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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses
  • Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:23:58 +0100


----- Original Message ----- From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
To: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 8:17 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses


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.


In his work "The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System" (1982), Leslie McFall presents the results of his study of how Hebrew verbs are translated by the Revised Standard Version. Regarding YIQTOL he has the following numbers (p. 187):

Past: 774
Present 3,376
Future: 5,451
Non-present Modal: 1,200
Past modal: 423
Imperative: 2,133
Jussive/Cohortative: 789
Non-verbal: 153.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




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