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  • From: "Bryan Rocine" <brocine AT earthlink.net>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: mitaslem
  • Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 08:46:49 -0400


Dear Wondell,

you wrote:
<snip>
> So from what I gather here, the prefix 'Mit'(Mem Tav)
means 'one who has
> converted' and the suffix could be the religion or
philosophy. Am I right?
> It sounds a lot like Arabic, where the prefix 'MU'(Meem)
indicates "One
> who is" and the suffix ending describes a quality or
characteristic to
> which the individual personifies.

I think *mit* is more properly referred to as a preformative
than a prefix, the reason being that it does not bear
meaning in and of itself in the same way as a prefixed *bet*
meaning *in* or a prefixed *mem* plus gemination meaning
*from*. How ever *mit* may be used in a number of words
related to some sort of conversion, it does not in itself
mean conversion. Rather, it is the preformative for the
hitpa`el participle, a verb in the hitpa`el stem often
having a reflexive sense. For instance, whereas *qadash* in
the qal stem means *he (it) is holy*, and *qiddash* in the
piel stem means *he sanctified [something]*, hitpa`el
*hitqaddesh* means *he sanctified himself* or *he showed
himself to be sanctified*. Whereas conversion may in some
sense be considered a reflexive act, we overgeneralize to
say that any verb in the hitpa`el stem is somehow related to
a conversion.

Shalom,
Bryan


B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

(office) 315.437.6744
(home) 315.479.8267






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