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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbs, text-segmenting and clause-types
  • Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:43:47 +0100

Dear Hayyim,

See my comments below.

----- Original Message ----- From: <Bearpecs AT aol.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2005 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbs, text-segmenting and clause-types



Could someone tell me whether (a) I just totally missed this part of the
discussion; (b) nobody has thought to bring these points into the discussion; or
(c) these data are discredited and no one pays attention to them anymore.

Dahood in the Anchor Bible Psalms (e.g. vol III, pp 420ff) cites numerous
examples of QATAL followed by YIQTOL in parallel passages and both referring to
the same timeframe (most often past, but sometimes present). He cites
qtl-yqtl parallels as common in Ugaritic poetry.

Dahood is absolutely correct. In Ugaritic, Akkadian and Phoenician we find exactly the same as in Hebrew: prefix-forms and suffix-forms very often have the same temporal reference. And do not forget the Aramaic of Daniel. My analysis of the verbs in this book gives the following numbers.

Of 178 YIQTOLs: 34 past, 27 present, 88 future, 1 present completed.
of 281 QATALs: 216 past, 11, present, 3 future, 44 present completed.
Of 161 active participles: 103 past, 48 present, 4 future, 2 present completed.

Dahood`s observations are played down and neglected because they do not fit the accepted theories. However, the theories are wrong rather than Dahood.
:

To me, this might seem to support the argument that the prefixed and
suffixed forms are not clearly distinguished semantically for either tense or
aspect; but on the other hand the fact that this appears to be a fixed pattern only
in poetry suggests the opposite: i.e. that only in this poetic convention
are they parallel and they do in fact carry semantic differences in general
usage.

There are strong reasons to conclude that the prefix-forms and suffix-forms are semanticallydifferent. The fact that they often have the same temporal reference does not suggest that they are not aspects, because both aspects can refer to past present and future. But the similarity in reference do show that they are not tenses. The view that a similarity of temporal reference between the forms only occur in poetic passages is a misunderstanding. Alvieri Niccacci, who strongly defends the view that word order is the deciding fator, will soon publish an article where he argues that the "semantic" meaning of verb forms is similar in prose and poetry.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


Hayyim Obadyah
, MPA
New York, New York 10027

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