Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 21/09/2005 08:17, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> > Not "less than a thousand", but, to quote Rolf on 27th July this year:
> >
> > > the 1,027 examples of YIQTOL with past reference
> >
> > Also on 9th June 2004 he mentioned:
> >
> > > more than 2,000 YIQTOLs with present reference
>
> I don't have Tanakhic statistics at hand (some was at the end of 
> Even-Shoshan), but 3,000 verbs do not sound like a major number. That 
> is about 100 irregular verbs per book, a few per chapter. That is a 
> tiny percentage, indeed. Besides, I expect Rolf's figures to be vastly 
> inflated to reflect his exegetical needs.


3000 YIQTOLs is not a tiny percentage. From Rolf's figures, which can 
this far be verified from any morphological database, there are 13,619 
YIQTOLs in the entire Hebrew Bible. This figure excludes WAYYIQTOLs and 
probably WEYIQTOLs, but probably includes jussive and cohortative forms 
- although these forms are often apocopated which indicates to me that 
they were originally a distinct verb form. As he pointed out, this means 
that 7.5% of all YIQTOLs are past. In fact 26.9% are past, present or 
"Present completed", in other words clearly non-future. There is no way 
that you can claim that more than one quarter is "a tiny percentage".

I agree with you in having some concerns about Rolf's methods in 
categorising these YIQTOLs. Certainly a significant proportion of these 
cases are debatable. But if you want to seriously dispute this data, I 
suggest you go away and examine for yourself those 13,619 YIQTOLs, or at 
least the ones in a large narrative book like Genesis - I suggest a 
narrative book because in general temporal reference is clearer in 
narrative.

--
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: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.3/107 - Release Date: 20/09/2005