Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Randall:

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

> >Genesis 1:3 “and there was light (light came into existence)” yiqtol.
>
> wyhy is not a yiqtol. That would have been (w) yhyh
>

Does the prefixed waw indicate a difference in conjugation?

It is my understanding that Rolf’s dissertation found no difference in
meaning between those yiqtols that have that prefix and those without. I,
too, don’t see a difference.

>
> The west-Semitic languages show a distinction
> between two/three morphologies of prefix verbs. The MT consonants
> are not 100% reliable on this, but close enough to show that the
> system recorded by the MT existed.
>

Here the question is not the MT, but what does the MT mean?

>
>
> >> Rolf Furuli
> >>
> > I would not be surprised if a graduate student were to do the same
> > statistical analysis as you did for your dissertation, but instead of
> > focusing on tense as you did, focus on aspect, that he would find that
> > aspect is not grammaticalized just as tense is not grammaticalized.
>
> Yes. You would be correct. The same thing happens in Greek.…
>
> Another problem is that 'aspect' is ultimately subjective, it is
> the writer's presentations of a situation, so people can twist
> things into all sorts of things.
>

“'aspect' is ultimately subjective”??? Doesn’t that undermine claims of
objectivity in linguistic studies?

As for twisting things, I found that aspect was a “first year lie” that I
had to jettison in order to get to the meaning of the text. I found that
working with the presupposition that the qatal and yiqtol coded for aspect
caused me to twist the text to make it fit the presupposition. There is only
so much twisting that the text will take before it snaps.

But I have to admit my perception that the presupposition that the
conjugations code for aspect induces far less twisting than the
presupposition that they code for tense.

>
> Most Semitists view the wayyiqtol structure as a perfective,
> among other things, and not as an imperfective.


Yet you admit that it is possible that most can be wrong. That is why this
is called the bandwagon logical fallacy.

As for it being perfective vs. imperfective, my understanding is that this
conjugation is neither. As for its translation, that is a question of the
language into which the text is being translated, not of the structure of
Biblical Hebrew itself, hence that is a translation issue, not a B-Hebrew
issue.


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