Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

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

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • 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: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 01:11:46 +0100

On 20/08/2005 22:58, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:

On 8/19/05, Peter Kirk wrote:


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.


I wonder if there is a way to compare how many times the sequence
(AND) PREPOSITION OBJECT VERB SUBJECT is used with VERB in
QATAL vs VERB as participle in the Bible.


Well, this would need a well marked up text and better software than I have.

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.


In light of this, I would read such a QATAL as parallel to the previous
action since "contrastive focus" appears to me to be a form of parallelism. That is, by forming a textual unit from the text "Abraham said this to Sarah to do, and Abraham did this himself," the text appears to me to reference actions occuring simultaneously rather than in sequence.


I agree that this is a form of parallelism, but not that the semantic parallel is necessarily in the syntax. In this case there is a clear simultaneity between Sarah making bread and Abraham preparing the meat and dairy products. (It is interesting that he served them together, not exactly kosher!) And it is probably here that the contrastive focus, parallelism and simultaneity should be found, rather than in the strictly syntactic parallelism between the WAYYIQTOL "he said" and the QATAL, or participle, "he ran".

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



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.13/78 - Release Date: 19/08/2005





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page