§14. In broad terms QATAL can be described as a verb form functioning retrospectively, used in narrative and in discourse, but in different ways. Generally, it is not a narrative form, in spite of what most grammars say (but cf. §148), unlike WAYYIQTOL, precisely because instead of being used to convey information concerning the ‘degree zero’ (i.e. the tense of the narrative, §3), it conveys recovered information (an antecedent event or flashback) or even a comment on