[snip]
I have compared all the finite verbs in the Samaritan Pentateuch with the
MT, and I found the same as Ben-Hayyim (2000:171):
"In their /the Samaritn/ tradition, as in the second column of Origen“s
Hexapla, there was no morphological distinction between what we know as waw
consecutive and waw conjunctive. Neither of them caused gemination of the
following consonant in the imperfect."
The real issue is whether WAYYIQTOL is a conjugation distinct from
YIQTOL/WEYIQTOL. The point I would like to stress is that we neither find
any morphological difference nor any semantic difference between WEYIQTOL
and WAYYIQTOL before the Masoretes. I estimate than 93,1% of the WAYYIQTOLs
and 53,4% of the QATALs in the MT have past reference, . This is the situation
that grammarians have not been able to fathom from the Middle ages and until
present: If the WAYYIQTOLs are nothing but YIQTOLs with prefixed
conjunctions, why are WAYYIQTOLs the primary form used in past narratives
together with the QATALs?
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