Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

The past discussions on verbs and likely cognate words between Hebrew
and English such as "wine" had me thinking about verbal forms.

It seems to me that the different Hebrew verbal forms can be explained on
this basis (using the root AFD = vest as an example):
1) YIQTOL = simple future (ye'efod = he will wear the vest)
2) WAYYIQTOL - composite of WAY (English "Why?") and YIQTOL =
subjunctive (vayye'efod = and let him wear the vest)
3) WAYYIQTOL - composite of *WAYN and YIQTOL.  The same *WAYN root
developed in English to "When?" (*ay > e), whereas in Hebrew the N dropped,
*WAYNYIQTOL > WAYYIQTOL.  This "When?" is the component that gives
the general past tense of WAYYIQTOL (vayye'efod = and he wore the vest)

What do you all think?

Yitzhak Sapir