Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Emerging consensus (and paedogogy) on "Waw Consecutive" PSS

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>
  • To: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>, "Randall Buth" <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Emerging consensus (and paedogogy) on "Waw Consecutive" PSS
  • Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:20:55 -0500

In October of 2003 this subject was up for discussion and consisted of a
thread contributed by Ken Penner, Peter Kirk and Dr. Athas. It may be
useful to check out the archive. I don't think George will mind if I copy
his contribution to that thread below. Of course debate about the waw
consecutive will continue.
*********************************************
George Athas 10-15-2003:

Two things to mention in this debate.

Firstly, the root HYH is often used as a macro-syntactic marker to give
structure to a narrative. It does not necessarily imply continuation, but
rather
is a recognised 'form' (in the technical sense of the word) for delineating
the
beginning of a unit (or sub-unit) within a narrative.

Secondly, the waw-consecutive form is not so much "continuation" as it is
"narrative momentum". The way I often teach it to students is to use two
analogies:


Waw Consecutive in Narrative Hebrew Narrative

1. Waw-Consecutive forms are like a green light. When you see them, the
narrative is moving along. When you encounter Perfect forms, you have a red
light; you're meant to stop and look around (usually behind you) and take in
the
'road conditions' of the narrative; it supplies you with extra info.

2. Verbs are like camera angles and movements in a movie. A Waw-consecutive
form
means the camera is moving along with the characters; the background is
unimportant. A Perfect form, however, sees the camera stationary, giving you
time to take in some of the background.


Most biblical books begin with a "red light" or a "stationary camera" -- ie,
not
a waw-consecutive -- allowing you to get your bearings in the narrative.
However, Joshua simply gets off to a flying start. There is no direct
"continuation", though in terms of canonical story, yes it does come after
the
Torah. However, the waw-consecutive at the start of Joshua is not a
deliberate
"continuation" of the Torah, but rather a narrative that has momentum right
from
the start. The vehicle is already moving, so to speak; there is no need to
start
the engine or even let it idle for a while. We simply hop onto a moving
narrative.


Best regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Lecturer of Biblical Languages
Southern Cross College
Sydney, Australia

Jack Kilmon
San Antonio, TX


--------------------------------------------------
From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 9:33 AM
To: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
Cc: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Emerging consensus (and paedogogy) on "Waw Consecutive" PSS

Dear Randall:

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 12:05 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>wrote:

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 9:23 PM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have never heard of the term T-A-M before, so can you explain it?

It is linguistic notation for "tense-aspect-mood" and often used in
comparative discussions where languages have divergent or blurred TAM
systems. It recognizes that languages often have forms and categories
in the verb system where tense-aspect-mood parameters cannot be easily
or neatly separated in the morphology. And it allows for neutral
discussion of systems where the parameters may be difficult to define,
or may differ with different theoretical assumptions/definitions.


What follows is my trying to understand what you wrote.

In other words, this is a tool used in linguistic analysis for comparative
linguistics, to see how verbal usage in different languages differ, and as a
tool to help with translation? How does this work when we limit the
discussion internal to Biblical Hebrew itself?


> As far as Judges 13:3, the waws indicate a continuation of the > narration,
> just as I indicated.


So you claim that extra words mean that the narration is continuing.
(And by narration you are including the quoted speech, here, which is
fine.)
My responses had assumed more than tautology in your response,
especially since one of the common 'explanations' ('first [and second]
year lies') is that the T-A-M system of Hebrew is continued by
induction with the sequential verb structures. Which is not how Hebrew
works. Not only does that 'inducted TAM' not fit the data, as
mentioned, but it doesn't explain why Hebrew would have two sequential
structures for a single process of induction. The two structures carry
different TAM. Perhaps we're agreed on this.

In trying to understand your response, I found the following site:

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/contents.htm

Tense—I think we agree that Biblical Hebrew verbal morphology does not
convey tense. At least that’s how I also understand the research mentioned
that led to Dr. Furuli’s dissertation.

Aspect—as I understand the above site’s explanation, is a subset of tense,
hence irrelevant to Biblical Hebrew.

Mood—?? I don’t understand the above site’s explanation. All I can say for
certain is that it does not appear to be the same as when I use the term
“mood”.

How does this relate to the question?

As I understand the original question, it was on how to explain the
waw-conversive. My response was that there is enough disagreement among
scholars and among members of this group that the only thing to say for
certain is that the waw indicates a continuation. In other words, I made a
statement that shows the limits to what we as a group agree on.

Karl W. Randolph.
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page