Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

Peter wrote

>... Also, if your careful Greeks represented schwa with alpha, all
>the more they should represent somehow the second he - much strong than
>schwa. ...
>

Well, my position is that the final he of YHWH is in fact silent.

END QUOTE

I agree. It's starting to look like the original tri-consanantal root was 
HWY/HWW with a final H in the present form which serves only to lengthen 
the final vowel, which we are still unsure of.

Peter proposes a long 'eh' as in Yahweh
While tri-syllabic supporters propose the long 'aa' of Yahowah.


Peter! Can you run me through the long 'eh' reasoning again? I still haven't 
quite got the grasp of it.

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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbs, text-segmenting and clause-types
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On 01/08/2005 08:15, Rolf Furuli wrote:

> ...
>
>The distinction between WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL is often believed to be one
>of apocopation, but that is not correct. The only verbs whose apocopation
>can be seen in unpointed texts are lamed he verbs. ...
>
>

And also in certain hiphil forms, such as the example I mentioned.

>... Of the lamedh he verbs of the WAYYIQTOLs in the Tanakh that can be
>apocopated, 95,3% are apocopated and  4,7 %  are not apocopated. Of the
>lamedh he verbs of the WEYIQTOLs in the Tanakh that can be apocopated, 50,6%
>are apocopated and  49,4 %  are not apocopated.  The high numbers of
>apocopated WEYIQTOLs show that we cannot use apocopation to distinguish
>between the two.
>
>

Thank you for these figures. But I am not convinced that they are not
distinctive. I would hypothesise that many of the 4.7% non-apocopated
WAYYIQTOLs are in fact corrupted non-jussive WEYIQTOLs, and test that
hypothesis by looking at their contexts. As for the distribution of
WEYIQTOLs, I would hypothesise that the apocopated ones are either
jussive or cohortative in meaning or corrupted WAYYIQTOLs, and again
test that hypothesis against the context.

>There is also another interesting point, namely that apocopation is related
>to grammatical person. Of the 3. p. m. s. WAYYIQTOLs 98.7% are apocopated
>but of the 1. p. s. only 33.1% are apocopated. Of the  3. p. s. m. WEYIQTOLs
>89.4% are apocopated, and of the 1. p. s. 0% are apocopated. ...
>

This is of course potentially related to the rather similar distinction
between jussive and cohortative, which are essentially the same form but
the cohortative first person usually (but not always) has an additional
he. I note that adding the additional he to an apocopated lamed he verb
is, at least in an unpointed text, equivalent to reversing the
apocopation. Thus the distribution of apocopation in WEYIQTOL forms
broadly matches that of jussives and cohortatives and perhaps suggests
that around 90% of WEYIQTOLs are basically vav + jussive/cohortative,
with the remaining ones being vav + regular YIQTOL; and that many of the
non-apocopated 1st person WAYYIQTOLs in fact have the cohortative
additional he. But it remains interesting to look at the exceptions in
context - although I would not expect every exception to be explainable
in this way as Hebrew grammar is not completely fixed.

...

>These numbers clearly suggest that phonological reasons and/or the tendency
>to cut off endings in Hebrew words are the reasons behind apocopation and
>not that the antecedent to the apocopated WAYYIQTOLs is a short preterit
>YAQTUL  while the antecedent to the WEYIQTOLs and the YIQTOLs is a long
>present/future YAQTULU.
>
>
>
On the contrary, it might suggest that both WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL are
mostly derived from the short YAQTUL, but with an added he in the first
person.

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