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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Narrative vs Poetry
  • Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:59:04 +0100


Dear list-members,

Do we find any language in the world, ancient or modern, where a tense form is a preterit in one kind of material and present /future in another (say prose and poetry)? If no such language exists or has existed, why should we think that this is the case in Classical Hebrew?

A grammaticalized verb form has the same meaning in any context, but its use can be different. In some modern poetic texts a verb can be used in a contrafactual way or in a very strange way, in order to cause some effect. But that does not change the meaning of the verb form.

One possible explanation why YIQTOLs are used with past reference in punctiliar (non-progressive) past situations is that the WAYYIQTOL is a YIQTOL+the conjunction WAW. This WAW is essential in narrative, but unnecessary in other contexts. This would mean that WAYYIQTOL and YIQTOL are semantically equivalent.

Anyone claiming that verb forms are semantically different in Hebrew poetry and prose should be ready to explain why YAQTUL(U) forms (morpologically equivalent to Hebrew YIQTOL) in the Ugaritic saga about Keret (Kirta) first are used with future reference (the story of what will happen is told), and then exactly the same forms are used with past reference (the story about what happened is told). There is no difference between poetry and prose here, the only difference is the temporal reference.

We should also keep in mind that Hebrew poetry is very different from English poetry; we simply cannot compare the two. An important problem in the text of the Tanakh is that so much of the text is narrative. And narrative is the worst possible place to find the meaning of verbs, because of the stereotypic nature of narrative-the narrative verbs must have past reference regardless of their semantic meaning. For example, can anyone think of a test by which we can know whether the narrative WAYYIQTOLs are preterits (grammaticalized past tense) or whether they only are used in narrative because of linguistic convention, and therefore have no tense meaning at all?

So I will turn the issue upside down and claim that it is in non-narrative texts (including poetry, which is such a great part of the Tanakh) that we find the normal use of Hebrew verbs.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
Univeersity of Oslo




Dear List,

I would like comments from the list regarding the wayyiqtol, yiqtol, etc. found
in the articles by Edward Cook http://ralphriver.blogspot.com/ which are found
below.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III

Toward a Theory of Hebrew Poetic Tenses



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