Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

Would the list mind trying to keep their posts shorter and more digestable?
Yesterday I pulled down two posts, 33K and 41K, out of curiousity as to
what could be causing such length.

I was surprised/not-surprised to find the following argument:

>>So we have to start with the data from the unpointed
>> manuscripts.  ...
>> on the basis of orthography I see just two conjugations.  ...
>
>Unfortunately, some important morphological distinctions are simply
>not encoded in the consonantal orthography, due to the nature of the
>consonant-only orthographic system (one semi-random example is the
>contrast between the prepositions k-, l-, and b- followed by a
>definite article vs. k-, l-, and b- followed by a noun not prefixed
>with a definite article).  

Enough said, because the 41K of discussions never answered that basic
apriori mistake. 
As any linguist knows, an orthography is only a partial representation of a
language. 

So please keep things SHORT(er). I do appreciate posts labelled (long) at
the beginning of the subject. 

braxot
Randall Buth