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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew grammar, (was Zech 6:8)

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew grammar, (was Zech 6:8)
  • Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:40:36 +0000

I didn't get to look at this thread until today, so I am now responding to many points in one message.

On 26/11/2005 08:28, Herman Meester wrote:

...

Why do I believe in this theory?
First, it meets a very important criterium in science:
"The simpler, more elegant, and more surprising theory, that can
account for *more* phenomena with *less* hypotheses, or only one
hypothesis, is to be preferred." ...


Herman, I agree with you that this hypothesis is atttractive in many ways. But I do have some comments, as below.

... The problem that remains when we try to
explain both wayyiqtol out of *wa-yaqtul as well as wɔyiqtol out of
*wa-yaqtul(u), ...


(If you are trying to write a (phonetic) schwa here, you should use ə (U+0259), rather than ɔ (U+0254, open O). The latter might be the appropriate phonetic symbol for short qamats, on some phonetic reconstructions of Hebrew, but it is not suitable for Hebrew sheva. U+0259 also has the advantage that it is found in recent versions of Microsoft core fonts and so is more likely to be readable in e-mail.)

...
If a noun in the definite state is preceded by the prepositions כ ב or
ל, the noun's geminated C1, preceded by its auxiliary vowel, does not
need an auxiliary consonant other than כ ב or ל already there. No
cases of, for example *להקּדש have been found in old phases of Hebrew,
because no word ה existed. ...


But words of the form והקּדשׂ WHQ.D$, i.e. as above with initial vav instead of lamed, do exist, e.g. the first word of Genesis 1:2. Your theory requires that vav can be added straight to the geminated consonant in WAYYIQTOL verbs. So why doesn't the same happen with geminated definite nouns, giving a form וָאָרֶץ WF)FREC rather than the attested וְהָאָרֶץ W:HF)FREC? This is certainly a complicating factor for the hypothesis, which makes it not quite as simple as you claim.

I see that Joel spotted this issue too, although he did not analyse it according to your theory. Your answer to Joel confuses the issue because your example using MELEK is untypical, because of the rule that before mem the conjunction vav is pronounced as u- rather than ve-. But the problem is lessened by Joel's observation that forms like כְּהַיּוֹם K.:HAY.OWM are attested, although rare - and the suggestion that if forms like וָאָרֶץ WF)FREC had originally occurred they would very probably have been reinterpreted at some later stage as something like וְאָרֶץ W:)FREC.

...
Furthermore, in Egyptian Arabic, the geminated C1 remains
unassimilated to more consonants than is the case in Standard Arabic,
which may well point to a conserved older practice.


Surely this would suggest the opposite. If Egyptian Arabic has more unassimilated consonants (presumably explaining the place name "Sharm el-Sheikh" rather than "Sharm esh-Sheikh") and is the conserved older practice, that would suggest that the process is assimilation rather than dissimilation. There is also the evidence that in written Arabic going as far back as the Qur'an at least the article is always written as ال i.e. al- or el- with an explicit L, even in cases where the classical pronunciation is geminated. While this spelling just could have been an incorrect standardisation by someone who believed that the variations were caused by partial assimilation rather than partial dissimilation, it seems more probable that it represents an actual spoken version of the language in which the L was always pronounced. There might be evidence for such a pronunciation in ancient transliterations. One possible example in the Hebrew Bible is the name Eltolad in Joshua 15:30, 19:4, which may have a preserved Arabic article complete with L in a context where standard Arabic assimilates, cf. Tolad in 1 Chronicles 4:29 which is probably the same place.

All of this suggests to me that the original definite marker was not simply gemination, but a prefix morpheme something like al- or hal-, in which the final L has become completely assimilated in Hebrew and partially assimilated in post-Qur'anic Arabic. But I accept that this means some inconsistencies in assimilation rules, which may be resolvable by more careful consideration of the full phonetic context and history.

In reply to Herman, Rolf wrote:

The WE- and WAY- of the so-called consecutive forms are the conjunction WAW, and the gemination and patah of the WAY- prefix are caused by phonetic rules and the stress position.


