Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Joe A. Friberg" <JoeFriberg AT email.msn.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Henry Churchyard <churchyh AT ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 1999 4:10 AM


> > Subject: 4 Misc. Questions
> > From: "Joseph Brian Tucker" <music AT riverviewcog.org>
> > Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 16:45:1
>
> > 1. I am looking for some bibliography on the 3 letter reconstructions
> > being artifical in BH roots. If the first two radicals are the same
> > and the third is different but are connected words isn't the 3
> > letter root concept forced?
>
> Yes and no -- the "biliterals" do show somewhat different forms from
> the "triliterals" in some forms, but in other cases three consonants
> in root positions do appear even in forms derived from biliteral roots
> (e.g. _sobhebh_ "turning around", participle).  In theoretical
> phonology since the 1980's, linguists have recognized a distinction
> between the lexical roots, which may possibly contain only two
> featurally-specified consonantal "melodies", and the syllabic or
> prosodic templates associated with the various morphological stem
> types in which root consonants are embedded.  It is this phonological
> embedding (or "autosegmental association") of roots in templates which
> can cause a two-consonant root to appear as three consonants in some
> cases such as _sobhebh_.

I would agree that the phenomenon of biradical roots which are frequently
listed in traditional grammars/lexicons as triradicals of the form '122'
provide a piece of the evidence that the triradical root model is forced.

To be specific on the notion of 'autosegmental associations', let me try to
give a graphical representation of SOBEB, though this is likely to come
across messy with various proportional fonts:

S       B         root
|       /    \        (lines are supposed to connect the second two C's with
the B above)
C V C V C        template
    |      |        (lines are supposed to connect the V's with the vowels
below)
   O    E        vowel melody

Specific bibliography: John McCarthy. 1979. Formal Problems in Semitic
Phonology and Morphology. Cambridge: MIT diss.  See also his journal article
about the same time (could be 1980 or 81).  See also summary in Michael
Kenstowicz. 1994. Phonology in Generative Grammar. Cambridge: Blackwell.

This representation of the template is now a bit archaic, but it serves as
an illustrative schematic.

This analysis is even more necessary in Aramaic, where the radical that is
doubled depends on the interaction of the template structure with the
biradical:

/(L/ gives (AL in the qal, with no doubling present
/ND/ gives NADDAT in the qal, doubling the second radical (as expected)
/DQ/ gives HADDIQU in the hifil, doubling the first radical (!)
/DQ/ gives HITTeDAQ in the hithpeel, doubling a prefixal consonant (!)

The Aramaic data was the subject of my thesis: 1996. Aramaic
Prosodic-Morphological Verb Patterns: An Optimality Theoretic Approach.
University of Texas at Arlington.

God Bless!

Joe A. Friberg
Arlington, Texas
JoeFriberg AT alumni.utexas.net
MA Linguistics
MA Theology candidate