... Interestingly, when I translated the
Ethiopic
Enoch into Norwegian some years ago, I found the same excess of imperfective
forms, with and without prefixed WAW in the heavenly visions in that book. ...
... Logically, there is some linguistic convention behind this, but this
convention does not tell us anything about the intrinsic meaning of the
YIQTOLs or the Ethiopic prefix-forms. Similarly in Phoenician, in several
inscriptions the infinitive absolute ...
... is used as the narrative form. ThisAnd in Hebrew, in Exodus, different forms are used to tell what will
tells us about the linguistic convention in connection with these
inscriptions, but nothing about the intrinsic meaning of the infinitive
absolute. In the Ugaritic saga of Kirta (Keret) prefixed forms are used to
tell what will happen, and later exactly the same clauses with exactly the
same prefix forms are used to tell what happened. This is a linguistic
convention which tells us nothing about the meaning of the prefix form.
Then to the WAYYIQTOL issue: The WAY+YIQTOL is extensively used as a
narrative verb. This means that a set of consequtive actions are portrayed,
each action following the other. It is generally accepted that one action is
completed before the next has started. No one would deny that this use of
WAYYIQTOL is a lingusitic convention, ...
... but its past reference does not tellWell, Rolf, we know that you "think" that this was a linguistic
us whether the WAYYIQTOL form is an independent preterit conjugation, an
independent perfective conjugation, or is an imperfective YIQTOL with
prefixed WAW. We cannot assume an answer, but we should demonstrate what is
the case. I can formulate my requirement in other words: I think that it was
natural for the old Hebrews to use imperfective prefix forms as their
narrative verbs, and they applied a WAW as a tool to move the narrative
forwards. This was a linguistic convention. In order to show that WAYYIQTOL
is a past tense, you cannot just assume that my possibility is wrong, you
must demonstrate it.
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.