These phonetic rules would suffer from similar problems of inconsistency that Herman has noted concerning the Arabic article. There are clear cases where the distinction between WEYIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL forms cannot be accounted for on the basis of the stress position as heard by the Masoretes (which we know from the Masoretic accentuation) or any other purely phonological factors. This strongly suggests that there is a real morphological distinction, corresponding to a different derivation and probably a semantic difference. Herman's theory seems a very promising way of explaining this morphological distinction. Also, I agree with David K that

I don't think wayyiqtol and yiqtol are semantically similar at all.

- and if they are not semantically similar (and I don't want to get into a new argument with Rolf about that), that strengthens the argument for a morphological distinction. I note that the distinction which Rolf does not recognise between WEYIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL is phonetically identical (and on Herman's theory also morphologically identical) to that between indefinite LEQODE$ and definite LAQQODE$, which everyone accepts is a real distinction because the non-prefixed forms QODE$ and HAQQODE$ are also attested. The problem with WAYYIQTOL is that there is no attested form like HAYYIQTOL without the vav prefix. Although come to think of it, it might be worth looking at forms traditionally understood as interrogative he + YIQTOL to see if they could be reanalysed as HAYYIQTOL.

Rolf also wrote:

As far as I know, it is unprecedented in any language that a conjunction alone, or in combination with another element prefixed to a verb form causes or signals that this verb form has the very opposite meaning of the same form without the prefix.


But here he is attacking a straw man, for Herman and Hatav are not proposing that the underlying verb form is the same, rather they are following the admittedly unproven hypothesis that WAYYIQTOL (apocopated where possible, with a handful of exceptions) and YIQTOL (not apocopated, when not jussive) are based on two different underlying verb forms.

Joel wrote:

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.


Surely a YIQTOL in this position is imperfective i.e. marking a continuous or repetitive action, and so is semantically distinct from WAYYIQTOL. This is quite sufficient to explain the lack of the definite marking.

Later, Herman wrote:

If we would be dealing with some kind of principle that
wayyiqtol always has the apocopated form, I wouldn't disregard it so
easily, but wayyiqtol doesn't always have the short yiqtol.
Apparently, while the distinction between the jussive form and the
long yiqtol form disappeared, C1 gemination in wayyiqtol was still
very relevant.


Rolf had written:

Regarding WAYYIQTOL I found that 98.7% of 3.p. s. m. were apocopated, but only 33,1% of 1. p. s., and 25,0% of 3. p. pl. m.


But with first person jussives there is a tendency to add an extra he ("cohortative") which tends to cancel out any apocopation in the 1st person, and it seems likely that the same phenomenon was found in WAYYIQTOL. In the plural apocopation becomes a rather different phenomenon because of the suffixed vav. So, in the basic third person singular form we find that 98.7% of WAYYIQTOLs which can be apocopated are. The remaining 1.3% can include grammatical and textual errors, as well as cases where the Masoretes pointed WEYIQTOL as WAYYIQTOL in error. And perhaps there was some loss of apocopation in very late texts (I think I remember Rolf pointing out some in Daniel). But other than this, I think we can hold that there is "some kind of principle that wayyiqtol always has the apocopated form", at least in the third person singular. There is certainly a high enough correlation to suggest, if not prove, that non-jussive YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL have different origins.

Concerning archaisms, Herman wrote:

It's an interesting problem. Are there some notorious passages in the
mentioned corpus where people say it is archaic artificially?


The book of Esther is commonly mentioned in this regard. It is clearly post-exilic, but its syntax is closer to the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History than to the other clearly post-exilic books which are sometimes called "late biblical Hebrew". The potential problem for those who date most of the historical books to before the exile is resolved if Esther is taken to be written in deliberately archaic style. Whereas for those who date the historical books after the Exile, there is another issue: if the distinction between standard and "late" biblical Hebrew is not diachronic, what is it?

Concerning Phoenician, Rolf wrote:

Nobody would say that
this infinitive absolute has some intrinsic completedness of an intrinsic
past tense. The infinitive absolute simply presents the verbal idea of the
root without making visible the beginning or end or anything else.


It seems that there are a lot of assumptions here. One is that the verb form in question, found in presumably unvowelled inscriptions, is indeed an infinitive absolute and not some other form with the same consonants. Another is that a verb form which is etymologically an infinitive cannot acquire tense or aspect as a result of semantic shifts.

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





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