Tiempo y Aspecto en la conjugación hebrea (parte IV-1): reflexiones de un octogenario

Abstract

As an attempt to keep the promise made in the Third Part of this study [MEAH/H 61 (2012), 185-231], the author, after having presented some complementary reflections on the theme of ‘verbal aspect’, especially in the light of the theories expounded in the complete edition of the Nueva gramática de la lengua española (2010) by the Real Academia Española, goes on to remember his own experience during his teaching career with some biblical verses where a Hebrew construction, vocalized by the Massoretes as an wayyiqtol (S[hort] F[orm] of the P[refix] C[onjugation]), would seem to correspond in fact to a weyiqtol (L[ong] F[orm] of the P[refix] C[onjugation]), remembering that some of these biblical places were judged in an identical way in the book by Alex van de Sande (2008) which was reviewed in the Third Part of the present study [MEAH/H 61 (2012), 204-229]. The main body of the study is consecrated to the research of those cases in which the spelling of the Massoretic Text allows to differentiate between the SF and the LF od the PC (verbs ה״ל and ע״ו, and Hipˁil of the strong verb), but the meaning of the construction seems to contradict its spelling. in the case of the iii-infirmae verbs (except for the 1^st singular and plural person) the hypothesis is proposed that the last reason to explain the apparent anomaly of the wayyibnæ^h construction could be due to the presumed biliteral character of a part of the SF of the PC (SF *yíbn[a]>yíbæn vs. LF *yibnáyu>yibn׳æ^h). in those biblical books which present a late or transitional stage of language such as Ezekiel, the anomalous forms of the wayyibnæ^h type could be due to the fall in disuse of the SF (wayyiqtol) and its confusion with the LF. in the case of 1-2 Kings and Jeremiah one could perhaps think of a triliteral dialectal variant of the SF (*yíbnay SF vs. *yibnáy[u] LF, with presumed difference in accent place). On the contrary, in the second section of this Fourth Part (to be published, as it is hoped, in the next number of MEAH/H), the hypothesis is suggested that, in the case of the iii-infirmae verbs and in the Hipˁil of the ʻstrongʼ verb, when a mater lectionis appears in the MT, the praesumptio iuris is that we are faced with the LF of the PC. The analogy with the Spanish narrative imperfect and the (NT) Greek successive imperfect might perhaps aid to understand the use of the LF in these cases. This could be of relevance for interpreting the construction with ˀåz  + yiqţol (LF) and perhaps also in some cases of the wayyiqţ^elûn type.