Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

Message text written by "Greg Doudna"
> Why not apply your analysis to the qal, piel, etc. as the conjugations,
>which have differences of the kind you mean. But if you
>consider yqtl and qtl, prefix- and suffix-form, 

First of all, the binyanim are not 'conjugations' in the sense freely
matching a word to a context by marking some kind of category. Instead, t
he
binyanim  build new vocabulary. (not counting pual and huf`al, which are
passive matchings to pi`el and hif`il). Think about what doesn't happen in
English, we don't conjugate "-ate" words, or prefixing verbs: Just like
"xerox-ate" and "vocabular-ize" and "be-duce", "ex-duce", "re-duce" (if
meaning 'do it again' or 'return to a location') and all sorts of other
non-English words don't happen in English, unless people accept them and
start to use them.

>Why would it be impossible 
>in principle to interpret the difference in function between Hebrew 
>yqtl and qtl (referring to the system as it is working in BH and QH, not 
>historical origins of these forms) as of no inherent difference in
>meaning other than S-V or V-S variation in English (or otherwise 
>in Hebrew), apart from minor nuances of emphasis and so forth. 

Because Hebrew uses yiqtol and qatal to orient the the communication
to the referential world, including time, aspect and mood.
To what can this be compared? to light: when you need a particle it behaves
as
a particle, when you need a wave it behaves as a wave. So it is with the
Hebrew
verb. When you need time reference it is there to give time reference. When
you
need aspectual reference it is there. When you need mood, it is there. 
When it doesn't matter (like in some conditional or proverbial material) it
doesn't matter. 
The problem is that a dichotomy for the whole referential world 
by definition must be imprecise. 

>As an analogy, imagine a language in which nouns have possessive 
>pronominal suffixes and possessive pronominal prefixes which
>have the same meaning and can be used as free variants.<

Languages have organizing principles that lead to certain patterns. E.g.
verb initial languages 
have ajectives following nouns. The patterns may be overturned through
historical changes (e.g. Akkadian) but they provoke interesting questions
nevertheless. Possessive affixes, in principle, would NOT be expected to be
free variants. If you run accross "sou o logos", "o sou logos" and "o logos
sou" you will want to know why. They are not free variants, though their
percentages may change over time or may sometimes simply be stilted in
style.

Blessings,
Randall Buth