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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] past-tense verbs in Modern Hebrew

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  • From: Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] past-tense verbs in Modern Hebrew
  • Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:22:03 -0400

OK so it's slang

POINT IS, it does not follow the rules of Hebrew grammar and it only occurs in common every day informal usage.

And it's not something to base a whole argument over whether or not you know how to pronounce the Shem Meforash, or whether it is a verb or not, or whether it was in used in different contexts and not just in the Beit HaMikdash in one specific service, or whether pronouncing it or not reverberates in the universe, or whether the Christians or the Greeks knew how to pronounce it, or whether it consists of vowels or consonants, etc etc

Shoshanna





It's "halachnu?" - and it's an idiom, idioms are in a class by themselves.

Not just HALAXNU? (lit., "we went," meaning "shall we go") but also
ZAZNU? ("we moved," meaning, "let's go") and others. It's not an
idiom. (Idioms are fixed sets of words, like "kick the bucket.")

It's one of these bizarre cases where semantic constraints (verb of
leaving, in this case) affects something it ought not (verb tense).
Another example is the English null plural, which generally applies to
animals you hunt: 1 deer/4 deer; 1 moose/4 moose; 1 fish/4 fish. But
the only way you can get "4 cow" is if "I went out and shot me 4 cow
yesterday."

And now back to our regularly scheduled program....

-Joel




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