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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] wayyiqtol and weqatal

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  • From: Petr Tomasek <tomasek AT etf.cuni.cz>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <vadimcherny AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] wayyiqtol and weqatal
  • Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:02:11 +0100

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 08:17:44AM +0200, Vadim Cherny wrote:
> Dear Listmembers,
>
> I would like to ask for your help.
>
> Biblical Hebrew is not my day job, and I lack a degree in lexicology.
> Practically speaking, I cannot publish an article in scholarly press.
>
> It seems to me that I've stumbled over a coherent and simple
> explanation of Hebrew tense problem:
>
> wayyiqtol denotes deictic center shift: "And + Future Tense," "And he
> would say."

How would this explain that wayyiqtol is used in most cases
as the main form used in a narration?

> weqatal denotes very strong commands or predictions:
> "Exclamation + Past Tense," "Have it done!" This, too, is related to
> deictic center shift: the author treats the command as already done.
> Or, it can be highly assured predictions:
> u-bircaticha - I will have you blessed (past tense verb)
> weshavti - I will be settled [in the Temple]
> Possibly, weqatal is also employed in prophetic narrations with
> deictic center shift.

How would you explain for example w-pf used in conditional clauses
where BOTH, the protasis and the apodosis are are beginning with
this form?

> I could not find any examples to contradict the above hypothesis.
>
> The question arises, naturally, why did so many distinguished scholars
> miss that simple explanation? The answer, I submit, lies in linguistic
> mentality: deictic center shifts are uncommon in Romance and Germanic
> languages spoken by the majority of scholars. Strong commands using
> past tense are near-absent in those languages, too. Both constructs,
> however, are very common in Russian, which is my native language.
>
> Would you please review the hypothesis? Any help would be deeply
> appreciated.

Your hypothesis doesn't seem to me a plausible explanation of those
forms, actually I cannot find a single place in the Hebrew Bible where this
would explain the place better than other theories.

> Best regards,
> Vadim Cherny

--
Petr Tomasek <http://www.etf.cuni.cz/~tomasek>
Jabber: butrus AT jabbim.cz
SIP: butrus AT ekiga.net




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