Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 22/12/2004 14:08, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> > > What makes the third radical in, say, pr-derived roots a suffix? Suffix
> > >      
> is
>  
>
> > > something employed across the words with the same meaning. ...
> > >      
> > Not necessarily. In Russian, the various verbal prefixes have up to
> > seven distinct meanings, according to Terence Wade's "A Comprehensive
> > Russian Grammar".
> >    
>
> As native Russian speaker, I would call this an exaggeration, semantic
> hair-splitting.
>
>  
Well, maybe. And maybe a native biblical Hebrew speaker would find a 
semantic link between the various senses of my "suffixes" and call 
further distinction "semantic hair-splitting".

> ...
>
> > Well, this depends what you mean by "deliberate". Yes, it was the
> > conscious act of some human to coin a new root and suffix combination.
> >    
>
> Hardly a caveperson, what do you think?
>
>  
Are you saying that cavepersons were incapable of coining new words? Yet 
somehow they seem to have developed human language from nothing.

> > ...
> >    
>
> But of course! This is the whole point! The Hebrew morphology isn't complex
> at all. It is beautifully simple. ...

It is much simpler than some languages, yes, but far more complex than 
other languages like Chinese which basically have no morphology at all.

As for the rest of what you say, I will simply say that it is nonsense.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/