Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Herman,

I accept your challenge below.

> What I would like you, well anyone I guess, to ask is: present us a
> better, simpler, more elegant theory than this, or better even, why
> don't you try to look at the BHebrew texts supposing the theory (as if
> you actually believe it yourself), only to give it up when you really
> find something that contradicts it.
> That would be an interesting experiment of thought.
> My opinion of science is, it has to provide the best and simplest
> hypotheses to explain certain phenomena, for the time being, until an
> even better one is given, so after testing that hypothesis, we may or
> may not accept it.
> There may never be actual *proof* for any theory concerning wayyiqtol.
> However, *ALL other theories* I have seen so far are either unlikely,
> need too many additional hypotheses, or are too far-fetched to be
> taken seriously.

Here is in my view a simpler and better theory:

The prefix forms of classical Hebrew (WAYYIQTOL, WEYIQTOL, and YIQTOL) have 
the same semantic meaning, and the suffix forms (QATAL and WEQATAL) have the 
same semantic meaning, representing the imperfective and perfective aspect 
respectively (though "aspect" with a different nature than English aspect). 
The WE- and WAY- of the so-called consecutive forms are the conjunction WAW, 
and the gemination and patah of the WAY- prefix are caused by phonetic rules 
and the stress position. The reason why WAYYIQTOL so often has past 
reference is that it so often is used in narrative, and a narrative verb per 
definition must have past reference (not necessarily past tense).


Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo