Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

[anstey:]
>If the binyamin denote different types of action
>surely they must be a variable in aspect? Instead of asking, "what does
qtl
>do?" should we say "what does qal qtl do? what does niphal qtl do?" etc.
>With 7 stems and 9 (or more) forms, that's 63 questions instead of 9
>questions! [end anstey]

sorry to be negative but--
wrong path. even dangerous for students.
unless you want an english grammar to describe the different tenses of
concentrated/immigrated, versus showed-up/ threw-up/stood-up/ate-up versus
included/induced.
the binyanim create vocabulary and are not 1-to-1 predictable on the basis
of etymology.  
that is a commonplace illusion created by teaching hebrew as though an
individual actively puts roots into binyanim. rather, one extracts roots
from words, which is what historically happened in the middle ages. of
course, the language community may collectively accept coinages of roots in
a binyan, that is how new vocabulary is formed, and an individual has every
right to 'individualate' and 'pontificize' and to 'coinate' new words,
which mean exactly what they are supposed to mean. :-))

the problem with hebrew is not its description. hebrew remains fine, though
the descriptions may not be self-consistent. linguists have not finished
describing english yet either. it helps beginning students to match
situations/meanings directly with utterances. they can be named past,
perfect, definite, 'suffix' or past/perfect later, for what it's worth.

braxot