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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Yonah Mishael <yonahmishael AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] verb forms - Isaiah 56:6-7 was dying you shall die
  • Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:09:10 -0400

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
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