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  • From: Rasmus Underbjerg Pinnerup <pinnerup AT privat.dk>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Inflexions?
  • Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 14:33:47 +0100

Dear Karl (and list members)

At 00:12 21-11-2003, Karl wrote:
Seriously, this question has raised some rather interesting, even apparently contradictory, responses. Hiphil and Hophal clearly have the causitive sense, Hithpael reflexive, but what is the distinction between Qal and Piel?

There is no one overarching pattern, but a number of individual patterns can be identified. Here I list them from Joüon-Muraoka with a few examples:

Factivive: »'âbad« "to perish" > »'ibbad« "to make someone perish", the same with »qâdaš« > »qidaš« and »gâdal« > »giddel«

Declarative-estimative: e.g. »niqqâh« "to declare clean"

Pluralising: »liqqeq« (to lick, multiple subjects) and »šillax« (to dispatch, numerous objects) (BTW, it is mighty tempting to point out the similarity btween "liqqeq" and "lick", PIE *ligh)

Frequentative: »ši'el« "to beg" (Qal: "to ask") and »šibber« "to break into pieces" (Qal = to break)

Denominative: »kihen« "to act as priest", »'illem« "to bind sheaves
('alummâh)"

Privative: »diššen« "to remove fat", »šereš« "to uproot" (contrast »hišr "to strike root")

Adverbial (rare): »šixxet« "to act wickedly", »'iwwel« "to act in an iniquitous manner", »mihar« "to act quickly".

One, off line response, said that the difference was between that of transitive and intransitive verbs (in which case, many verbs are incorrectly pointed).

That is a rather misleadingly simplifying take on the matter.

If the Piel is causitive, then what's the difference between it and Hiphil? Other times some say it is the same as Qal.

The Piel is often said to denote bringing about a given state ("to make someone holy"), whereas the Hiphil is said to denote bringing about a given action ("to make someone walk") - these aspects are called factivive and causative, respectively.

I believe that languages are basically simple that can be mastered by children, except for rare, specialized cases. If the Piel is to be recognized in a case by case basis, then it fails the child masterable test. [...]

You are still here assuming that the binyanim (Qal, Piel, Hiphil etc.) are merely inflexions of a given verb - that is most likely not the case. With regular inflections, a relationship such as you describe would exist - that is, when you place an -ed (and its various allomorphs) on the end of an English verb, you get the meaning "past tense" - this rule almost always holds true. The Piel (and other binyanim), however, is not an inflection like this - it is more like word-derivations, comparable to the prefix "in-" in English, which can also have different meanings like "direction into" (inscribe) and "negation" (incompetent). I'm sure someone can think of a derivational morpheme which more possible meanings. The point is that when we see a word with the prefix "in-", we cannot know beforehand what this signifies - we have to learn word for word (it took quite some time before I realized that "inflammable" meant "highly flammable"). We have to learn the meaning as a lexical unit - as if it were a new word, so to speak.

With some serious studies, we might narrow the given derivation (in-, Piel) down to a fixed set of possible meanings, but we cannot even then always be sure - for instance, the word "inflammable" doesn't really seem to fit either of the two meanings listed above.

Sincerely,
Rasmus Underbjerg Pinnerup





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