Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Qal waw-consecutive imperfect

You covered the waw-consecutive back in college and we have covered it in class noting that it is often a waw "continuative," carrying forward or continuing the action of the preceding verb. Some reminders:

1. The VC Imperfect is formed by waw pointed with patach and followed by dagesh forte.
2. Before the 1st singular it is -וָאֶ; since will not allow dagesh forte, the patach is lengthened.
3. There can't be any intervening word or particle between a waw consecutive and its verb (they are attached as a single verb form).
4. When there is a shorter form of an imperfect (the jussive form), such as יְהִי for יִהְיֶה, the waw-consecutive will prefer the shortened form וַיְּהִי, which can only be waw-consecutive imperfect (i.e., there is no such thing as a waw-consecutive jussive).
5. Waw-consecutive imperfects that begin a new section, new chapter, or even a new book, do not really continue anything from the preceding but begin new: "Now it happened that..."

The full list of qal forms are:

3 m sg       וַיִּקְטֹל
3 f sg        וַתִּקְטֹל
2 m sg      וַתִּקְטֹל
2 f sg      וַתִּקְטְלִי
1 sg           וָאֶקְטֹל
3 m pl        וַיִּקְטְלוּ
3 f pl      וַתִּקְטֹ֫לְנָה
2 m pl       וַתִּקְטְלוּ
2 f pl      וַתִּקְטֹ֫לְנָה
1 pl               וַנִּקְטֹל

No comments:

Post a Comment