Dear Rolf,
...
> I am open for the possibility that the same verb form could and can be used
> with different senses. In Akkadian, for example, it is the short IPRUS,
which often
> refer to the past, that is used in the wish-form precative. And we have a
similar
> sitution in Ugaritic. But the point I very often have stressed is that in
order to use
> such multiple functions in a grammatical theory, we must demonstrate its
existence,
> not just assume it. That is the reason why I refuse to deal with concepts
such as
> Proto-Semitic or Proto-Hebrew, and that I challenge those who believe that
the
> antecedent of WAYYIQTOL is an old short preterit, to prove it. I agree with
you
> that there are remnants in the Hebrew of the Tanakh of stems that earlier
were
> used; there is, for example just a single verb in the causative-reflexive
stem.
Well, as I suppose you probably know, the advance of scholars towards
analysis of "waw-conversive" as in fact waw-consecutive before a preterite was
grounded in advances in scholarship in the Amarna texts. It was the Amarna
texts which led to a renewed analysis of the Biblical verb forms on the basis
of those texts. I am not sure why you think that claims regarding
Proto-Hebrew
cannot be utilized because its existence is not "proven" but "assumed"
-- do you
simply deny that Amarna vocables can teach us about an earlier stage of the
Hebrew language? do you deny that cognate languages such as Aramaic or
Ugaritic can teach us about this earlier stage of the Hebrew language / Proto-
Hebrew? What have Comparative Semitists been doing for the last hundred
years if not to demonstrate an Afroasiatic (and daughter stage -
Proto-Semitic)
language?
...
Yitzhak Sapir.
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