> Karl, I agree. However, your statement amounts to the equivalent of
> 'these forms start with a waw conjunction'. I'd like to go a step
> further and analyse the significance and nature of such
> conjunction.
By a process of elimination, I concluded it's not a conjunction at all, but a
grammatical
formative that happens to resemble the conjunction in its consonantal form,
much like the
he-interrogative consonantally resembles the definite article.