The Hebrew Waw-Consecutive as a North-West Semitic Augment

In English The classical problem of the Hebrew consecutive tenses is here attacked from a different angle: that of comparative language typology. The article explores parallel typological developments between West Semitic and early Indo-European as pertains to the creation of verbal forms by means of adding an “augment” or temporalizing particle to otherwise Aktionsart- or aspect-based morphological constructs. A typological comparison between the consecutive wāw and the Indo-European augment is used to highlight some of the factors which might have been involved in the genesis of the consecutive forms, as well as to illustrate some of the typological similarities in verbal syntax in the two phyla.