Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>5) Genesis 37:21 "When Reuben heard (WAYYIQTOL)
> this, he tried to deliver (WAYYIQTOL) them out of
> their hands.

reminds me of Gen 22:1 "God tested Abraham" (QATAL).
first generally give the overview, then specify the details.
It is a story strategy used in lots of cultures.

what's imperfective about it? does the person need 100%
success? (people tend to bend languages when in use.)

a better masking of a perfective movement verb comes
a little later, in Gen 37:28. they "passed by" (WAYYIQTOL)
LXX uses imperfect here, as a better translator than in
some places of the OG. (By contextually masking the
'aspect' part of the verb, the past and indicative part of
that Hb verb still shines through. The more interesting
question is why not clearly mark the aspect Hb at 37:28?
Ans: That would have been cumbersome to the story,
given Hebrew's available structures. See below.)

6)  1 Kings 6:1 "In the four hundred and
eightieth after the Israelites came out of the
land of Egypt... he began to build (WAYYIQTOL)
the temple of YHWH,"

ditto as to Gen 37.21 and 22. though here we have a
serious textual difference in the OG.
The Chronicler preferred specifying the beginning
point (ויחל לבנות wyHl lbnot) rather than use the overview
approach of the MT to 1Ki. His call.

The problem in these discussions is that Hebrew has too
few nodes on which to hang the reality of communication,
a reality that operates in a multidimensional world of time,
aspect, and mood. The nodes are obviously going to
cover less than the needs of precision with TAM.

Cognitive linguistics lets the mappings be made,
communication experiences to nodes,
and the metalinguistic chips can fall where they may,
without having someone say 'you can't do that': if a French
man very rarely uses a future in some past contexts, ככה kaxa,
or allowing some parts of a "definition" to be muted/masked/
unused, in some restricted communication contexts, like
aspect at Gen 37:28 and many a movement verb in HB.

The satisfying thing to that approach is that it mimics the
way everyone learns a language, their first language, and
even later languages to high facility.

In Greek, the historical present does a double whammy,
it uses 'present' against the grain, and it uses aspect
against the grain, by often taking a string of fully completed,
non-overlapping events and presenting them in the "open-
ended present". Languages can do that if the conventions
of the community accept it.
Like using a double positive for a negative:
Yea, right!

Anyway, I have always advocated that a person take their
'theory' and use it for lots of communication. They will
eventually/quickly work their way into a corner where the
communication is cumbersome. Those are the interesting
points where one can then search out texts and see if a
proposed solution is attested, or if not, what was done.
It has been very satisfying to speak BH inside classrooms
and run into such spots.
It's heuristic. One becomes much more sensitive to the
choices that an author had.

I remember once when me daughter came home from
school and said that the teacher said that Is 6:1 was
incorrect Hebrew. But I had long before delighted at the
same passage, thinking that the author had pragmatically
"mainlined" the seeing event, a kind of rare highlighting.
What to do? Look for it elsewhere, of course. Like at
Gen 22:4. And the structure appears twice in the Moabite
Stone. (PS: daughter was in grad school or at least
university, the teacher a lauded professor. And good,
despite a disagreement here.)

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org and www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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