Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dexter Garnier" <dgarnier AT sohncom.org>]

posted recently:

> 
>>
>>The "a" sound is the Aramaic form for a noun with the definite article
>>suffixed (aleph and sometime heh), called the emphatic/determinative state
>>vs BH where the article is prefixed.

First my apologies to Jim West and to the list for thinking the "a" sound
being discussed was the suffix and not the prefix. I must have gotten
confused when Hawaiian "Aloha" was injected into the thread :-).

>
> Yes indeed--- but would you show an example of the determinative suffixed to
> the word 'elah? I dont recall any examples of it in aramaic

Dan 2:20, 3:26, 3:32, 5:3, 5:21, 5:26, 6:21, 6:27
Ezra 4:24, 5:2 (twice), 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17; 6:3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 16, 17, 18
(all BHS not English references).
Also, Genesis Apocryphon (Fitzmyer) Col. 21, lines 2, 3, 8; 22, lines 27,
32.

>- and I know it
> does not occur in the example we have been discussing which has no
> determinative but a personal pronoun suffixed.  In any event, even if the
> determinative suffix were affixed to eloha it would have nothing to do with
> the pronunciation of the first syllable of the word, since it would only
> affect the syllable to which it would be attached- i.e., the last.
>

Yes. But perhaps it is noteworthy (perhaps not) that in Syriac the first
vowel of )LH is pethaha/pethoho, thought to carry an "a" sound.

>>
>>Syriac also has the emphatic state which has the "a" sound (with Syriac alaf
>>suffixed) but it had by that time weakened so that whether the noun is
>>determinative  or not is ambiguous (p. 40, Muroaka, _Classical Syriac for
>>Hebraists_). Though in Joosten, _Syriac Language of Peshitta and Old Syriac
>>Versions of Matthew_, the use of pronouns can help to distinguish a
>>determinative noun.
>
> Again, suffixed to the end of the word- which has nothing to do with the
> pronunciation of the first syllable.
>

See above about "aloha."

Dexter Garnier
San Francisco, CA