Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:27:35 +0100 "Read, James C"
<K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> The particle 'wa' has the basic meaning of 'and' and when affixed to 
> wayyiqtols has the effect of 
> indicating a sequence. But to say that 'wa' always means 'and' and a 
> 'wayyiqtol' always indicates 
> sequence is contrary both to the data and to mylinguistic instincts. 
> The data and my instincts 
> show that 'wa' is often better translated as 'but/when/while' 
> depending on the context. In the 
> same way that data also shows that wayyiqtols do not always indicate 
> sequence.
> Was sequence normal in spoken hebrew with wayyiqtols? We don't know! 
> But we can say with certainty
> that the corpus of the hebrew bible shows that this is the major 
> usage. But what it is imperative 
> to understand from an 'instictually linguistic' point of view is 
> that it is the *context* and not 
> the form which dictates this.
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The waw is not "affixed to wayyiqtols."  It is a prefix.

george
gfsomsel
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