Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <brocine AT earthlink.net>]

Dear Randall,  And thank you for some fun comments.  I have
a couple come-backs below.

> thank you, bryan, for some delightful innovation.
> a flower will sprout and grow.
>
> The grade, I hope, is superfluous.
>
> Questions/comments on the text go in three general
directions:
> a. details of form, grammatical correctness
> b. choice of vocabulary or construction, style.
> c. translation/intended communication
>
> I will label comments below with -a-, -b-, -c- to point
out the type.
>
> >1. (title) hatsitsah le'ariyel
>  -b- nice word, but tsits and peraH are more common.
>   [NB: plural tsitsim must be avoided because of Modern
Hebrew slang for
> women's breasts
> (it comes via yiddish not BH).]
> -b- ariyel is more a boy's name, though used for Jerusalem
in Bible and is
> also a cultic object. Today we use ariyela.
>  [This raises a continual problem, whether to push BH to
where it probably
> was, or could have gone (i.e. into the black holes of the
language), or to
> conform to later usage. Here, I would choose a different
name that is
> clearly feminine.]
>
> >2. 'ariyel halak:t `al haderek
>  -a- halexa [a.k.a.:'halekah'] is best, or holexet
>  -b- badderex instead of `al hadderex.
>  -c- 'walker' is not good English. In Hebrew I would
assume that the
> storyteller is already telling us about one particular
incident on one
> particular day.

Would you say that halekah is a better choice than holeket
because the entire narrative is framed in "a walk"?  On the
other hand, walking as an activity that is *not* on-gonig
throughout the narrative as I think holeket might express.
I think it's a subtle distinction that is not necessarily
always maintained in BH.  As the story is written, I would
not assume that the story teller is referring to one
particular incident in the same manner that wayyiqtol would
represent.  O.k., the walk can be taken as a "blob," in its
entirety, as an event, but my student said she wanted to
present a timeframe into which the narrative could fit.
I.e. the whole narrative fit into a walk like Gen 22:1.

>
> >3. vatishax lareyx 'et tsitsah
>  -a- lehariaH 'to smell'
>  -a- ha-tsitsah , article is necessary with et, and et is
necessary for one
> of the characters of the story.

You mean once the tsitsah is identified as a character int
he story, right?  In this particular clause the spring has
not yet been sprung, that is, the flower is just a flower,
not a character.  It would be during all that follows that
it would be 'et tsitsah, right?  So the 'et in this clause
should go.

> on the other hand, lehariaH ha-tsitsah, without et but
with 'ha-', is
> possible for something marginal.
>  -c- (unless poetic 'she bent down at the smell of ...
kafefa lereaH ...)
>  -b- shaH (qal) and nashaH (nif`al), are problematic, they
are poetic for
> being low, dishonored, in mourning.

We talked about that.  I think she wanted a sad Ariyel.  She
would do well to insert a verbless clause about the
condition of Ariyel's nephesh, I'd say.

>    for literal, try:
> kare`a/vattixra`  'she crouched down', or
> kafefa/kappa/vattaxof 'she bent over'.
>   another word, (possibly more literal than *sh-H-H ), and
very rare in BH,
> would be shaHeta/vattIshaH (vattishaH: accent on '-ti-',
from li-shHot 'to
> bend down' *sh-H-h ).
>   all the above is why we use   le-hitkofef   today. :-)
>
> >4. vehineh hatsitsah dibar:t
>  -a-  dibbera
>  -b-  vehinne dibbera ha-peraH.  vehinne with suffix verb
strongly prefers
> VS order, especially since the surprise is a completed
event rather than an
> on-going process.
>  -c-  "And behold, it was the flower that was a speaker
(X-qatal)" The flow
> of the story would be the single event of speaking here.
There is no focus
> on flower as though distinguishing from among two assumed
speakers.

Doesn't the natural impossiblility of a flower speaking
warrant a focus?  Our world-knowledge tells us there is only
one "real" candidate for a speaker in the story, Ariyel.  So
while the fronted element does not distinguish *between*
speakers, its clarifies the surprising truth: there *are*
two speakers.  And if you buy this, might you buy the SV
order after all?

> >5. vato'mer
> >6. boqer tob 'ariyel
> -b- anachronistic, but nice. shalom lax, ariel-, yevarexex
ha-shem.
> of course, only encouragement here to the student. I let
my students use
> such modernisms as long as they know that boqer tov is
'our style' and not
> BH. Jeremiah would have understood,  --and disagreed :-)
>
> >7. vatdaleg 'ariyel
>  -b-  this is close according to attested BH (=ariyel
jumped up and down,
> back and forth'). A 'black hole' (missing word/idiom)
probably exists here
> for a single 'jump'. vattidlog would be better for 'to
jump', or else
> vattibbahel 'was confused', vattiddahem 'be startled,
stunned', vatteHrad
> 'and she trembled, got scared'.
>
> >8. vatits`aq
> >9. vataber hatstitsah 'el 'ariyel le'mor
>  -a-  a typo for vattedabber.

my fault, here.

>
> >10. 'al tir'i
> >11. 'ani re`ak
> >12. vato'mer 'aiyel
> >13. 'otak 'abi' lebeyti
> -b-  good choice of syntax
>
> >14. vatabi' 'ariyel 'et hatsitsah lebeytah.
> >15. vatiqra' shemah. re`i
>
> She is on her way to learning Hebrew.
> yafe `asitem.
>
> braxot
> Randall Buth
>

Thanks again for your helpful comments.

Shalom,
Bryan