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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew grammar, (was Zech 6:8)
  • Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 08:31:48 -0000

Dear David,

Thank you for your posts where you in detail explains your views.
Regarding your words below I have one question. In my dissertation I discuss the view that WAYYIQTOL has evolved from an old short preterit prefix form and that YIQTOL has evolved from a long prefix form. I discuss Akkadian, Ugaritic, Punic and Phoenician, Aramaic, and the Amarna letters, and the conclusion is that the short forms in these languages can be used for past, present, and future, and that there is no evidence for a link between the short forms in these languages and classical Hebrew. I also compare the occurrences of YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL in Samuel and Kings versus Chronicles and other books of the Tanakh, and in the DSS and Ben Sira, and the conclusion is that there is absolutely no evidence that YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL come from different forms. When you say that such a conclusion "flies in the face of the diachronic evidence" I am curious. Where is this evidence? What have I missed?

I appreciate if you give a short outline of this evidence, rather than just referring to the literature. I think I have read most of the literature discussing this question (including Churchyard), and the only things I have found are conjectures and presuppositions but no clear evidence. But I am open for things I have overlooked.

Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


----- Original Message ----- From: "David Kummerow" <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 2:18 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew grammar, (was Zech 6:8)



Hi Herman,

Note, though, that Hatav's article contains errors and other doubtful
assertions (again, in my opinion, as in all things different people will
take different theoretical stances). Eg:

1. Pg 493,n.6 she builds her case on a corpus of Gen-2 Kings (which is
fine, we all must impose limits on our study), but then attributes this
to "the First Temple period" so that she might assume her synchronic
study. This is doubtful in the light of recent research, particuarly the
JSOTSS book edited by Ian Young.

2. Page 494, section 2, par 1 (also repeated on pg 497). Her assertion
that the yiqtol in wayyiqtol is the same, synchronically, as yiqtol -
even if diachronically unrelated - is simply not true. This, I think, is
her biggest error, and leads her on to propose what she does about the
clitic -ay- in that it is the verbal complement of the definite article
(Testen also argues for this in his monograph (but differently) which is
surprisingly unreferenced by Hatav). All this is built on the
presumption that the yiqtol in wayyiqtol corresponds to yiqtol and thus
needs the marker of definiteness to allow it to function in predications
which are past perfective etc. Such a view which flies in the face of
the diachronic evidence needs to be carefully explained diachronically
(and, even more helpfully, typologically) in that a) how the two
diachronically divergent forms came to be related in the one they have;
and b) how the divergent diachronic semantics came to be resolved in the
preference for (long) yiqtol (a question related to a). These are
questions unanswered by Hatav, but in my view need to be for the view to
become "the default way of looking at BHebrew grammar" as you predict.

Regards,
David Kummerow.


Dear list members,
! שלום לכם
I don't know if I said there are no tenses in Hebrew;
I do largely agree with Galia Hatav (Journal of Linguistics, november
2004).
For example, C1 gemination in noun and verb anchor the noun or verb to
"this world" => definite noun or simple past verb (point in time) (I
guess you can call wayyiqtol a tense, then); whereas yiqtol or non-C1
geminated noun are yet "undefined". Galia and I came up with that
theory independently; therefore it must be true. All credits to her of
course, she really worked it out. Her article is very strongly
recommended.
That's all the fresh stuff I can offer.
Fifty years from now, it'll be the default way of looking at BHebrew
grammar. :)
I think it makes a lot of sense.
best regards,
Herman


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