308 ISSN 1013-8471 Journal for Semitics 21/2 (2012) pp. 308-339 THE DYNAMIC SHORT YIQTOL 1 A. ANDRASON ABSTRACT The present paper offers a dynamic definition of a Biblical Hebrew verbal gram, frequently referred to as the “short yiqtol”, in which the verbal form is portrayed as a realization of a universal developmental path. Various pieces of synchronic (taxonomy of uses provided in Biblical Hebrew), diachronic (Proto-Semitic origin of the construction and its posterior behavior in Rabbinic and Modern Hebrew) and comparative evidence (values of cognate formations such as iprus and yaqtul in Akkadian and Arabic, respectively) – as well as certain typological facts observable in the Semitic family, in Mandinka and in Spanish – enable the author to classify the gram as a prototypical manifestation of the modal contamination cline, followed by an original resultative input. In this manner, the semantic and functional properties of the short yiqtol can be logically related to the same morphological pattern displayed by the wayyiqtol, a formation with which the short yiqtol shares its origin. Consequently, the whole short prefix- morphology becomes semantically and functionally homogenous, and its growth cognitively plausible: while the yiqtol entity in the wayyiqtol reflects a continuation of the resultative path, that is both directly derivable from and cognitively motivated by the input locution, the form of the short yiqtol category corresponds to the modal contamination of that resultative source. INTRODUCTION Short yiqtol and its classification The topic of the present paper is a Biblical Hebrew (BH) verbal construction which – in accordance with its morphological shape and following the convention commonly employed in labeling components of the BH verbal system (e.g. qatal, yiqtol, wayyiqtol) – we will refer to as “short yiqtol”. The formation may be illustrated by the following examples: (1) a 2 Kgs 2:16 1 This present paper is a result of an ongoing research project carried out in co- operation with Prof. Christo van der Merwe in the Department of Ancient Studies, University of Stellenbosch. Certain portions of this article may partially coincide with ideas included in Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (extended and revised edition; forthcoming 2013) composed by C. H. J. van der Merwe and J. Naudé. I would like to thank Professor van der Merwe for all the encouragement in writing this article and, especially, for his highly valuable comments on my linguistic ideas.