Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Randall,

I understand what you say regarding sequential 
tense, and I agree that the WAYYIQTOL form itself 
does not carry forward either time/or aspect/or 
mood of a previous verb.

What I did not understand, and still not do 
understand, are the words "continued by induction 
with." But in any case, you have explained what 
you meant by your post as a whole.


> shalom Rolf
> katavta
> > I simply do not understand what you are saying.
> What in the world does it mean that "the T-A-M system of Hebrew is
> continued by induction with the sequential verb structures"? And
> further: "this is not the way Hebrew works"?>
>
> It was clarifying that some people claim that a sequential tense in
> Hebrew carries forward either the time/or aspect/or mood/ of a
> previous verb.
> But people who might claim that are fundamentally wrong.
> e.g.
> ha-melex halax wayyax et ha-oyyeb.
> 'the king went and hit the enemy.'
> I would claim that wayyax carries its own TAM (perfective/past) and does
> not 'induct' its tense/aspect from halax.
> In speech a person could say:
> ha-melex yatsa we-hikka et ha-oyyeb
> 'the king has gone forth and will hit the enemy'.
> we-hikka does not 'induct' its tense/aspect from yatsa.
>
> Now ironically, you agree with me that there is no 'induction' of tense
> or aspect from a previous verb,
> but that is because you don't accept that there are sequential 'tenses'
> in BH.
> (Though if I remember, you do consider that the MT has
> sequential 'tenses' as an innovation to the language. We will just
> have to differ on that.

I do not think that the masoretes invented 
anything new, as far as grammar is concerned. 
They did not know Hebrew grammar, and could not 
tamper with something they did not know. The 
masoretes invented accent marks and vowel points. 
But this was based on the recitation of the text 
in the synagogue. They would not dream of 
inventing anything new, but they carefully 
pointed and vocalized the text according to the 
recitation they heard.

When a verb had an attached WAW at the beginning, 
sometimes they uesed WE- and sometimes WAY-. 
There is no semantic distinction between verbs 
with attached WAW  either in the Dead Sea Scrolls 
or in Origen's Hexapla. And I see absolutely no 
reason to give the WE- and WAY-elements any 
semantic meaning. The difference between them is 
a function of the resitation and stress, and the 
rules regarding open and closed syllables. 
However, in the writings of David Kimhi (12th and 
13th century C.E.) the WE- and WAY-elements are 
given semantic meaning, to the effect that Hebrew 
is bportrayes as  having 4 verb conjugations and 
not just two.

It therefore seems that after the masoretes when 
Hebrew grammar was developed (between the 
masoretes and Kimhi), the grammarians, who were 
influenced by the grammar of Arabic, 
Mishina-Hebrew, and the European languages spoken 
where they lived, ascribed semantic meaning to 
the WE- and WAY-elements, while these elements by 
the masoretes were pragmatic attempts to convey 
the resitation in the synagogue in writing.

Thus, the masoretes did not invent anything new, 
but because of the misunderstanding of the 
meaning of masoretic vocalization and pointing by 
later grammarians, the four-component model of 
Hebrew verbs was born.


>  I feel comfortably in the main stream of the
> Hebrew language using community for the past 2000 years as
> evidenced by the LXX and targumim.)
> And as a scholar you would probably agree
> that most Semitists view the yaqom//yehi//yashlex ȗÌÝȔÈÝȘÏÍ forms
> of the verb as a remnant of a different aspect/tense than the parallel
> forms yaqum//yihye//yashix ȗÂÌÝȔȔÝȘÏÈÍ, though you may or may
> not agree with such a group of Semitists.

Correct.

> braxot
> Randall Buth
>
>
>
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth AT gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo