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  • From: kwrandolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Boring grammar again
  • Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 15:34:54 -0700

Dear George et al:

First of all, please excuse me if I retread something that has just been answered to in the last few days-I missed a few days of mail and the link to the archives from http://www.ibiblio.org/bhebrew has not worked either for the last few days (I just checked again).

As for the meaning of DBR as a verb, it seems closest to to express, or in the Piel to make expression. Just as in English expression is almost always done verbally, so DBR is almost always done verbally, though rarely also by actions. A few times the allusion is made that the expression is done through the hand of Moses or a prophet, indicating the written form of expression.

It could be that the Piel has more than one meaning, one of which is making a verb out of a noun root, as expressed in verbs like DBR But then I think of verbs like )BD which is well attested in both Qal and Piel, where the Piel has the meaning of make into the state of ... while the Qal to become... and the Hiphil to cause to become ... But I see no evidence that Piel ever had the meaning of heightened action. Yes, I have read that claim in more than one grammar, but never observed it while reading Tanakh.

Karl W. Randolph.


----- Original Message -----
From: "George Athas" <gathas AT hotkey.net.au>

The Piel certainly has a causative idea. I tell my students to
think of the Piel as indicating a heightened action of some kind,
whether that be intensive (eg, 'smash' rather than 'break') or
causative (eg, 'grow' rather than just 'be big'). Of course, some
actions have a naturally heightened concept, and therefore do not
have any regular equivalent in the Qal stem (eg, DiBBeR - to speak,
a heightened form of saying).

It's also helpful, as Peter Kirk has already alluded, to see the
Piel and Hiphil as Hebrew parallels (not equivalents) to the
addition of certain English suffixes. For example, compare the
suffixes -ise (naturalise, realise -- for the Americans amongst us,
that's -ize) and -ify (magnify, rectify).

Best Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
(Sydney, Australia)




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