In a message dated 8/1/2005 3:16:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
furuli AT online.no writes:
These numbers clearly suggest that phonological reasons and/or the
tendency
to cut off endings in Hebrew words are the reasons behind apocopation and
not that the antecedent to the apocopated WAYYIQTOLs is a short preterit
YAQTUL while the antecedent to the WEYIQTOLs and the YIQTOLs is a long
present/future YAQTULU.
Doesn't this ignore the comparative Semitic data?
_The Origins and Development of the Waw-Consecutive: Northwest Semitic
Evidence from Ugarit to Qumran_ by Mark S. Smith (Scholars Press, 1991),
p.12:
"The converted imperfect derived from independent usage of the *yaqtul
preterite, attested in both the Amarna and Ugaritic texts... the *yagtul
preterite
survives in numerous Semitic languages in specifically marked
environments."
p. 13: "... the BH converted perfect may be traced to the future uses of
*qatala in apodoses of BH conditional sentences as in Amarna and
Ugaritic...."
Hayyim Obadyah
, MPA
New York, New York 10027
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