Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

As I see it, it is not WAY + YIQTOL, but WA+YI+QTL. I am really baffled. I look intently at what you are saying, but fail to see there any difficulty. what you call "code for future" appears to me to be but the convention of PP+act, as opposed to act+PP for the "code of the past". In WA-YI-GA$ the -YI- reverts to be just a personal pronoun (PP) for the performer of the act GA$.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 14, 2013, at 12:50 PM, Rolf wrote:

c) No one has been able to explain how the element WAY- (WAW) changed the meaning of the form with WAY- to the very opposite of the form without WAY.

d) Such a change of meaning to the very opposite because of a prefixed conjunction is unprecedented in the languages of the world.

5) Because of 4 a), b), c) and d), there are no reasons to view the WAYYIQTOL as different from the YIQTOL form as far as meaning is concerned. So, just as infinitive absolute is the narrative form in  Phoenician, and the prefix form (YAQTUL(U) is the narrative form in Ugaritic, the prefixform YIQTOL is the narrative form in Classical Hebrew.

6) But how can the function and use of the WAY + YIQTOL be explained?  The simple explanation is that narrative texts express sequences of actions in the past, one action following the other, and the element that is driving the consecution is the conjunction WAW. The Hebrew writers, more than writers in any language that I know of, had a preference for this conjunction—"and this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened...."  The gemination and stress pattern of the WAYYIQTOL form is based on the Phonetic rules of the Masoretes and are nothing special. So the form can morphologically speaking be reduced to  a YIQTOL with the prefixed conjunction WAW.

7) The real obstacle to accepting that the WAYYIQTOL as a YIQTOL,  is that YIQTOL is believed to code for future  and present or for the imperfective aspect, and how can such functions corroborate past reference?