Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Reinhard G.Lehmann" <lehmann AT mail.Uni-Mainz.de>]

Henry Churchyard wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas on the 2nd.fem.sg. ending, as attached to
> plural nouns, -aykhi (Gesenius-Kautzsch p. 258)?  Iknow that the
> 2nd.fem.sg suffix in general was originally -kii, but original -ay-
> usually monophthongizes in oenvironements like this...  Also, this
> ending only appears in two passages where the fem.sg. "you" being
> addressed is the soul.
> 
>        Psalms 103:3     l AT khol-tah.a~luu'aaykhii
>        Psalms 103:3               `a~woonaaykhii (some manuscripts)
>        Psalms 103:4                 h.ayyaaykhii
>        Psalms 103:5                n@`uuraaykhii
>        Psalms 116:7              limnuuh.aaykhii
>        Psalms 116:7                  `aalaaykhii

As proposed by Gary Rendsburgh, these endings 2fsg aaykhiiseem to be 
dialectal:

The old (proto-)semitic form isretained in 2 K 4:2 Kt 4:3 Kt 4:7 Kt (2x) 
Jer 11:15 Ps 103:3 (2x) 103:4 (2x) 103:5 116:7 (2x) 116:19 119:9 137:6 
Ctc 2:13 Kt. Since that form occures also in Aramaic, at first glance 
it seems to be regional variation, possibly as a phneomenon of language 
contact. Four items are in the mouth of the northern prophet Elisha, 
eight are in Ps 103 und Ps 116, which also contain other northernisms. 
Also Canticles, for other linguistic reasons, can be localized to the 
north. So 13 from the total of 16 ocurences of this form are in texts 
containing also other forms of Israeli (i.e. northern) Hebrew.

For more detailed information look at:

Rendsburg, Gary A., Linguistic Evidence for the Northern Origin of 
Selected Psalms, Atlanta 1990 (SBL Monograph Series 43).
Rendsburg, Gary A., The Strata of Biblical Hebrew: JNWSL 17 (1991) 
81-99.
Rendsburg, Gary A., Morphological Evidence for Regional Dialects in 
Ancient Hebrew, in: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew, ed. Walter R. 
Bodine, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1992, 65-88.

sincerely
reinhard g.lehmann
 
       *****************************************
       Reinhard G. Lehmann
       Lect. for Classical Hebrew and Aramaic
       Johannes-Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz
       D - 55099 Mainz
       tel: +49 - 6131 - 39 3284
       mailto:lehmann AT mail.uni-mainz.de
       look at http://www.uni-mainz.de/~lehmann/link.html
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