Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Peter,


Of the lamed he group in the Tanakh the WAYYIQTOLs 98 (4.7 %) og the verbs 
that could
have been apocopated have long forms. For the Hiphil group the number is
133 (15.5 %), and for the hollow group the number is 185 (30.7 %). In the 
Samaritan Pentateuch 39 (14.7 %) lamed he verbs are not apocopated. The 
ratio apocopated/nonapocopated forms in the different books of the Tanakh 
varies much. Apocopation is connected with person and verb root. For 
example, of 1.p.s. WAYYIQTOLs that could have been apocopated, only 66.9 % 
are long, of 3.p.pl.m. 75 % are long, but of 3.p.m.s. only 1.3 % are 
apocopated. These factors suggest that there are pragmatic reasons behind 
apocopation rather than semantic ones

In the DSS (broken clauses not counted) I have counted 738 YQITOLs with
prefixed WAW. Of the lamed he verbs  33 (4.5 %) are apocopated. There are
also 28 hollow verbs and 8 Hiphils that are defectively written, and these
may or may not be apocopated (there is no consistency in plene and defective
writing). In the Tanakh 3, 919 WAYYIQTOLs (27 %) are apocopated and the same
is true with 102 (8 %) WEYIQTOLs.

Several scholars argue that the reason why many WAYYIQTOLs are apocopated is 
that the form is a development of an older short preterit. No such old 
preterit has been proven. The arguments for such a form in old Psalams are 
completely circular. The meaning of Ugaritic verbs is far from clear, and 
the more I study Ugaritic, the more I become convinced that there is no 
distinction between YAQTUL and YAQTULU, but there is just one prefix form. 
Moreover, Ugaritic has no YAQATTAL form, comparable to IPARRAS (in contrast 
with IPRUS) in Akkadian and YENAGGER (in contrast with YENGER ) in Ge´ez.

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo

From: "Peter Kirk" <peter AT qaya.org>
To: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)


> On 09/03/2007 23:11, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> > Dear Peter,
> >
> > Every Thursday and Friday I am fully occupied at the University. After
> > finishing my schedule I rceived your post, and I have to give a comment:
> > You are wrong, and Karl is right. The WEYIQTOL  and the WAYYIQTOL  cannot
> > be distinguished in unpointed texts, since both can be apocopated. If you
> > do not accept this, please give one single example of where they are
> > distinct.
> Rolf, unfortunately I don't have the Bible study tools to prove this, but
> I think you will find that the large majority of WAYYIQTOLs which can be
> apocopated are apocopated, whereas the majority of WEYIQTOLS which can be
> apocopated, except for those with jussive meaning, are NOT apocopated. But
> I accept that there are exceptions to this rule.
>
> If you, or anyone, has any statistics relevant to this, I would be
> interested to see them.
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
> Blog:    http://www.qaya.org/blog/
> Website: http://www.qaya.org/