George: On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 10:15 PM, George Athas <[email protected]>wrote:
> A few issues here: > > Firstly, Wayyiqtol is not not the only way for referring to the past. > Qatal can also be used. However, I would argue that even calling these > conjugations as past referring is a misunderstanding of the grammar. > > Karl argued that Hebrew is not marked for aspect, but then defined this as > an axis of completed/uncompleted action. That, however, is not so much > 'aspect' as it is 'Aktionsart'. > You misunderstood me here, I wrote that it is not an axis of completed/uncompleted action. What I wrote that if one wants to claim it as dealing with aspect, aspect would have to be defined as other than competed/uncompleted action. > > Todd did raise the issue of clause initial verbs, which is an important > consideration. A negated verb can never be clause initial, because the > negation must precede it. So there is a pragmatic consideration here. But > even if we had three positive assertions being made in Ps 1.1, we would not > get wayyqitol verbs, because they would each produce narrative momentum. > This is not what the verse is trying to do, though. The use of Qatal verbs > in this clause is for the statement of simple fact: a man who has not > walked… stood… or sat… This is just what the Qatal does: state an action as > a simple fact. > But this use of Qatal to indicate simple fact is used for all tenses, it is the default for a spoken sentence to indicate simple fact, and is used for both positive and negative statements. A question has arisen in my mind concerning Qatals such as these: were they originally Qals or Piels? Without points either can be read, and the points from the Masoretes are not to be trusted. > > The use of Yiqtol in 1.2 is simply to indicate the generality of the > righteous man's practice. These are actions that occur many times, and are > indicative of the past, as well as implying intention for the future. > There are two ways to read the Yiqtol in this verse: as a continuation of the idea expressed in the first verse, and/or as an indication of a desired action. > > > GEORGE ATHAS > Director of Postgraduate Studies, > Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au) > Sydney, Australia > Karl W. Randolph. _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
