Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

Dear Joel, I'll insert my comments.
Thanks, you keep me alert. And out of my sleep ;)

2005/11/28, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman <joel AT exc.com>:
> >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 understand.  But you still have the same fundamental problems.
>
> VERB:  YIQTOL --> YYIQTOL --> VAYYIQTOL; but
> NOUN:  MELEK --> MMELEK --> HAMMELEK
>
> You have no way of understanding why verbs get VAV and nouns HEH.

I think BHebrew is VSO; as Wa- / We- (if it's used) usually precedes a
clause, and in this clause, the verb was most likely to come first,
Wa- is the perfect auxiliary consonant to help *ayyiqtol. Wa- can be
used so often, that it is not surpising it precedes also *(a)yyiqtol.
However, the noun does not come first in the sentence usually.
*Wammelek in stead of hammelekh would signal something syntactic that
isn't there. The [hey] is just a "zero"-consonant, basically.


> Worse:
>
> >I think AZ+yiqtol is a little different syntactical phenomenon. We
>
> Why would you think that?  In both cases, YIQTOL is used for what we
> commonly call the past tense.  (I happen to agree that it's simply a
> default narrative form, but that isn't the point here.)

If we have both wayyiqtol and AZ+yiqtol, we have two phenomena. One is
very common, the other rather rare. AZ+yiqtol  expresses clear
succession, wayyiqtol doesn't, as not every WA- expresses succession.
I don't know what to do with AZ+yiqtol, I just can't think why it
bothers "my" theory. Except if I'm required to believe that AZ ended
up assimilated in wayyiqtol. I think that's highly unlikely; where
does the [w] come from then? I'd like to see *ayyiqtol a little more
often.

> >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.
>
> My understanding is that MA- (which *does* have the same vowel as VA-)
> correlates with DAGESH in exaclty the same places as VA-.

However, MA- has patach only *after* the gemination, qametz without
it. WA- does not derive of WAA with qametz, in my opinion; all WA/WE
derives of the same Wa- with a short vowel.

> >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.
>
> My point is that if the grammar already contains prefixes that induce
> DAGESH, I think the burden of proof is on you to show that VAV is not
> such a prefix.

But how can both:  *wa-yaqtul > w'-yiqtol
             and:        *wa-yaqtul > wayyiqtol?

> >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.
>
> I have never found that sort of reasoning convincing: That's how they
> do it in Arabic so it's probably how they do it in Hebrew, in spite of
> appearances to the contrary.

You are right, I speculate. However, Arabic and BHebrew are related
more closely than is usually assumed, in my opinion. I still think it
is a problem that if there is no primary gemination in "wayyiqtol" and
"hammelekh", we cannot find what else would be there in C1.

> >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
>
> I think it's an artifact of the real problem.  The real problem is
> that nouns get HA- and verbs get VA-.

See above for the latter problem.

> >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 don't think so.  Suppletive combination of closed class lexical
> items is well attested in the world's languages.  French DE+LES=DES,
> German ZU+DEM=ZUM, etc.  Why don't you think that B+HA=BA is the same
> sort of thing?  For that matter,

What do you do with Phoenician )BBNM and (MMQM? It is proof that Ha-
doesn't exist as a real word with a real consonant. Or we would have
to do with people who spell very bad?

> >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".
>
> But we do have them.  We have Ke-ha-yom (Genesis 39:11, e.g.).
> Be-ha-shamayim (Psalm 36:6).

Thank you, I've been looking for those!
Well, I won't use that argument anymore. From now on, sadly, I can
only say "hardly" instead of "never" ;)  Well, as we-hammelekh is
already a problem, I can have this.
Of course I still believe these two examples are secondary, because
the theory still makes more sense to me.
However, I promiss I'll let go of the theory I you give me even more
convincing evidence that primary gemination in wayyiqtol and hammelek
isn't plausible, and that there are other theories that make more
sense.

> >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?
>
> Indeed, that's the only way to evaluate a theory.  But I still don't
> see how you get the basic data (HAMMELEK and VAYYIQTOL) without
> wrongly predicting VAMMELEK or HAYYIQTOL.

I feel I got rid of *hayyiqtol thanks to the Hebrew sentence
structure, but I can't yet get rid of *wammelek.

> -Joel M. Hoffman
>  http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman
>