Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:

My first attempt at answering this message was sent unfinished, a surprise to me.

On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 1:33 AM, George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au> wrote:

Hi Karl!

No the Yiqtol and Qatal don't have the same functions.

Agree, so far …

 

There are key differences. In prose, the Qatal verb doesn't have the same indefiniteness as the Yiqtol. The Qatal presents action as definite (ie. concrete, specific, close up).

Yiqtol: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Qatal: A gentle answer turned away wrath, but a harsh word stirred up anger.

The yiqtol is indefinite, and could apply to past, present, or future. In this case, it's gnomic present. But the Qatal would be speaking about a specific occasion when a gentle answer happened to turn away wrath and a harsh word stirred up anger. It's the difference between indefinite and definite.

Sorry, but that’s not the observed difference in function.


Poetry, with its parallelism, shows that Qatal and Yiqtol are used for the same amounts of definitiveness. Exactly the same. The Qatal is indefinite, can apply to past, present, or future. It can apply to both perfective and imperfective aspects. However, Qatal applies to only indicative and optative moods (as far as I can tell at the moment). Yiqtol can apply to indicative, optative moods just like Qatal, but it can also apply to subjunctive, imperative, expectation, intent moods among others. Is the fact that the Yiqtol can be used for more moods throwing you off?


Even outside of poetry there are plenty of examples of Qatal being used for the indefinite, indicative present. That’s the way it’s used for present tense, indicative conversational sentences that have been recorded as such in Tanakh.

It’s the context that tells how the verb is used, as far as definiteness and indefiniteness, not the conjugation. In conversation, the differences in conjugation more often refers to differences in mood than in poetry.

GEORGE ATHAS

Dean of Research,

Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)

Sydney, Australia

Karl W. Randolph.