7. The Linguistic Reality behind the Consecutive Tenses

Chapter 7 starts using the main components in the verbal system established in the preceding chapters, the short yiqṭol, the long yiqṭol, qaṭal, and the relatively recent construction wa-qaṭal. It also accounts for the active participle qoṭel, which increasingly competes with the long yiqṭol as a finite imperfective morpheme. It reinterprets the theory of consecutive tenses by performing a systematic investigation of clause linking in Classical Hebrew with special emphasis on the discourse level. The chapter presents the fundamental alternation between discourse continuity and discourse discontinuity, and shows that the distinction has a signal, the switch from a wa-Verb clause-type, with the usual natural language connective wa-, to one with a discontinuity clause-type. The traditional hypothesis of a special ‘consecutive’ wa- is therefore unwarranted. This chapter is the centre of the book, and a regeneration of the text linguistics of Classical Hebrew. Since it is mainly concerned with the linguistic reality behind the consecutive tenses, the emphasis lies on the continuity clause-types wa(y)-yiqṭol and wa-qaṭal (both wa-Verb), especially when they form chains of main line clauses that are interrupted by discontinuity clauses.