Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Nir:

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:

karl,

>>>In the Proverbs example that I cited, Yiqtols and Wayiqtols are used interchangeably to present the same grammatical pattern. In Proverbs it is present continuous indicative use.

let us be more careful. when you say Wayiqtol, do you refer to the (presumably) biblical
WYQTL or the (presumably) masoretic wAyiqtol [as opposed to wEyiqtol]?

Good point! I mean the Biblical WYQ+L.

This is not the first time I’ve gotten called on saying something that confuses people. I’ll try to make it clearer in the future.

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as to the true wAyiqtol used as future/imperfective, this is a rarity found practically ONLY
IN POETRY, mostly in psalms and studied by d. michel. many of these cases in psalms can be
explained as a result of a habit to add and drop the waw with no grammatical reason, IN POETRY. there are other considerations too (e.g. lack of a better alternative, and also the thesis that the basic
function of wayiqtol is the consecutive, not the past tense; also see andrason 2011 for a more dynamical view which explains well the difference between wayiqtol as preterite and qatal as pluperfect). but this is a rare exception to a rule, and we first have to understand the rule.

Unfortunately, I’ve not had access to D. Michel’s works, so I can’t comment on them. Is Andrason 2011 available?

All I can comment on are the patterns that I’ve noticed (one of the problems of not being academically plugged in).

As for the rule, it’s my impression that it’s derived from narrative. How does it fit other literary styles?

In this case, because narrative makes up such a large portion of Tanakh, does not a strict statistical (bean counting) analysis give a skewed picture of how it was used? Not unlike asking for American impression of Obama, but asking only Blacks? Is it possible to get an unskewed sample?

nir cohen

Karl W. Randolph.