Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

>===== Original Message From "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu> =====
>> You mean when we have suffixed pronouns?
>Yes, why no aleph here?

Why should there be? The suffixes don't have to be derived from the 
independent pronouns.

>And why is there no confusion with the yods and the wows?

Well, again, I don't think we can just chalk it up to confusion in the 
writing 
when we look at the Pentateuch. Clearly, the confusion could happen in other 
places throughout the Tanakh, but it didn't happen nearly as much (and it 
also 
went both ways). I think we'd have to say that someone actually thought 
(whether correctly for the stage of writing or not) both independent pronouns 
were supposed to be written the same way.
>
[snipped]

>> And as has already been indicated, there's no
>> comparative Semitic
>> evidence suggesting that this was anything more than
>> orthographic.
>I'm sorry, what was nothing more than orthographic?

The way hu and hi are written in the Pentateuch. In other words, I don't see 
compelling evidence to suggest that there was actually a stage of the Hebrew 
language where only one independent pronoun was available for both masc and 
fem.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics