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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Basic observations on WAYYIQTOL

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Basic observations on WAYYIQTOL
  • Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 01:22:12 +0100

On 19/08/2005 01:08, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:

...

I think you are applying too much logic here. If we read this as participle,
it would indeed imply that Abraham was already running. However, if we
for a moment suppose a "comic strip scenario," ...


Fair enough. I don't want to be over-analytical.

But I realised another reason why I would take this as QATAL rather than a participle: in participial clauses the participle is generally preceded by an explicit subject, as in v.1, whereas here the subject follows the ambiguous form. But I am not sure off hand how general this rule is.


One concordance of mine lists this along with 1 Sam 20:36 as instances of
QATAL RaC. But both here and I think also in 1 Sam 20:36 a participle
meaning is acceptable. This would leave no instances of QATAL RaC.
Perhaps there weren't any such instances in Biblical Hebrew usage. I don't
think we have a large enough data set to tell. But I think the presence of
7 participle RaC against 2 cases of "maybe participle maybe qatal" RaC
seem to suggest that the reading in those two cases is participle as well.


Well, there is an unambiguous 2nd person QATAL of this verb at Jer 12:5. And your statistics are certainly not high enough to be at all significant, especially for a verb like this which might be more commonly imperfective than perfective for real world reasons.

[now continuing from your earlier message]

The interesting point, however, is that this QATAL is not apparently a past perfect preceding the previous WAYYIQTOL, as presumably Abraham told Sarah what to do before running off.

Rubinstein wouldn't necessitate that QATAL is past perfect in such a case.
In some cases Rubinstein holds that QATAL is used simply for past since
WAYYIQTOL is prevented due to the Biblical author wanting to emphasize
something in the verse. In this case it seems clear that the Biblical author
wanted to emphasize the cattle, as the cattle comes first and we would
normally expect either WaYYaRaC Abraham or W:Abraham RaC. ...


Agreed. In fact I would suggest a contrastive focus on the cattle, contrasted with the flour and bread which were Sarah's concern. Contrastive focus in narrative is commonly marked by a fronted element before a QATAL verb. And this probable analysis seems to me another reason to prefer to understand the verb as QATAL.


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



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