My problem, Rolf, with the your hypothesis (quite believable for DSS sectarian compositions) is that the non-existence of the form says nothing about the earlier state of the language. Your data (thanks for your very generously detailed postings, BTW, that I hope to follow up when I get to a library) does seem to ahow at the least that the some apocopated forms were still being used in the DSS materials. Now, this might be an attempt to write in a Biblical register and might not regmflect tye every day Hebrew. Did you class your data by literary style? Or am I misreading the DSS materials?
Still, if the DSS Biblical materials tend to display the same orthography as the Massoritic, and we see similar features in Ugaritic (loss of final mim - ויקטל where the usual prefix conjunction has יקטלם suggestibg */wa-yaqtulū/ and */yaqtulūm/ respectively) then we are surely entitled to draw the conclusion that the jussive form at least as being certain to a tolerable standard. But of course I don't know the Ugaritic materials at all, really. You've taught Ugaritic. Is this something near what the evidence shows?
John Leake ----------------------------------ان صاحب حياة هانئة لا يدونها انما يحياها He who has a comfortable life doesn't write about it - he lives it ---------------------------------- Dear Dave,I know you as a fine Hebrew scholar, and I also know that you have done much work on the DSS. This thread was supposed to be descriptive and not argumentative—we were asked to outline our positions on WAYYIQTOL. But when you use the words "a gross misstatement," I think I am entitled to clear up the issue. In scholarly studies it is very important not to assume anything before we start. So, we cannot ASSUME that a grammatical form WAYYIQTOL existed in BCE. But we must look at the writings we have from BCE, and they are the DSS. What do a morphological study of the DSS reveal? About 500 prefix forms with prefixed WAW. These forms are not geminated and the vowel patah is not represented by the maters lexiones. This justifies my statement that "the WAYYIQTOL form was not known in the DSS"—only YIQTOLs with prefixed WAW. The data I presented from Origen and the Samaritan Penbtateuch justify my claim that "the WAYYIQTOL was not known before the middle of the first millennium CE." The only way to show that this is "a gross misstatement" is to refer to manuscripts where the WAYYIQTOL is found. This is a challenge to you.You refer to Mishnaic Hebrew, to long and short forms and to irregular verbs. But these data can be interpreted in different ways, and they prove nothing regarding the existence of a grammatical WAYYIQTOL form. As far as the data are concerned, they show that the WAYYIQTOL form did not existe before the middle of the first millennium CE. This is not conjecture, it is not an argument, but it is an OBSERVATION. And please, do not mix semantic meaning with conversational pragmatic implicature.Best regards,Rolf FuruliStavernNorwayOnsdag 15. Mai 2013 17:01 CEST skrev Dave Washburn <davidlwashburn AT gmail.com>: Ken correctly observes that there is no distinction between WATYYIQTOL and
WEYIQTOL in the DSS. The same is true in the Greek >transcriptions of the
Hebrew text in Origen's Hexapla. Thus, the WAYYIQTOL form was not known
before the middle of the first millennium >CE., when the Masoretes pointed
the Hebrew text.
This is such a huge leap in logic I don't know where to begin. It's clear
that by the time of the DSS the Wayyiqtol had fallen out of use. The
progression into tense-based Mishnaic Hebrew makes that clear. But to jump
from that to the idea that "the WAYYIQTOL form was *not known* before the
middle of the first millennium CE" simply doesn't follow. We don't have any
commentaries or grammars of Hebrew from that time or before, that's all.
The DSS people were more focused on theology and praxis than on
linguistics, so they didn't say anything about the structure of their
language. But in the case of the Hebrew Bible, we have plenty of contextual
and formal hints in the text that the form the Masoretes punctuated as
wayyiqtol was, in fact, different in some way from the simple weyiqtol, so
trying to claim it was "not known" is a gross misstatement. What he means
is, we didn't have a visual (written) representation of the form before
that. But the truth is, even that is not accurate, because the whole theory
about long vs. short forms grew out of observation of the way some
irregular verbs behave in the different stems.
To John: Rolf has presented his novel idea here before, and I think it's
safe to say it hasn't caught on. He denies that the wayyiqtol is a distinct
form and then proceeds accordingly. But even without the Masoretic points,
I think it's safe to say that the wayyiqtol is one of the most solidly
established verb forms in the HB, which renders the theory moot.
George, I'd like to hear more about your idea, either on or off list (on
would be better so everybody can benefit, but I'll take whatever I can
get!).
On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 10:52 PM, Rolf <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no> wrote:
Dear Jerry,
I would like to add one point regarding the origin of WAYYIQTOL to the
post I sent yesterday.
Ken correctly observes that there is no distinction between WATYYIQTOL and
WEYIQTOL in the DSS. The same is true in the Greek transcriptions of the
Hebrew text in Origen's Hexapla. Thus, the WAYYIQTOL form was not known
before the middle of the first millennium CE., when the Masoretes pointed
the Hebrew text.
(Please note that the Palestinian pointings of WEYIQTOLs versus
WAYYIQTOLs are not always the same as in the MT. For example, in the
Palestinian manuscript J in Paul Kahle, "Masoreten des Westens Texte und
Untersuchungen zur Vormasoretischen Grammatik des Hebräischen," 1930, the
six WEYIQTOLs in Daniel 11:5 (1), 15(2), 16(2), 17(1) are pointed as
WAYYIQTOLs.
So, what was the origin of the WAYYIQTOL form? The Masoretes pointed their
text on the basis of the recitation of the texts in the synagoges—on the
basis of accentuation (stress) and tone. The difference between WEYIQTOL
and WAYYIQTOL is basically one of accentuation. It is natural to put the
stress differently in narrative texts compared with poetry and prophetic
texts. Very little Hebrew grammar was known in the days of the Masoretes—it
seems that they did not even know the three-radical nature of Hebrew words.
So, the pointing of the Masoretes was based on pragmatics—the recitation in
the synagogues and not om semantics—a grammatical distinction between
different forms. But in the Middle Ages, the pragmatic pointing of the
Masoretes were given a semantic interpretation (cf. Kimhi), and the view of
the WAYYIQTOL as an independent grammatical form was born.
When semantic meaning and conversational pragmatic implicature are not
distinguished, the result is confusion. Does anyone know of a single
grammatical study in any of the ancient Semitic languages, except my
dissertation, where this distinction is systematically made?
Best regards,
Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway
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