Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

forgot to add b-hebrew:
---------- Forwarded Message ----------

From:   yochanan bitan, 113313,266
TO:     Gregory and Carol Yeager, INTERNET:cgyeager AT mwci.net
DATE:   4/23/99 16:33

RE:     Copy of: Re: Directions to Grammar

re: waltke-o'conner grammar, someone wrote:
> The discussion on stems is the first I have ever
> read that actually makes sense, and is true to the original language. 

the above note on stems needs a broader framework and perspective if it is
not to mislead. 

students don't often notice that grammar books are presenting 
ETYMOLOGY as though it were synchronic semantics and students often assume
that that is synchronically valid. w-o'c's talking about a "living stem
system" is potentially misleading. students often assume/conclude that
etymological 'roots' are real 'words'.

what barr did for the lexicon 30 years ago, warning against etymology,
needs to be remembered for morphology, too. roots + stems (binyanim) do NOT
predict meaning. it works the other way round. 

usage establishes the meaning that the language community chose and then
linguists group the choices and discuss the pedigree of sub-groups.
anyway, i read what w-o'c wrote when it came out, it was a detailed survey
of scholarship (except stuff written in hebrew) and is full of good
examples. but needs to be taken with some large pinches of salt, especially
on the binyanim, verbs, verbless clause and participles.

personally, i often find that jouon-muraoka have a better feel for the
language itself, though it is not laid out and formatted as nicely, as well
as cristo v.d.merwe's new work "BH reference grammar for students".
braxot
randall buth