Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Dave and George,

The two quotes below illustrate the real issue: The WAY-element in 
WAYYIQTOL, is it only the conjunction WAW, which is pointed according 
to the masoretic rules, or is it an element which signals that the 
verb to which it is attached has another meaning than the same verb 
without the WAY-element?  In other words, is the WAY-element a 
grammatical element, thus signaling semantic meaning, or is it a 
syntactical element, thus being pragmatic and taking its meaning from 
the context?

Scholars have different viewpoints regarding the answer. In order to 
give a well reasoned and thorough answer to this question, one needs 
to study the Hebrew verbs on the basis of a systematic 
differentiation between semantic meaning (meaning that is an 
intrinsic part of the verb form itself) and conversational pragmatic 
implicature (meaning that is derived from the context).

The following question illustrates the issue: The fact that 93.1% of 
the WAYYIQTOLs  have past reference, does it show that WAYYIQTOL is a 
past tense, i. e., that the form itself has an intrinsic past tense? 
Or does the past reference come from the fact that most WAYYIQTOLs 
occur in narratives, and narrative by definition has past tense, so 
the past reference is derived from the context?

During the past 150 years I am aware of no other study than my own 
doctoral dissertation that has made a systematic distinction between 
semantic and pragmatic factors in the verbal system of Classical 
study. Moreover, in this study all the finite and infinite verbs in 
the Tanakh were studied.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



> On 14 Aug 2010 at 14:32, George Athas wrote:
>
> >  Karl, I agree. However, your statement amounts to the equivalent of
> >  'these forms start with a waw conjunction'. I'd like to go a step
> >  further and analyse the significance and nature of such
> >  conjunction.
>
> By a process of elimination, I concluded it's not a conjunction at 
> all, but a grammatical
> formative that happens to resemble the conjunction in its 
> consonantal form, much like the
> he-interrogative consonantally resembles the definite article. 
>
> Dave Washburn
>
> http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
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