Re: Hebrew waw consecutive

There are indeed sometimes differences between the two, in both vocalism and
stress. Also, the prefix itself is not always identical to that for 'and'.
When added to the suffix conjugation, the two are identical, with the same
range of allomorphy. But before the prefix conjugation, it is /wa/ (or /wa:/
before /?/ in the 1st sing.), with gemination of the following consonant
(unless it's /j/). /wa/ and /wa:/ happen to be both allomorphs of the normal
'and' morpheme, but the distribution is different, and it never triggers
gemination.

To answer Eric's question in the original thread, you CANNOT use the two
together. The waw-prefixed form must be used at the beginning of a sentence,
even if the meaning 'and' is not intended. But when you actually want to say
'and', you do not have the choice of using a normal verb form or a waw-form.
Since the waw is already there for 'and', you have to use the inverted form
of the verb; and in such a case, the one waw does double duty, serving both
as a conjunction and as an indicator that the verb's tense/aspect is not
what it appears.

Veolar, I'm not sure what the alternative is to "believing in"
waw-conversive. If you want to say it always means 'and', and the suffix
conjugation is always past/perfect, and the prefix conjugation always
non-past/imperfect, then tense/aspect would be switching all over the place
and nothing would make much sense (and the Bible is hard enough to
understand already...). I'm not an expert on this, but I thought it was
accepted by everyone. Have you heard of arguments against it? Of course
there's quibbling on the details (e.g. is it tense or aspect? - I'm not
taking a stand) but I thought that was all.

Josh Roth


On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 6:46 PM, Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> wrote:

> I have a grammar of Biblical Hebrew which discusses some differences in
> vocalism between the imperfect with waw-consecutive and the non-waw-marked
> imperfect. I don't have it with me, but I will check when I get home.
> -Elliott
>
>
> --- On Thu, 8/21/08, David McCann <david@...> wrote:
>
> > From: David McCann <david@...>
> > Subject: Re: Hebrew waw consecutive
> > To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
> > Date: Thursday, August 21, 2008, 4:17 PM
> > On Wed, 2008-08-20 at 13:43 +0200, Veoler wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Is there some hard evidence for this? As far as I have
> > heard there was no
> > > real foundation behind waw conversive, and I
> > haven't ever seen any proof in
> > > any direction. So I'm 67% non-believer in waw
> > conversive and 33% agnostic,
> > > until I see evidence. Do you have any references about
> > the justification or
> > > reason to assume the theory?
> > >
> > > I have'nt got very far in learning Hebrew and
> > thought I should wait with
> > > this question, but since it was brought up...
> > >
> > I'm no expert on Semitic languages: a quick check shows
> > I read Gray's
> > Introduction in 1973 and Gelb on Akkadian in 1982!
> >
> > I took the example from A. B. Davidson's Hebrew
> > Grammar, but he offered
> > no comment. I've just looked at Robert Hetzron's
> > article in Major
> > Languages of the World. He regards the perfective wa- form
> > (which he
> > rightly, I think, calls a past tense) as original and the
> > non-past form
> > as derived after wa- came to be seen as a "tense
> > switcher". He suggests
> > an etymology hawaya "was". I seem to remember
> > that Akkadian forms a past
> > in u-; but if that's so, Hetzron evidently thinks it
> > unrelated. Of
> > course, we can't tell what the original vocalisation
> > was; it would be
> > too good to be true if the prefix were the only tense
> > marker.
>
>
>
>

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