Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 10/03/2007 08:31, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> 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
>
>   
I don't agree with your conclusion. First, let's concentrate on the 
lamed-he verbs, as the hiphil and hollow verbs are affected by the rule 
"there is no consistency in plene and defective writing" which applies 
to the Tanakh as well as DSS. And then I would want to limit the 
discussion to third person verbs, because it is well known that in the 
first person there is a tendency even in jussive (cohortative) forms to 
add an extra he, and this extra he cannot be distinguished (certainly in 
consonantal writing) from the final he of a non-apocopated form. Also, 
surely we need to look at 3rd person singular, because in the plural of 
lamed he verbs there is no possibility of apocopation.

So we are left with your statistic that of 3rd person singular WAYYIQTOL 
forms of lamed-he verbs, only 1.3% are not apocopated. This in itself is 
enough to distinguish WAYYIQTOL from the simple conjunction plus 
non-jussive YIQTOL, in the consonantal text, for it is well known that 
non-jussive YIQTOL is rarely apocopated.

Do you have a directly corresponding statistic for WEYIQTOL forms? I 
accept that there are a number of apocopated WEYIQTOLs which have 
jussive force, for example WIYHIY which is quite common as a jussive 
"and let there be" e.g. in Genesis 1:6. But what proportion of 
non-jussive WEYIQTOLs of lamed-he verbs, 3rd person singular, are 
apocopated? I suspect that it will be much less than the 98.7% for 
WAYYIQTOLs, a significant difference in the consonantal text which 
implies a pre-Masoretic distinction between narrative WAYYIQTOL and a 
simple conjunction plus non-jussive YIQTOL.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/