Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Shafe'el in Hebrew

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: colin AT s-m-i-t-h.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Shafe'el in Hebrew
  • Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 01:20:35 +0000

On 03/02/2005 23:25, colin AT s-m-i-t-h.com wrote:

...

Dave is quite correct. Ugaritic supplies us with abundant evidence that
the form H$tXWH is an H-$-T stem used with the root XWH. The $ is a
frequent causative element in Semitic languages (along with Aleph in the
case of Aramaic) as is /S/ in Egyptian. ...


It may be worth noting that existence of this kind of H$T- stem does not imply existence of a Shafel stem. Arabic has an 'ista- stem which clearly corresponds to H$T-, but no basic Shafel. Syriac has 'itta- which is probably also related.

The pattern can be explained if we see here two separate prefixes, which were probably originally something like $A- for causative and $AT- for reflexive, and when they were put together they became $AT$A-, which was transposed (as regularly in Hebrew Hitpael) to $A$TA-. Then, at a later stage in some languages only, word initial $- changed to H- in Hebrew, or a glottal stop in Arabic. But the $ which was not word initial remained, shifting to S in Arabic and coalescing in Syriac, giving H$T- in Hebrew, 'ista- in Arabic and 'itta- in Syriac. In fact the Akkadian forms seem to be more like $A- and $TA-, suggesting in the latter case that the two $'s coalesced into one.

But this is based on what may be a rather amateur understanding of the situation.

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



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.4 - Release Date: 01/02/2005





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page