Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

Michael wrote:

> Okay, let me see if I got this right.  An enclitic mem
> is simply a mem that shows up at the end of a Hebrew
> word...in a grammatically unexplanable (at this point)
> place.  Right?

More or less. Not that we can't suggest an explanation (like emphasis),
but the point is mainly that the mem doesn't seem to belong where we
find it. I should modify what I said yesterday regarding Hebrew. It
looks like the Masoretic text generally does something with the mem to
make it fit other uses--chiefly, to point it as a mp ending, a 3mp
suffix, or a min- preposition on the following word. So in most cases
the presence of the enclitic mem is a modern re-analysis that tries to
preserve the integrity of the consonantal text with an appeal to
comparative evidence.

> I had read Waltke and O'Connor's piece
> about it a while back but forgotten most of it.  I'll
> revisit them tomorrow on the topic.  But, if what
> Trevor says is correct, we still do not know what
> function they served.  Are there any patterns to note?

The only real pattern is that it's generally recognized where a mem
appears anomalously in the middle of what ought to be a construct
phrase. None of the Masoretic forms make sense in such a position. (The
mem would drop off a mp noun or adjective, and you wouldn't have an
intervening suffix or preposition.) So this is where scholars throw up
their hands and say the mem must be enclitic, serving some function
other than what the Masoretes seemed to think. We may not know how it's
supposed to be vocalized or exactly what it's doing, but we can rest
assured that this sort of thing appears in other ancient Semitic texts.

>  Perhaps that will be answered by W&O (I've got to get
> to sleep), but I ask you all too.  Any stabs as to how
> to explain the phenomenon?

W&O won't be much help, because O, at least, does not know either. (And
if W knew, presumably he would have told him.) He also doesn't know what
it's doing in Ugaritic. (Trust me on this--it came up enough times in
class.)

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics