The Use of the Canaanite Infinitive Absolute as a Finite Verb in the Amarna Letters from Byblos

Abstract

Attention was called in the preceding article to the Amarna construction qatali + independent personal pronoun and its bearing on the Karatepe construction qtl/yqtl 'nD 1 A more detailed study is in place. A new entry in Canaanite and Phoenician grammar, the construction merits close analysis, especially in vieur of the conflicting interpretations hitherto offered. Of the various interpretations of the Karatepe construction only two merit serious consideration.2 The one maintains that qtZ and yqtZ are respectively Qal and Yiftil participles construed with the personal pronoun in a narrative sense;3 the other, that qtt and yqtt are rather infinitives absolute used +rith the force of finite verbs, the personal pronoun functioning as agent/subJect of the infinitive.4 Since Amarna oSers irrefutable evidence on the side of the latter, there would be little purpose in subJecting the arguments for the first view to a detailed criticism. However, this much should be said: while the attempt, which they represent, to put a puzzling construction into