Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

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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