Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

I don't deny it, though I think scholars debate this. But the vast
majority of roots in Hebrew as we know it (as opposed to speculative
reconstructions) have three letters, a few have four. TEVA` is certainly
from a three letter root. TOV could be from a two letter one, but must
be different from that of TEVA`. For that extra ayin must be a root
letter, it is never added or dropped by derivational processes within
Hebrew.

Peter Kirk

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shoshanna Walker [mailto:rosewalk AT concentric.net]
> Sent: 21 January 2002 01:27
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: RE: PS And God saw that it was good
> 
> But I remember in the deep recesses of far back memory, that there
> are two letter roots
> 
> Shoshanna
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, according to BDB the root of TOV is tet-waw-bet. This root is
also
> found in Arabic, with a yod equivalent in the middle, and Akkadian.
This
> confirms that the roots were separate as far back as proto-Semitic.
But
> some scholars have surmised that many triliteral roots were originally
> biliteral in an even older form of the language, and were then
extended.
> So there is room for a hypothesis that both TOV and TEVA` come from a
> common biliteral root tet-bet. Unfortunately such hypotheses are quite
> unprovable and so speculative as we have no records that far back.
> 
> Peter Kirk
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Shoshanna Walker [mailto:rosewalk AT concentric.net]
> > Sent: 20 January 2002 04:57
> > To: Biblical Hebrew
> > Subject: RE: PS And God saw that it was good
> >
> > Same spelling in Hebrew - Tet, Bet, Ayin
> >
> > It might be a different root from Tov, but it is still related;
> > according to our tradition, the Tet Bet in Teva and in Tov are not
> > accidental.
> >
> > Teva probably derived from Tov.
> >
> > So what is the root of Tov??  And what is the root of Teva??
> >
> > Shoshanna
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Shoshanna, what is the Hebrew spelling of the word Teva = "nature"?
It
> > doesn't seem to be biblical. But it seems very similar to an Arabic
> word
> > for "nature", tab`, which is spelled with the equivalent of Hebrew
> > tet-bet-ayin. But that would have to be a quite different root from
> TOV.
> >
> > Peter Kirk
> >
> > >
> > > Also the word Tov is related to the word meaning "nature" - Teva
> > >
> > > So you could translate this as "and G-d saw that it was all
working
> > > well according to the laws of nature which He set into place."
> > >
> > > Shoshanna
> >
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