Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Thank you, Henry, for your helpful explanation. The situation reminds 
me of the English simple past "did" and past participle "done". For 
95% of verbs these forms are identical and one could assume they came 
from the same paradigm. Then one finds those exceptions, mostly 
"strong" verbs, in which the forms are different. Or how about the 
English subjunctive, which differs from the indicative only in 3rd 
person singular forms and for the verb "to be", and is rapidly dying 
because people fail to recognise its distinctiveness (so instead of 
"if I were... I would" they say "if I was... I would"). Yet there is 
no doubt that these were originally separate paradigms and that there 
are semantic distinctions which are still made.

Peter Kirk