Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Randall Buth wrote,


>> how would you
>>counter the claim: "In the days of Ezra it was decided that the YIQTOL
>>forms with proclitic waw used in narrative texts, should have penultimate
>>stress, in order to help the listener discern the meaning when the text
>was
>>recited." Could such a claim be harmonized with your data? If not,why?
>
>I can't answer for Henry, and won't go into the historical development,
>just some simple synchronic stuff from EZRA times
>
>vavhahippux is not uniformly penultimate.
>and itts normal stress is still on the end:
>
>vayyixTOV.
>
>Only certain weak forms show the current shift:
>vayYAqom
>vayYElex
>
>but
>vayyaVO'
>vayyipPOL
>
>I conclude that 'Ezra' was NOT interested in regularizing an accentual
>pattern to change/help listeners.
>The "GreatSynagogue" boys just passed on what they received, broadly
>speaking,
>as did the later literary Hebrew writers, Greek translators, Aramaic
>translators, etc.
>
>Which means that the real language MORPHOLOGY  had different syntactic
>categories. The writing system (the graphic system, not the morphology)
>imperfectly recorded this, while remarkable in preserving glimpses of
>archaic forms.



Dear Randall and Henry,


My intention in my last post was not to suggest an alternative view to your
conclusion that the Masoretic accentuation of WAYYIQTOL goes back the an
Early Semitic accentuation of *YAQTUL, but my intention was rather to find
out whether an alternative view is possible. Randall's post tells me that I
need to give the outline of a plausible alternative. My points below can
also suggest that the WAYY-element of WAYYIQTOL is nothing but a simple
gemination.

We agree that the Masoretes pointed the text on the basis of its recitation
in the synagogue. There is evidence that shewa in Masoretic times could be
pronounced as any of the vowels, and that it normally was pronounced as an
"a"-sound similarly with patah.So how would the sounds the Masoretes heard
be translated into letters and points?

One suggestion could run like this (I use the verb BNH): If shewa and patah
were pronounced similarly,still they heard the penultimate accentuation.
The accentuated -YI- syllable would be open and it was preceded by a waw.
We would not expect a shewa after the waw, for if the syllable including
the waw was open, we would have expected a pretonic qamets. A patah
following the waw would require a closed syllable WAY-, so the yod would be
geminated. The vowel in the final closed syllable -BÆN would be short
because it was not stressed. On the basis of this reasoning, just one
factor - the stress - accounts both for the vowels and the stress.

There are, however, problems with this explanation that starts with the
stress, because of the pointing of several of the apocopated verbs. Look
for instance at the WEYIQTOL of RA) in Jeremiah  23:18 and 1 Samuel 24:16
and of of QWM in Job 22:28. All three have penultimate accentuation even
though they are preceded with a waw with shewa. We may also look at some
apocopated jussives, such as $YT in Psalm 18:12 and RA) in Exodus 5:21, 1
Chronicles 12:18 and 2 Chronicles 24:22. All have penultimate accentuation.
This could suggest that if the Masoretes started with the accentuation they
heard, several pointings were possible. I therefore think that an
explanation starting with the vowel patah is better.

If patah was pronounced differently than shewa, the start was easy. Patah
was used after the waw. This would require a closed syllable, which again
would lead to the gemination of the yod. And the open syllable with yod
would naturally have the stress in apocopated verbs. If patah and shewa was
pronounced similarly, the Masoretes had two choices. They were not
grammarians (they did not even know the three-radical nature of the roots),
so the motives behind their pointing was hardly grammatical. However, they
understood the text, and realized that most YIQTOLs with proclitic waw were
used in past narrative but some were used for the future or were modal, so
they choose patah for the first group and shewa for the second. Because the
Masoretes were not grammarians, we need not think that they, by using shewa
and patah as described, intended to create two different semantic groups or
conjugations. Their differentiation between shewa and patah could just have
been one of function (pragmatic) and not one of meaning (semantic).
However, later grammarians, who were influenced by Mishnaic Hebrew,
interpreted the pragmatic differentiation of the Masoretes in a semantic
way, and the four conjugations were born.

That the patah with following gemination in the WAYYIQTOLs need not be more
semantic than the shewa without gemination in the WEYIQTOLs, can be
illustrated by the article. When the article is pointed by patah,
gemination follows, but this is usually no gemination when the following
letter is X and H. Before XF and unaccented HF and (F, the article has
segol and there is no gemination. These differences are phonological and
not phonemic. However,there may be a pragmatic difference between the
article and the interrogative particle. Why is the article pointed with
patah, with gemination as a result, while the particle is pointed with
hateph-patah, without gemination? Which sound did the Masoretes hear when
the interrogative particle was read? The reason why they chose a composite
shewa may be the same as when they chose shewa for WEYIQTOLs, namely to
help the reader realize that the article and the interrogative particle
have different functions. We may also add that the interrogative particle
MH behaves exactly as the article, with following gemination. Two examples
of this particle before a verb in the third person, are Psalm 21:2 and
120:3. The yod is geminated in both examples because of the patah, and in
the first example there is penultimate accentuation because of the
apocopation. I do not think that anybody would argue that the apocopation
of the yod in these examples contain an extra semantic element - it simply
is a normal gemination. Why then should we argue that the gemination of
WAYYIQTOL  is different, and that the WAYY- contains an extra "mystic"
element?

I come to my last point which is very important. I know, Henry, that you
will not agree with the suggestion above that the difference between
WAYYIQTOL  and WEYIQTOL *could* have been invented by the Masoretes (On my
part this suggestion needs much more research). You will say that your
research gives a plausible explanation of the diachronic evolution from
Early Semitic *YAQTUL with penultimate accentuation to WAYYIQTOL, and that
you account for almost all the data in the Tanach. I agree with this; you
have done a great job, and your conclusions are plausible. But my question
is: Do you believe that your research excludes any other explanations, or
are alternative explanations possible? In other words, are there any *data*
which can be interpreted in just one way, which excludes the possibility
that the Masoretes invented the differentiation between WAYYIQTOL and
WEYIQTOL?





Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo