Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vadim Cherny <vadimcherny AT gmail.com>]

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

Vadim Cherny: This is just a linguistic convention. It is similar in  
Russian narrations. You just find it strange because it does not  
happen in your language.

Petr Tomasek: 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?

Vadim Cherny: What is odd about this one? In conditional clause, both  
parts are in future tense. I fail to see any oddity with that. In  
English, "If you do (present tense) this, then that will happen (FT)",  
but in Russian both parts in are in the future tense.

Randall Buth: the "Russian theory" doesn't explain open-ended pasts  
like Gn 29:2-10, where yashqu and ve-hishqu refer to past habituals.

Vadim Cherny: This is really fascinating, how linguistic mentality  
shapes perception. To me, who thinks in Russian, yashqu is future  
tense, plain and simple, approximated by English "For out of that well  
they would water the flocks."
Look at the deictic center shift: the narrator stays with Jacob. For  
him, the watering is a present affair and will continue into the future.
After the narrator shifted his deictic center, there is a stream of  
wayyiqtols in the next verse. Now all the events are future for him as  
he is immersed in them along with Jacob.