Abstract
THE DECIPHERMENT of the Ras Shamra alphabet is one of the recent achievements in the field of Oriental studies. Following the completion of this task,1 the interpretation of the available texts will occupy Semitists for some time to come. All interpreters, from the very outset, face the intricate problem of the meaning which is to be assigned to the different inflectional types of the verb in the new language. Both types so familiar from the other Semitic languages, qtl and yqtl, recur. But the student who approaches the Ugaritic epics with West Semitic, or even Hebrew, grammar in mind is startled by the fact that the long narrative passages they contain are for the most part in the -imperfect (yqtl) and sporadically in the perfect (qtl). Furthermore, he finds the perfecte (qtl) apparently also outside narration. His amazement results from a wrong attitude. The new language, in spite of its close relationship to Canaanite, must be explained from within itself. The evidence of the texts, when evaluated without prejudice, warrants the conclusion (which in fact has already been drawn by others2 that in Ugaritic the theme yqtl serves as the preterite in the narration and that qtl is limited to
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