Please join us in Rosenwald 301 on Friday, April 5 at 3:30 PM for the first LVC of the Spring Quarter! Andrew Zulker will be presenting a diachronic account for a verbal form in Biblical Hebrew.

The Enigmatic Verbal System of Biblical Hebrew: Refining the Diachronic Account

The Biblical Hebrew verbal system has been described as an “enigma” (McFall 1982). On the surface, there are two basic forms: a prefix conjugation, traditionally called the “Imperfect,” and a suffix conjugation, traditionally called the “Perfect.” By itself, the prefix conjugation normally has a future, habitual, or modal sense, whereas the suffix conjugation most often refers to single events in the past (the exact semantic values of each form are a matter of ongoing debate). When immediately preceded by the conjunction w- ‘and’, however, the semantic values are reversed: the prefix conjugation refers to single events in the past, while the suffix conjugation has a future, habitual, or modal sense. In the case of the prefix conjugation, the reason for the apparent semantic “conversion” has been largely clarified, by comparative evidence indicating that there were historically two prefix conjugations with distinct semantic values. For the suffix conjugation, however, there can only be one etymon. This talk will present new research that builds on the view that the semantic value of the suffix conjugation with w- originated in conditional sentences, and will show how phonological developments, semantic shifts, word order phenomena, and a special use of w- all conspired to produce the verbal system’s unusual configuration.