Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dr. Joel M. Hoffman" <joel AT exc.com>]

>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".

It's an intriguing suggestion, but it seems to me you have to account
for:

1.  YIQTOL for past-tense is not always preceded by VA-, but only VA-
    forces dagesh in the next letter.  For example, "AZ YASHIR MOSHE,"
    not "AZ YYASHIR...."  It seems to me your theory wrongly predicts
    that the form ought to be "AZ AYYASHIR," or "AZ HAYYSHIR," or
    something along those lines.

2.  MI- ("from") and SHE- ("that") also force dagesh, but they do not
    fit your pattern.

3.  While B+HA+dagesh ("in+the") yields BA+dagesh, V+HA+dagesh does
    not contract.  If the VAV prefix doesn't contract, why do we see a
    contraction in VAV before verbs?

4.  The VAYYIQTOL forms differ not only in the DAGESH in the first
    letter but (usually) also in stress.  Why?


-Joel M. Hoffman
 http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman