Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

Dear Joel,
Thanks for your observations, they are sharp, and I don't think I can
easily account for all those problems yet. I'll do my best, though;
and there are still a few misunderstandings  about the theory I'll
"correct" below.

About your point
1.: I do not think that "VA- forces dagesh in the next letter."
This is not what my theory claims. On the contrary; dagesh comes first
and needs the auxiliary vowel [a] preceding it ("no CC allowed at the
beginning of a syllable").
I think AZ+yiqtol is a little different syntactical phenomenon. We
have to collect all places AZ+yiqtol and study them, have to admit I
haven't done that. Obviously AZ+yiqtol expresses clearly a succession
that Wyyqtl doesn't really have to express at all.

2.: MI- forces dagesh, because it is MIN and the Nun assimilates, so
it has no relevance. SHE-, MA-, and possible some other words do
"force dagesh", however they don't have the same vowel as WA-, and MA-
doesn't even always have a geminated consonant following.
As I think in wayyiqtol dagesh occurs autonomously (for
syntactic/semantic reasons), and in words like MA-, SHE- it is for
only phonological reasons, and happens because of these words, I don't
think the two things bother each other.
Could you clarify a little on what you said "they do not fit your
pattern"? Obviously, I'm not saying all cases of strong dagesh are
autonomous, surely there are assimilations too.

3.: B+HA+dagesh does *not* yield BA+dagesh!
Dagesh comes first, then the preceding auxiliary vowel [a], then the
auxiliary [h], maybe not really pronounced, just as it is in Arabic:
they spell )AL, but usually neither Alif nor Laam are pronounced.
With Ke-/Ka-, Le-/La-, Be-/Ba- the auxiliary [h] is not needed! It
doesn't assimilate to B/K/L, it has never been there in the first
place.

The problem is not: "why is there no We-hayyiqtol (there has never
been any "[h]"), the only problem is: why do we have והמלך
We-hammelekh, and not ומלך wammelekh?
This, I admit, is the real problem (Galia Hatav also pointed this out
to me as a matter of fact) because if we have a primary gemination,
and an auxiliary vowel to resolve the syllable beginning CC, we don't
need the spelling [h] if there's already the consonant ו W preceding
that vowel.

By the way, I tend to believe that the [hey] of the article was
originally never really pronounced. In Phoenician, we have examples of
)BBNM "the sons" (with alef) and (MMQM "the place" (with ayin), so the
consonant doesn't matter, it's just a spelling thing. Arabic has alif,
so whether it's alef, ayin, or alif, they're all consonants signs that
represent less "sound" than the other consonants have. Ideal for
"mater lectionis" and the like.

My only solution to why there is no ומלך wammelekh "and the king" is
that W is a semivowel (or semiconsonant) (unlike B/K/L!) and that it
was felt that in that case, at least in spelling, a little extra was
needed: so the [h] ended up before wa- and definiteness of the noun.

But very important is:
The fact that we have no *Wammelekh, only we-hammelekh, is an equal or
smaller problem to the theory I defend, than the fact that we have no
*Be-hammelekh, *Le-hammelekh or *Ke-hammelekh, but only Bammelekh,
Kammelekh, and Lammelekh, is a problem to those who *don't* believe
the theory!
I guess this problem, then, can not be used to prove either way.
Unless you can show why we nowhere have *Be-hammelekh, *Le-hammelekh
or *Ke-hammelekh in MT. It must be there, at least if [ha-] is a real
word, with a real consonant. I explain it's not there, because [ha-]
doesn't really exist, and is certainly not a "word".

4.: The stress issue...
I can imagine that for reasons of economy the *shortest* yiqtol form
was preferred in general, however when it has no C1 gemination, it is
usually a jussive. However, when it has C1 with dagesh, the meaning
changes anyway so why not use the shortest form available? It's no
longer a jussive. The dagesh lengthens the form in the beginning, so
to cut it short a little in the end seems very reasonable, when we
consider that language often has economic tendencies. Hebrew had
already lost the final short vowels in nouns and verbs (that Arabic
still has in poetry etc.), so to go for the short form when available
seems logical in this case, too.
As not all wayyqtl forms are short, מלעל mil'el-stressed or
apocopated, it seems this wasn't really relevant to the meaning of
wayyqtl. It doesn't matter which yiqtol is "inside" wayyqtl, anyway
the gemination "anchors it" to this world, just as it doesn't matter
what kind of noun we have, in any case the gemination gives it a
definite state.

I hope, having said all this, it may move you a little bit further
toward liking the theory. How about imagining you believe it and see
if it works, only to abandon it if you find out it doesn't?
Even if the theory doesn't explain everything concerning (way)yiqtol,
it explains much more than any other theory, and with less hypotheses.

Best regards,
Herman Meester


2005/11/27, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman <joel AT exc.com>:
> >I do largely agree with Galia Hatav (Journal of Linguistics, november 
> >2004).
> >For example, C1 gemination in noun and verb anchor the noun or verb to
> >"this world" => definite noun or simple past verb (point in time) (I
> >guess you can call wayyiqtol a tense, then); whereas yiqtol or non-C1
> >geminated noun are yet "undefined".
>
> It's an intriguing suggestion, but it seems to me you have to account
> for:
>
> 1.  YIQTOL for past-tense is not always preceded by VA-, but only VA-
>     forces dagesh in the next letter.  For example, "AZ YASHIR MOSHE,"
>     not "AZ YYASHIR...."  It seems to me your theory wrongly predicts
>     that the form ought to be "AZ AYYASHIR," or "AZ HAYYSHIR," or
>     something along those lines.
>
> 2.  MI- ("from") and SHE- ("that") also force dagesh, but they do not
>     fit your pattern.
>
> 3.  While B+HA+dagesh ("in+the") yields BA+dagesh, V+HA+dagesh does
>     not contract.  If the VAV prefix doesn't contract, why do we see a
>     contraction in VAV before verbs?
>
> 4.  The VAYYIQTOL forms differ not only in the DAGESH in the first
>     letter but (usually) also in stress.  Why?
>
>
> -Joel M. Hoffman
>  http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman
>
>
>
>