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  • From: Joe Sprinkle <jsprinkle AT crossroadscollege.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Re:hwh in Hifil
  • Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 14:18:37 -0500

>I don't know that this is a very good example of what you're trying to
> show. If the C of RWM is viewed as "cause to be high," the sense of
> "raise" fits quite well.

What I say is really part of a hypothesis that seeks to distinguish between Piel and Hiphil meanings of stative verbs. What does the Hiphil do that is different when a stative verb has both Piel and Hiphil forms. The lexicons often give the two identical glosses to such forms, though it seems to me probable that there is some nuance of difference.

Piel is not "intensive" for stative verbs, and not really "intensive" for actives ones. Rather for active verbs Piel tends to multiply the action ("kill" becomes "slaughter, kill a lot" [not kill intensively, but kill repeatedly]. But for stative verbs Piel produces the state of the stative verb. Thus RWM in Piel means "make something high" (emphasizing end result) whereas (with slightly different nuance) the Hiphil means "to raise something" (emphasizing process).

This works reasonably well, though not perfectly. I illustrate with a few examples.

GDL "to be great" becomes "make great" (including making a child great/grown up by raising him) in Piel that emphasizes result, but "enlarge" (a process) in Hiphil.

RAXAB "be wide" does not occur in Piel in Biblical (or Mishnaic) Hebrew, but means "to widen, extend" in the Hiphil which emphasizes process.

ZQN "to be old" is not used in Biblical Hebrew in the Piel, but the Hiphil means "to grow older" (Job 14:8) (HALOT) which emphasizes process.

On the other hand, XaYaH "to be alive" means first of all in Piel "make something live" (the dead in Hos 6:2) but then secondarily "preserve alive." For this verb the Hiphil appears to have the same meaning "keep alive." Here my hypothesis seems to break down for the hiphil since it is result not process that seems in mind.

Yet the hypothesis seems to work often enough that I keep it as a working hypothesis.

The hypothesis then is that whereas Piel produces the state of the stative verb, the Hiphil/Aphel increases the state of the stative verb, and is therefore typically has a bit more emphasis on the dynamic aspect of the process. Of course, once one increases the height of something, it is likely to have become high. Thus the meanings can easily overlap.

The example in Syriac is unusual. If memory serves me well, I believe Syriac is the only Semitic language that has a causative of the copulative verb, though I am subject to correction on that. If that is factually correct, it is the exception that proves the rule. Nonetheless, its existence in Syriac is compatible with my hypothesis. According to R. Payne Smith's Syriac dictionary, the meaning for Syriac of the Aphel of HW' is "give existence, create" and is used in the expression "O Divine power who hast given existence to all things." My hypothesis suggested a meaning of "increase existence for X," could be paraphrased "produces [emphaizing process] existence" and hence "create" [with an undertone of process of creation]. Since Hebrew had a perfectly good word for this meaning (BARA') there was little motive to use the Hiphil form of the verb, though of course it could have done so.

Trever, your point about medial W versus initial W is well taken. However, I can only say that somewhere in Proto-NW Semitic medial W changed to Y or visa versa, for otherwise you would not have HAYAH "to be" in Hebrew and HAWAH "to be" in Aramaic. That such a change regularly occurred for initial proto-Semitic W is well known in which the direction of change was from W to Y. By analogy it is plausible that it occurred in Hebrew HAYAH as well with Aramaic preserving the earlier form with medial W that later became Y in Hebrew of the Bible. Does not the change from Y to W seem less likely given the trend in initial W?

As for the vowels, it is true that HAYAH as vocalized by the Masorets does not use the A vowel for imperfect preformatives Y, T and N for the Qal imperfect despite the guttural H first consonant. I am not sure that the biblical writers as opposed to the Masorets didn't use the A vowels. You can't tell in an unvocalized text. In any case, even the Masorets do use A vowels for preformatives of some First He forms such as the Qal imperfect of HALAM in Psalm 74:6 and Qal imperfect forms of HAPAK. The form of Yahweh is personal names seem to confirm an A vowel under the initial yod. If Yahweh is a verb (I cannot prove it is, but if it is), I can explain the A vowel as influenced by the first guttural as was in the case of these verbs. I would then posit that Hebrew by the time the Masorets vocalized the text ceased to use the A vowel for preformatives of HYH, but that archaic (perhaps pre-Biblical) Hebrew was using the A vowel preformative when it created the form YAHWEH off of the verb HWH.

I only claim a plausible case for this view, not an airtight one.

Joe

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