Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <pzellmer AT sc.rr.com>]

Fred,

If you are seriously interested in finding the logic between the choice of 
grammatical forms, I suggest you look into a discourse analysis of the 
language.  Most of the work has been done using narratives, although I have 
heard of some work that was being done on the poetical passages.

About fifteen years (or was it more), listmember Bryan Rocine wrote first 
year grammar, _Learning Biblical Hebrew: A New Approach Using Discourse 
Analysis_, as a project for his Master's degree.  It was so straight forward 
that I was able to use it to train national translators in the Philippines.  
You might be able to contact Bryan to see if the work is still available.  I 
believe he's living in Syracuse.

But the bottom line is that there are reasons that can be determined for the 
choice of weqatal, wayyiqtol, x-qatal, and x-yiqtol.  The selection is not 
arbitrary.

Paul Zellmer

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of fred burlingame
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2011 7:25 PM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [b-hebrew] verb form choice

Hello all;

In deuteronomy 2:25, we have:

a. the verb אחל (alef, chet, lamed) manifest in yiqtol form; and

b. the verb וחלו (waw, chet, lamed, waw) expressed in weqatal form.

Since yiqtol and qatal forms appear susceptible of encoding the same menu of
tenses and aspects, does some context or other reason necessitate the
selection of these two forms, for these two verbs, in these two instances,
respectively? Or does the appearance of these two forms represent a mere
arbitrary choice by the author, the choice of the other form representing
proper grammar also?

I invite your comments.

regards,

fred burlingame
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew