Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Yonah,

I am sorry, but it is not clear to me what you mean by "how language
works". Could you elucidate us on this remark?

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 17, 2007, at 11:13 PM, Yonah Mishael wrote:

> On 4/17/07, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:
> > The relationship between Hebrew and Arabic is enigmatic and I am not
> > prepared to be sucked now into this murky vortex.
>
> YM: However, these types of questions really do need to be answered as
> far as theoretical grammar and linguistic evolution are concerned if
> you want to present a viable theory in the specific case of Hebrew. It
> may be a "murky vortex," but your view cannot be taken into trust
> without having confronted these issues, IMHO.
>
> <snip>
> > One thing is crystal clear (at least to me), which is that the
> > inflections of the Arabic QATALA are, as in Hebrew, invariably a root
> > plus a personal pronoun referring to the perpetrating agent or actor.
> > At one time they were distinct words, but then they came near and got
> > fused into one word.
>
> To some extent I can see this in Latin in the present tense of the
> first person singular, but for the most part I don't think this is the
> case that the two line up so clearly:
>
> AMARE - to love (present tense)
> amo (ego)*
> amas (tu)
> amat (-)
> amamus (nos)
> amatis (vos)
> amant (-)
>
> They did not even have a static form of the third person pronoun until
> late in the development of the language. I don't think your theory can
> account, even in Latin, for the various formatives (for example, the
> -av- of the perfect tense) that create a verb form. Though it seems
> more plausible to Hebrew specifically, I cannot imagine that this one
> language developed any differently than the many others that were in
> use in ancient times or those of which we can observe the development
> through written history (such as English, German, and Spanish). Though
> it is an interesting theory, it just doesn't seem to be how language
> works.
>
> Yours,
> Yonah Mishael
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew