Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 13/03/2007 15:44, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> Dear Peter,
>
> Now we have reached the same point as we have so many times in the past, 
> when I see no purpose in commenting on your words. In many ways you work 
> like the Greek SPERMOLOGOS (this relates to your method and not to your 
> person). You search the Internet, find some statistics here and there and 
> use these statistics in your argumentation without ever having made a deep 
> study of the subject itself. ...

No, Rolf, I did not search the Internet for these statistics, I derived 
them myself from a text based on the Westminster Hebrew Morphology, 
using a software package.

> ... The result is a host of loose ends. Let me 
> state that clearly once more: In an unvocalised text of the Tanakh only two 
> conjugations can be morphologically distinguished, a prefix-conjugation and 
> a suffix-conjugation. There is absolutely no way, on the basis of 
> morphology, to know whether a seemingly apocopated prefix-form is what 
> modern grammarians call WAYYIQTOL or WEYIQTOL.
>
>   
And let me repeat that the facts prove you wrong. The fact is that an 
apocopated form of the 3rd person singular prefix conjugation of a 
lamed-he verb with prefixed vav is certainly a WAYYIQTOL rather than a 
non-jussive WEYIQTOL (that is to say, it was pointed by the Masoretes as 
WAYYIQTOL rather than WEYIQTOL) - at least to the degree of certainty 
indicated by only 8 counter-examples out of 1592.

I accept that the argument is not as strong with non-apocopated forms 
because of the general relative rarity of WEYIQTOL forms, although in 
fact apocopation of WAYYIQTOL is a stricter rule than non-apocopation of 
WEYIQTOL.

If you want to dispute the facts or how they have been arrived at, you 
are welcome to do so. But if you don't, I and other readers here will 
doubtless conclude that you cannot do so. And since we know that you 
have the raw data available, we have to assume that you cannot refute 
the facts only because my facts are correct.

Yes, "we have reached the same point as we have so many times in the 
past", where I have found an argument against your theories which you 
cannot answer, and so you simply try to dismiss me with ad hominem 
arguments like "You search the Internet, find some statistics here and 
there" and "without ever having made a deep study of the subject", also 
no doubt "SPERMOLOGOS" but I have no idea what you mean. I have come to 
recognise that you do this only and always when you find that an error 
in your arguments has been exposed, but you are not prepared to admit it.

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