Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

I wrote:

> > But on the macrosyntactic level, a 
> vayyiqtol form, 
> > by virtue of its being the default, cannot signal the start of a 
> > narrative block. Consider the following example in English:

Dave replied:
> 
> But isn't this essentially saying the same thing as the first 
> prof?  If I 
> understand correctly, both you and s/he are saying that the 
> wayyiqtol MUST be 
> a "continuation" form and can't begin a "narrative block."  

No, look again at what I wrote. I did not say it cannot begin a
narrative block. I said it cannot *signal* the beginning of such a
block. My point is that if it is the default form (the standard form
used in simple past narrative), it cannot explicitly mark the beginning
of a segment. I went out of my way to observe that in both English and
Hebrew we can use such default forms at the beginning of a narrative,
but when we do so, it is usually to accomplish something other than
merely signaling the beginning of a new narrative.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics