...Well, on this hypothesis it is difficult to explain the WAYYIQTOLs at the beginning of the books WAYYIQRA' = Leviticus and WAYDABBER = Numbers, and several others if I remember correctly, including Jonah and Ruth which cannot plausibly be understood as continuations of other books. And then there certainly are cases where WAYYIQTOL is not strictly sequential. So I think you will find it hard to show that WAYYIQTOL is always relative future. A more plausible suggestion would be that the regular use of this form in narrative originated in cases where there was a clearly defined prior deictic centre, and use of the form was then generalised to include cases where the deictic centre has not been clearly set up. In other words, WAYYIQTOL might have started as a relative future tense, but later shifted to be a simple narrative tense in fact used at least primarily in the past.
Regarding wayiqtols, would you agree that no evidence contradicts
understanding them as "and + future tense" with deictic center shifts?
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