Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Rolf,

There is consistency: qatal occurs with "yesterday" and never with 
"tomorrow" and yiqtol occurs with "tomorrow" and never with "yesterday". 
The uses of these verbs are entirely consistent and predictable if the 
language is tense-prominent. However, this is not the only feature of 
the language that is suggestive of tense. I repeated these features to 
Karl which I first spelt out to you so there's no need to again: 
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2007-March/031687.html.

BTW, the choice of conjugations need not be a choice between two or 
four: weqatal may not be a separate grammaticalised verb different from 
qatal as Cook and Garr argue. Thus three may be an option also (leaving 
aside jussive etc).

Regards,
David Kummerow.


> Dear David,
>
> I agree with Karl that the clauses that fit your criteria are too few to
> tell us much. Moreover, several different verb forms are used with the 
> adverbs.
>
> For example, in Genesis 30:33, Exodus 19:10, 1 Samuel 11:10 and 20:18  
> a QATAL with prefixed WAW (WEQATAL) is used with MXR. I take these  as 
> perfective, but you do not accept this. Then we are back to the 
> basics, we need to find out whether there are two or four conjugations 
> before the clauses with the mentioned adverbs can tell us anything. In 
> Exodus 5:8 a participle isused with TMWL and in 2 Samuel 15:20 an 
> infinitive is used. There is no consistency in the use of verbs.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo