
Chronicles has 7 possibilities, WAYYIQTOL with Cohortative does not occur
there. Neither of the 16 possibilities in the books of Kings take
Cohortative.

As a matter of fact, many YIQTOLs with modal meaning neither are apocopated
nor take Cohortative, but many of them do. This shows that it was not
extremely important to mark modality morphologically, but it could be a
matter of taste, though in some instances it was necessary to convey the
right meaning. And similarly with imperatives: some of them take
cohortative but most don´t. For those who want to penetrate this subject,
two important questions are: Why does the WAYYIQTOL of $M( in Dan 8:13 take
Cohortative but not the same verb in 8:16? And further,why does )MR in Neh
1:5; 2:3,5,7,17 not take cohortative while the same verb in 5:7,8; 6:11;
13:9,11,17,19(2),21,22 take it?

Because almost 20% of the examples of WAYYIQTOLs that can take Cohortative,
take it, and a much higher percentage of WAYYIQTOLs that can be apocopated,
are apocopated, I do not exclude the possibility that the WAYYIQTOLs simply
*are* modal. This possibility should at least be thoroughly studied,
because the Germanic way of viewing things is not the only viable
linguistic model.


Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo








>Dear Rolf,
>
>How many of those WAYYIQTOLS woth cohortative are from the books attributed
>to the First Temple?  This is a crucial detail since one of the arguments
>that the aspect system in the Second Temple had collapsed is that WAYYIQTOL
>may come with cohortative.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Galia
>
>>Dear Henry,
>>
>>In my post of Feb. 20th. I made some comments regarding WAYYIQTOL with
>>cohortative. My data search did not give wholly correct numbers, but now I
>>have looked at each example and give the following revised numbers:
>>
>>WAYYIQTOLs with cohortative ending in all books: 661
>>
>>The following verbs cannot take cohortative,
>>      lamed he verbs: 44
>>      verbs with suffixes: 52
>>The following must also be excluded from possible examples,
>>      apocopated forms of WAYYIQTOLs 1 person: 68
>>      WEYIQTOLs wrongly counted as WAYYIQTOLs:76
>>
>>This means that (44+52+68+76) = 240 examples must be substracted from the
>>number of 661. The result is that 421 of the WAYYIQTOLs of the Tanach *can*
>>take cohortative. I found that 82 of these had cohortative ending, and this
>>means that 19.5% of the possible examples of WAYYIQTOL have cohortative
>>ending.
>>
>>Of the 68 apocopated forms, 54 were lamed he verbs, and this means that 55%
>>of the lamed he verbs that *can* be apocopated are apocopated.