Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan-buth <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

rolf katav
>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.

rolf, you already know enough to tear the above apart if you want to. 
Just how good a fit do you really think the above 'conspiracy theory' is? 
And it's close to a millenium out of sync.

yours,

Randall
(ps: 'grammars'/'competency' inside people produce speech/texts [e.g., MT,
whether in an oral medium or written medium] and writing up a metalanguage
'grammar' about that (living) 'grammar' is a secondary phenomenon. 
     It would be theorectically difficult to maintain that 'four
conjugations' were not part of the 'MT grammar' according to your
description above. 
i.e. according to the theory you outline above, it would be more correct to
say that the MT created the four conjugations not the later grammarians.
Those later grammar writers are not creating something if the four
categories were already part of the text.)