[b-hebrew] Stress periods in Biblical Hebrew
David Steinberg
david.l.steinberg at rogers.com
Mon Sep 22 15:08:36 EDT 2008
As many of you will know, one of the best Hebraist cum Arabists of the
second half of the 20th century was Joshua Blau.
In Torat Hahege Vehatzurot (1972) and A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew ,
Porta Linguarum Orientalium 1976 (and presumably the upcoming
/Biblical// Hebrew Phonology and Morphology/, Eisenbrauns, ISBN
1575061295) Dr. Blau outlined a series of pre-Tiberian stress periods.
However, he did not state how these stress periods related to the
historical-cultural periods of ancient Judah. I would be grateful if any
scholar could respond to the following
- Would I be correct in understanding that the third Proto-Hebrew (=
pre-Tiberian) stress period corresponds to the situation of formal
literary Jerusalem Hebrew of say 750-600 B.C.E. while the changes of the
fourth Proto-Hebrew stress period might have commenced in the spoken
Hebrew of that period?*
* - In A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (1st. ed.) sect. 9.1.3 Blau wrote
" At that period, there were still the contrasting forms of the
indicative yo:'_k_al (ultimate stress) < yo-:'_k_alu, and the jussive
'yo-_k_al (penultimate stress)." Would I be correct in understanding
that Blau's view is that this distinction was maintained in the strong
verb of the third stress period? i.e.
Qal - Indicative - yiq'tol; Jussive - 'yiqtol; Preterite - way'yiqtol
Piel - Indicative - yaqat'til or y?qat'tel; Jussive - ya'qattil or
y?'qattel; Preterite - wayya'qattil or wayy?'qattel
Niphal - Indicative - yiqqa'til or yiqqa'tel; Jussive - yiq'qatil or
yiq'qatel; Preterite - wayyiq'qatil or wayyiq'qatel
Hiphil - Indicative - yaq'ti:l; Jussive - 'yaqtil or 'yaqtel; Preterite
- way'yaqtil or way'yaqtel
Hithpiel - Indicative - yitqat'til or yitqat'tel; Jussive - yit'qattil
or yit'qattel; Preterite - wayyit'qattil or wayyit'qattel
David Steinberg
Ottawa, Canada
http://www.houseofdavid.ca/
David.Steinberg at houseofdavid.ca <mailto:David.Steinberg at houseofdavid.ca>
More information about the b-hebrew
mailing list