Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On the subject of dictionary organization, I am in agreement with Peter Kirk
that the organization of Holladay is acceptable and useful for most
purposes, but that what is needed is cross referencing.  While Holladay does
essentially recognize the lexical distinctness of the different stems, or as
Randall Buth has pointed out in the subsequent post, the deriviational
nature of these stems, the clustering around roots also has its usefulness.

The simple way to accomplish the desired end of cross-referencing is simply
to switch from paper to electronic medium.  A good search engine provides
even better links than do physical the cross-references!  This format with
accessible links on several levels (roots, inflectional and derivational
morphology) provides multiple point of entry, makes the actual sequencing
question irrelevant, and comes close to what I would conceive a real
speaker's mental lexicon to look like.

My 2 cents worth!
Blessings,
Joe F.

----- Original Message -----
From: <peter_kirk AT sil.org>
<snip>
> I would list these in order of roots and/or of nouns, basically as in
> Holladay, but all out of order verb forms would be cross-referenced as
> with NODA` above. Actually apart from this (and not listing puals and
> hophals separately) I am more-or-less following Holladay. Also I would
> make sure that what appears at the top of each page is the root, not
> (as in BDB) the derived form - this would be so much more helpful for
> finding places.
>
> My feeling is that the resulting dictionary would be much more useful
> to beginners and intermediate students (and probably experts also)
> than the one you are proposing. I think it is also theoretically in no
> way inferior.