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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect
  • Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:21:50 -0400


Vadim,

I would translate VAYIKRA of Lev. 1:1 as "Then he called". The verse contains no definite articles, and "Lord" is only fifth in line. It is also not clear to me where you got this alien "would".

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Mar 19, 2007, at 8:26 AM, Vadim Cherny wrote:


On 18/03/2007 16:55, Vadim Cherny wrote:
...
Regarding wayiqtols, would you agree that no evidence contradicts
understanding them as "and + future tense" with deictic center shifts?

Well, on this hypothesis it is difficult to explain the WAYYIQTOLs at
the beginning of the books WAYYIQRA' = Leviticus and WAYDABBER =
Numbers, and several others if I remember correctly, including Jonah and
Ruth which cannot plausibly be understood as continuations of other
books.

It is interesting how linguistic conventions affect perception of text. I
have always found it difficult to follow the English a/the articles.
In your example, however, as a Russian speaker, I find wayiqtol completely
natural.
Thus, in Lev1:1, "And the Lord would call unto Moses". The narrator took a
stylo, paused, immersed himself in the events, and started in the future
tense.

And then there certainly are cases where WAYYIQTOL is not
strictly sequential.

I didn't see them and would appreciate examples.
So I think you will find it hard to show that
WAYYIQTOL is always relative future. A more plausible suggestion would
be that the regular use of this form in narrative originated in cases
where there was a clearly defined prior deictic centre, and use of the
form was then generalised to include cases where the deictic centre has
not been clearly set up. In other words, WAYYIQTOL might have started as
a relative future tense, but later shifted to be a simple narrative
tense in fact used at least primarily in the past.

That's a reasonable suggestion, and I also advance it in the expanded
version of the hypothesis. But it critically depends on the discovery of
wayiqtols in documents which clearly lack the deictic center shifts, as the
commercial papyri.

But this does not explain apocopation

Apocopation is, in my opinion, a purely phonetic issue. When the accent
shifts onto the first syllable, the unaccented final vowel is lost.

Vadim Cherny

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