...
Why do I believe in this theory?
First, it meets a very important criterium in science:
"The simpler, more elegant, and more surprising theory, that can
account for *more* phenomena with *less* hypotheses, or only one
hypothesis, is to be preferred." ...
... The problem that remains when we try to
explain both wayyiqtol out of *wa-yaqtul as well as wɔyiqtol out of
*wa-yaqtul(u), ...
...
If a noun in the definite state is preceded by the prepositions כ ב or
ל, the noun's geminated C1, preceded by its auxiliary vowel, does not
need an auxiliary consonant other than כ ב or ל already there. No
cases of, for example *להקּדש have been found in old phases of Hebrew,
because no word ה existed. ...
...
Furthermore, in Egyptian Arabic, the geminated C1 remains
unassimilated to more consonants than is the case in Standard Arabic,
which may well point to a conserved older practice.
The WE- and WAY- of the so-called consecutive forms are the conjunction WAW, and the gemination and patah of the WAY- prefix are caused by phonetic rules and the stress position.
I don't think wayyiqtol and yiqtol are semantically similar at all.- and if they are not semantically similar (and I don't want to get into a new argument with Rolf about that), that strengthens the argument for a morphological distinction. I note that the distinction which Rolf does not recognise between WEYIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL is phonetically identical (and on Herman's theory also morphologically identical) to that between indefinite LEQODE$ and definite LAQQODE$, which everyone accepts is a real distinction because the non-prefixed forms QODE$ and HAQQODE$ are also attested. The problem with WAYYIQTOL is that there is no attested form like HAYYIQTOL without the vav prefix. Although come to think of it, it might be worth looking at forms traditionally understood as interrogative he + YIQTOL to see if they could be reanalysed as HAYYIQTOL.
As far as I know, it is unprecedented in any language that a conjunction alone, or in combination with another element prefixed to a verb form causes or signals that this verb form has the very opposite meaning of the same form without the prefix.
YIQTOL for past-tense is not always preceded by VA-, but only VA- forces dagesh in the next letter. For example,
"AZ YASHIR MOSHE," not "AZ YYASHIR...." It seems to me your theory wrongly predicts that the
form ought to be "AZ AYYASHIR," or "AZ HAYYSHIR," or something along those lines.
If we would be dealing with some kind of principle that
wayyiqtol always has the apocopated form, I wouldn't disregard it so
easily, but wayyiqtol doesn't always have the short yiqtol.
Apparently, while the distinction between the jussive form and the
long yiqtol form disappeared, C1 gemination in wayyiqtol was still
very relevant.
Regarding WAYYIQTOL I found that 98.7% of 3.p. s. m. were apocopated, but only 33,1% of 1. p. s., and 25,0% of 3. p. pl. m.
It's an interesting problem. Are there some notorious passages in the
mentioned corpus where people say it is archaic artificially?
Nobody would say that
this infinitive absolute has some intrinsic completedness of an intrinsic
past tense. The infinitive absolute simply presents the verbal idea of the
root without making visible the beginning or end or anything else.
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