263 Waltke and O’Connor 1990, 607. The uses of with infinitive constructs are displayed
in section 9.3.2.3.1 below, followed by further discussion of its uses. Secondly, in §38.7, in the chapter entitled Subordination, they comment that
[t]he majority of dependent temporal clauses are formed with an infinitive introduced by a preposition. There are a variety of other temporal clause
types, however, introduced by other particles. These may be classified according to the temporal relation of the main clause situation and that of
the subordinate clause. Waltke and O’Connor 1990, 643
The ten examples they provide are of different temporal particles which indicate contemporary, later, or preceding temporal situations, referring to the “temporal relation
of the main clause situation and that of the subordinate clause” Waltke and O’Connor 1990, 643. For example, according to Waltke and O’Connor,
indicates a later situation.
The third section deals with clausal adverbs, discussing deictic and independent temporal adverbs. These adverbs are listed with their corresponding lexical meanings,
but no examples of usage are given. Even though a variety of temporal expressions are catalogued in Waltke and O’Connor, there are numerous issues of their uses and
functions that are not touched on in their volume on syntax.
9.2.1.8 Pratico and Van Pelt, The Basics of Biblical Hebrew
In the recent grammar by Pratico and Van Pelt, the use of prepositions with the Infinitive Construct is discussed as follows:
When prefixed with the prepositions or , the Infinitive Construct may be used in a temporal clause. When used in this way, the prepositions
and are translated either ‘when’ or ‘while.’ Frequently, in this construction, the Infinitive Construct will also have a pronominal suffix.
Pratico and Van Pelt 2001, 244
264 Regarding the time reference of the infinitive, Pratico and Van Pelt state that the
temporal modifiers and
“provide the context for determining the temporal value” Pratico and Van Pelt 2001, 245. According to this grammar, the “temporal
modifier signals past tense narration and the temporal modifier
signals future tense narration” Pratico and Van Pelt 2001, 245, providing the temporal value for the
otherwise atemporal infinitive construct. This claim regarding the function of requires further analysis and will be discussed in Chapter 10.
In the section dealing with Exceptions to Word Order with Verb First §23.3, Pratico and Van Pelt have two more comments regarding temporal expressions. The first
is: While the verb does usually stand first in a sentence or clause, it may also
be preceded by an adverb of time, an adverbial phrase, the word behold, a temporal modifier
or , an expression that provides
context or circumstantial information or an independent personal pronoun for emphasis. Pratico and Van Pelt 2001, 272
The assumption of verb-first word order is valid for specific types of clauses in certain contexts. Pratico and Van Pelt’s three examples do indeed have verbs in the first
position, but there is no consideration given to the fact that the examples come from very different text-types. The first example is from narrative and begins with a
WAYYIQTOL
, whereas the other two examples are from poetry. The verbs in these poetic examples are
a
QATAL
and an imperative. At first glance, this may seem inconsequential or it may be the understandable result of Pratico and Van Pelt’s decision to present “only the most
basic issues of sentence structure” Pratico and Van Pelt 2001, 272, but it is crucial that even the most basic examples be carefully selected from the same text type. To say that
265 the three examples in §23.3 are evidence of verb first word order describes the surface
form, but does not take into account the syntactic and contextual factors that motivated the occurrence of these verbs in first position. When claims are made that certain
syntactic patterns or word orders are characteristic of a language, extreme care needs to be exercised to control the variables in order to make the most valid statement possible.
The desire to present “the most basic issues of sentence structure” is valid, but certain fundamental concepts and theoretical notions must always be operative. All of the
examples in §23.3 should have come from narrative, or some comment should have been made acknowledging the different text-type sources from which the examples came.
The second comment in §23.3 is that the “verb may be preceded by a temporal clause beginning with
or . Two examples are given, one with and the other
with , which give the impression, unfortunately, that very little difference, if any, exists between these two prepositions. This is congruent with the statement cited above that
“the prepositions and are translated either ‘when’ or ‘while,’ ” which also indicates that these prepositions are assumed to be interchangeable. This matter will not be
discussed further here, but will be dealt with later in this chapter after the occurrences of and
have been displayed.
9.2.1.9 van der Merwe et al, Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar
