Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Moon,

Thanks for your post. I'm at loss to know how construct 
and absolute states are applicable to the relationship 
between time locative phrases bywm, br'$yt, etc and the 
clause which follows. (You'll note that not all bywm 
plus clause follow yhy -- or wyhy --: see Lev 7:35,6 
and Deut 4:15.)


>    the problem is not whether BYOM can be qualified by more
>    than one clauses. It is whether two clauses qualifying BYOM are 
> COORDINATED
>    clauses or SEQUENTIAL clauses.  For all the BYOM clause debate between 
> you
>    and Peter, I tend to agree with Peter, because for now I adopted
>    the grammar of Hatav and Niccacci. They do not analyize  WAYYIQTOL into
>    W + IQTOL, but consider WAYYIQTOL as a "tense" on its own. They consider
>    WAYYIQTOL basically sequential in the sense that it introduces a new 
> event
>    in the narrative relative to the current reference time. 
>
>(5) Now, I would like to put a conjecture as follows:
>    WAYYIQTOL  cannot be used when there is no reference time to refer to.
>    [Peter seems  to accept it, while you reject it.] If this hypothesis 
>    is right, in sentences of the form WAYHI + BYOM + QATAL/QOTEL/Inf +   
>    WAYYIQTOL, QATAL/QOTEL/Inf and WAYYIQTOL cannot be coordinated and 
>    thus cannot both qualify YOM, 
>    because QATAL/QOTEL/Inf is used to introduce the reference time, 
>    and WAYYIQTOL introduces a new event relative to the introduced
>    reference time.

I always have difficulty imagining things in the hypothetical without 
examples. How do you find the following examples?

Isa 30:26b
bywm xb$ yhwh 't-$br `mw
     wmxc mktw yrp'

Obadiah 11
bywm `md:k mngd 
bywm $bwt zrym xyl:w 
     wnkrym b'w $`r:w 
     w`l-yrw$lm ydw gwrl 
gm-'th k'xd mhm


Ian