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# The Wayyiqtol as 'Pluperfect': When and Why

**Authors:** C. John Collins · **Year:** 1995 · **Venue:** Tyndale Bulletin 46.1:117–140 **Link:** [tyndalebulletin.org/article/30401.pdf](https://www.tyndalebulletin.org/article/30401.pdf) · library `hbo-1995-collins-wayyiqtol-pluperfect-why` · **Licence:** [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) per OpenAlex only, not confirmed in the PDF — treated as read only, summary only, never carried into a release

[**1** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4205391176) openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14[**1** citations in our library](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/cited-by/hbo-1995-collins-wayyiqtol-pluperfect-why/) of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read[Tyndale Bulletin](https://openalex.org/S98946164)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.53751/001c.30401)
- [PDF](https://www.tyndalebulletin.org/article/30401.pdf)
- [DOI 10.53751/001c.30401](https://doi.org/10.53751/001c.30401)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4205391176)

**Authors (1)**

1. [C. John Collins](https://openalex.org/A5014538297) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/144724235) · h 5 · 158 citations · 16 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex-snapshot (2026-10-14); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

Normally a wayyiqtol moves the story forward, and a pluperfect ("had done") is said with a qatal after a fronted element. Collins asks whether a wayyiqtol alone, with no preceding qatal, can mean a pluperfect. He surveys Driver (who allowed it only at the start of a section), Waltke–O'Connor, Martin, Baker and Buth's "unmarked temporal overlay", and concludes that it can, when at least one of three conditions holds: (1) an anaphoric expression points back to an event already told; (2) the logic of the referents requires the event to precede the previous one; (3) the verb opens a section or paragraph. Applied to two disputed verses, the reading is rejected for 1 Sam 14:24 and accepted for Gen 2:19 (the animals "had been formed").

## Ideas

- I1. A "wayyiqtol overlay" flag in the event reader: when a wayyiqtol repeats the lexeme of an earlier event in the same episode (condition 1), do not order it after the preceding event; mark the relation as `overlay` instead of `next`.
- I2. Condition 3 as a rule: a wayyiqtol directly after a paragraph mark or a וַיְהִי + time phrase does not inherit the "after the previous clause" relation.
- I3. Collect the candidate verses Collins and Driver list (in the Torah, among others: Gen 2:2, 2:8, 2:19, 12:1, 26:18; Exod 4:19, 11:1, 18:2, 33:5; Lev 9:22; Num 1:47–49) as a small gold set for the event-order rule, with Collins's verdicts.
- I4. Record in the grammar that the overlay reading is a *licensed* exception and say which condition licenses it in each listed verse.

## For Mova

I1–I2 apply to the event chain built from the trees (the `world` reading of the Torah, and the wayyiqtol mainline in `09-discourse.md` §1). I3 is a test set; I4 goes into [The verb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/06-verb/) under wayyiqtol.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.53751/001c.30401](https://doi.org/10.53751/001c.30401)

```
@article{collins1995wayyiqtol,
  title = {{The Wayyiqtol as 'Pluperfect': When and Why}},
  author = {Collins, C. John},
  journal = {Tyndale Bulletin},
  year = {1995},
  doi = {10.53751/001c.30401},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.53751/001c.30401}
}
```

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