Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

fred,

1) first, a side issue on your use of the word "masoret". note that the 
distinction 
between YIQTOL and WEQATAL is distinguishable even  without the dots; so, 
ascribing it to 
the masoret, rather than to a much earlier text, is not necessarily the only 
hypothesis possible.  
as a non-expert, i will not enter this discussion.

2) before finding a hidden meaning in a certain grammatical form, doesnt it 
make sense, first, to see the
pattern and logic of its appearance and recurrence in the text? namely, to 
provide rules, as simple as possible,  
which predict the occurrences of this form to a reasonable degree? this is 
what i  did in my answer, to the best 
of my lay knowledge.

3) in addition to the rules, i also gave a plausible explanation consistent 
with them, to wit,  "poetic style which 
unfavors non-repetition", with the implicit corollary that there is no hidden 
message there. in other words, 
the doctor says to the patient "you do not have a hearing problem. just go 
clean your right ear." isnt it the best
the doctor could say, under the circumstances?

as, in this case, the doctor is not an M.D., the patient is certainly 
entitled to a second opinion. 

regards
nir cohen

 On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:24:19 -0600, fred burlingame wrote
> Hello Nir:
>  
> Thanks for taking the time to respond.
>  
> You all appear skilled and adept at this language, just like physicians or 
> attorneys enjoy a high level of ability in their professions.
>  
> I am reminded however, of the following scenario that occurs so frequently.
>  
> a. the patient asks her doctor: "will i get well?" ..... she hopes for a 
> "yes or "no" answer ... and the response in fact: "maybe."
>  
> b. likewise, the client asks his lawyer: "will I win this case?" ... he 
> hopes for a "yes" or "no" answer ... and the response in fact: "maybe."
>  
> c. and then fred asks here: "do the two hebrew verb forms "yiqtol" and 
> "qatal" instruct tense and / or aspect? fred hopes for a "yes" or "no" 
> answer ..... and the response in fact: "maybe."
>  
> and the patient, the client and fred are left with their thoughts: "does it 
> have to be this way?" .....
>  
> I can sympathize with the physician and the attorney, since the future 
> cannot be known with certainty. But here, we are dealing with past events, 
> the 1000 year old masoretic text. And yet no one appears willing to say: 
> "the masoretic text employs two verb forms "yiqtol" and "qatal," rather 
> than one verb form, for the following reason:  ...... "
>  
> It seems to me the reason for it (two, versus one, verb forms), is 
> susceptible to both identification and articulation in a sentence or two.
>  
> regards,
>  
> fred burlingame
> 
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> 
> wrote:
> Fred,
> 
> i do not have access to the paper suggested by bryant but i agree completely
> with his comment. i would like to complete it from a slightly
> different point of view.
> 
> 1. the poetic style of BH is such that USUALLY two actions in future
> or imperative tense will NOT be repeated at the same form. rather, they 
> appear
> either as a IQTOL-WEQATAL or WEQATAL-IQTOL pair, or else as
> infinitive-future, infinitive-imperative etc.
> 
> 2. this has absolutely nothing to do with the two actions stemming from
> similar roots or not.
> 
> 3. there are several exceptions, for example, when a SEQUENCE OF MORE THAN 
> TWO
> ACTIONS is described, in which case all of them (sometimes except the last
> one) uses the same form.
> 
> you can check in the same chapter you suggested (deut 2) that most
> if not all sentenses there (dealing with future or imperative) follow this
> scheme. clearly, as paul indicated,
> in doing so one should adopt the "natural" division into sentences, which 
> does
> not necessarily coincide with the one used today.
> 
> nir cohen
> 
>

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Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:24:19 -0600, fred burlingame wrote
> Hello Nir:
>  
> Thanks for taking the time to respond.
>  
> You all appear skilled and adept at this language, just like physicians or 
> attorneys enjoy a high level of ability in their professions.
>  
> I am reminded however, of the following scenario that occurs so frequently.
>  
> a. the patient asks her doctor: "will i get well?" ..... she hopes for a 
> "yes or "no" answer ... and the response in fact: "maybe."
>  
> b. likewise, the client asks his lawyer: "will I win this case?" ... he 
> hopes for a "yes" or "no" answer ... and the response in fact: "maybe."
>  
> c. and then fred asks here: "do the two hebrew verb forms "yiqtol" and 
> "qatal" instruct tense and / or aspect? fred hopes for a "yes" or "no" 
> answer ..... and the response in fact: "maybe."
>  
> and the patient, the client and fred are left with their thoughts: "does it 
> have to be this way?" .....
>  
> I can sympathize with the physician and the attorney, since the future 
> cannot be known with certainty. But here, we are dealing with past events, 
> the 1000 year old masoretic text. And yet no one appears willing to say: 
> "the masoretic text employs two verb forms "yiqtol" and "qatal," rather 
> than one verb form, for the following reason:  ...... "
>  
> It seems to me the reason for it (two, versus one, verb forms), is 
> susceptible to both identification and articulation in a sentence or two.
>  
> regards,
>  
> fred burlingame
> 
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> 
> wrote:
> Fred,
> 
> i do not have access to the paper suggested by bryant but i agree completely
> with his comment. i would like to complete it from a slightly
> different point of view.
> 
> 1. the poetic style of BH is such that USUALLY two actions in future
> or imperative tense will NOT be repeated at the same form. rather, they 
> appear
> either as a IQTOL-WEQATAL or WEQATAL-IQTOL pair, or else as
> infinitive-future, infinitive-imperative etc.
> 
> 2. this has absolutely nothing to do with the two actions stemming from
> similar roots or not.
> 
> 3. there are several exceptions, for example, when a SEQUENCE OF MORE THAN 
> TWO
> ACTIONS is described, in which case all of them (sometimes except the last
> one) uses the same form.
> 
> you can check in the same chapter you suggested (deut 2) that most
> if not all sentenses there (dealing with future or imperative) follow this
> scheme. clearly, as paul indicated,
> in doing so one should adopt the "natural" division into sentences, which 
> does
> not necessarily coincide with the one used today.
> 
> nir cohen
> 
>

-- 
Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)