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This article studies the compliance of Biblical Hebrew (BH) interjections with the formal prototype of interjections formulated in linguistic typology. The authors demonstrate that, globally, the lexical class of interjections in Biblical Hebrew exhibits a semi-canonical and thus semi-extra-systematic profile as far as its form is concerned. Locally, the levels of canonicity and extra-systematicity of BH interjections are uneven—high in morphology and moderate in phonology and syntax.

This article analyzes the relationship that exists between the qatal and wayyiqtol forms in Biblical Hebrew. It provides a twofold approach, based on complexity theory, fuzziology, cognitive linguistics and the theory of dynamic semantic maps, on the one hand, as well as on an original empirical study involving all the instances of the two grams in the book of Genesis, on the other. As a result, the article advances a model of an intricate, multi-level and dynamic interaction of qatal and wayyiqtol in terms of two kinetic waves that spread along a grammaticalization channel recursively used in the language—in this case, the resultative stream.

This article approaches the problem of the precative qatal in Biblical Hebrew from a cognitive and typological perspective. In keeping with the cognitive understanding of “meaning,” the article (re-)construes a plausible chaining procedure that relates the precative qatal to the prevailing indicative (perfect, perfective and past) domain of the gram. This chaining represents a typologically plausible scenario for rationalizing, on both conceptual and diachronic levels, the “spread” that can be observed from the central point of the network (the Proto-Semitic resultative proper sense) to the different values available in Biblical Hebrew. In this way, the article relates the two, superficially contradictory, semantic spheres (i.e., the perfect-perfective-past indicative and the precative), and advances a holistic-synchronic definition of the total semantic potential of the gram.

The Biblical Hebrew (henceforth, BH) suffix conjugation qatal— besides other meanings and functions1—is occasionally employed in order to perform acts (1.a) rather than to describe a situation or an activity (1.b). This means that, if determined conventional cir- cumstances are respected, the fact of uttering a given proposition with the verb in the qatal triggers a new state in the speaker’s reality. This is what scholars have been referring to as the ‘performative qatal,’ a use of the suffix conjugation where it appears2 with a clear performative force. This particular sense or function of the BH gram3 constitutes the object of the present paper.

A concise, non-reductionist and non-taxonomist synchronically valid definition of the Biblical Hebrew wayyiqtol is based on findings of evolutionary linguistics and panchronic methodology. The author demonstrates the following: all semantic and functional properties (such as taxis, aspectual, temporal, modal and discourse-pragmatic values) of the wayyiqtol may be unified and rationalized as a single dynamic category: advanced portions of the anterior and simultaneous trajectories developed within the three temporal spheres and, additionally, contextualized by the incorporation of an originally independent lexeme with a coordinative-consecutive force.

This article demonstrates that applying the panchronic methodology (based on the grammaticalization and path theories as well as on principles of cognitive linguistics) all apparently heterogeneous meanings provided by the BH yiqtol can be explained as manifestations of a consistent phenomenon. The yiqtol may be defined as portions of the imperfective and modal ability paths which jointly derive from a single lexically transparent and cognitively plausible input, a reduplicated participle as reconstructed for the PS *yaqattal. The author shows that the BH construction is a direct functional descendent of the PS *yaqattal which, after having suffered several analogical processes, was superficially modified to a shape based on the *yaqtul-u finally yielding the BH yiqtol.