Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

----- 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