Book
English
ID: <
10670/1.ljbcgf>
Abstract
The paper argues that the discourse dependency of Biblical Hebrew consecutive weqaṭal and wayyiqṭol forms is encoded in their semantic structure and is not just an implicature of the context. This is a heritage of their historical origin in subordinate constructions with temporal integration between clauses. The historical development of consecutive weqaṭal and wayyiqṭol proposed has typological parallels in Neo-Aramaic and involves the extension through schematisation of constructions containing dependent clauses (apodosis and purpose clause, respectively). The old narrative construction of waw + past perfective yiqṭol expressing chains of events was preserved due to a process in which it was reanalysed as an extension of a different, but structurally similar, construction, viz. waw + jussive yiqṭol.