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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] tenses; frequency

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses; frequency
  • Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:39:37 +0100

On 10/08/2005 19:11, Vadim Cherny wrote:

...

In connection with the classical Hebrew verbs, a very important question

to study in order to find any bias is the syntactic role of the conjunction
WAW. Can the functions and nature of WAW alone explain the WAY- of
WAYYIQTOL or the WE- of WEQATAL.

Yes, they can! Yiqtol's prefixes already have schwa, and adding waw with
another schwa, according to the standard rule of two schwas at the
word-beginning, makes the first schwa hirek or, in this case, patah! Rolf,
you are inventing the problems out of thin air.


No, Vadim. YIQTOL's prefixes do not have sheva, they mostly have hiriq. And vav with sheva can be prefixed, indeed it prefixed in the WEYIQTOL form. But there is a distinct form WAYYIQTOL which has a patah, and a dagesh added to the initial consonant of the YIQTOL. There are two distinct forms which are both always clause initial, and it is impossible that the difference between them is caused by the phonological environment. In principle the distinction could be free variation, but it is usually safe to assume that two distinct forms like this must reflect an underlying semantic distinction.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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