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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] MC) and YC) [was: )CM and )CY]

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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Jason Hare <jaihare AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] MC) and YC) [was: )CM and )CY]
  • Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 09:18:22 -0400

Jason,

1. There is no need for "incredible semantic gymnastics" in order to relate the roots )KL, 'eat', and KL), 'enclose'. Try it. Go on and tell people in Israel "KL)ATI a good breakfast" and I promise you that you will be perfectly well understood.

In fact the root )KL is a variant of )HL, 'erected a tent', (GL-)GL, 'round', (QL, 'bent' and (KL, 'consume'. In my humble opinion every Hebrew root that contains the letter L refers to an elevated state.

One must carefully separate the concrete meaning of a root from its specific metaphorical-circumstantial usage. The toots )GL and (GL are distinct, yet they are the same, and so are the roots KL) and QL(.

2. You are right about the Latin 'exit' and 'exist', all I wanted to say is that they are compounds. Yet in English they actually became [the compound: be-came?] ex-it and ex-ist = ex-is-it.

3. I did not say that English suffers from some inherent "weakness". English, as the rest of the Indo-European languages, lost, however, its root system forever. Still, 'leave', 'emerge' and 'come out' are not the same. My faithful desktop AH Dictionary says about 'emerge' that it is 'come forth'. Interestingly enough it adds to it 'come into existence'. In any event, my post is decidedly not about English.

4. I strenuously insist that language is static---that it does not describe motion at all. The motion (the movie) is rolled in the imagination. The extra semantic or lexical meaning assumed by YACA) is due to the fact that it is used as an assimilated short form for YACA) MIN or YACA) MITOK. Likewise, (LAH means 'was up' and not as you put it (I am paraphrasing): "moved from a previous lower state or location into a new higher state or location from the perspective of the arrival position". Also, BA means 'is here' and not "moved from a previous further state or location into a new nearer state or location from the perspective of the arrival position". In Job 14:2 we find: K-CIC YACA), which certainly does not describe any horticultural process ongoing in time.

Consider this: post-biblical Hebrew ZAZ means 'moved', everybody knows this for an absolutely sure fact, yet MZUZAH is a permanently fixed 'door post'. Many Hebrew speakers are mightily puzzled by this (Even-Shoshan goes for it to Akkadian, as his habit is in such cases). It is only with the greatest circumspection that I dare raise in public just the thinnest of hints as to the possibility that ZAZ is not 'moved' in the continuous sense since there is no continuous movement at all in language.

5. The "niphal binyan" is merely a root preceded by the personal pronoun NI for the body in question.

6. Of course you are right. As I said on the list: "the usage of the triliteral root YC) is for something that we imagine (or know) was in the past in some sense "inside" and now exists in some sense "outside". It is used as the opposite to BA, as in Joshua 6:1: )EYN YOCE) V')EN BA "none went out, and none came in".

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 8, 2007, at 10:17 PM, Jason Hare wrote:

Isaac,

In fact, through similarly incredible semantic gymnastics, we might discover
that אכל )KL "to eat" and כלא KL) "to incarcerate" really mean exactly the
same thing, since each represents an act of placing one thing inside another
with the result being a type of conquering of the second thing over the
first -- in the one case this being the food being placed into the person's
body and overcome; in the other the person is placed inside a cell and
overcome. So, you see that the person's body literally "incarcerates" the
food. In fact, I think I will begin to tell people as soon as I get to
Israel (in July) that I have already "incarcerated" just to stretch their
minds and prove the truth flexibility of language. (Tongue in cheek.)

Weaknesses in your claim:

- The word for "leave" is /exire/ in Latin. The -t is simply the personal
ending and not any kind of remnant of the verb "to be" /esse/ (as you
suggest by /ex-ist/). In fact, /ist/ is not a Latin form of the existential
verb. It is /est/ in the present tense (back to Latin 101 again).

- English does not "need two words to express [the] idea" of YC). The words
"leave" and "emerge" can translate it just as appropriately in many context
without resorting to two-word combinations. However, this is still no
argument since it is the nature of Germanic expression to combine adverbials
into the main verbal concept. Such combinations as "stand up," "walk
around," and "call out," (among the MANY) all have single verb
correspondences in Hebrew. Does this indicate something about the weakness
of English? Perhaps, but it does not mean that this proves that the concept
is more poorly represented in the English language. This cannot be an
argument in favor of your position in this post.

- "Existentially all YC) means is that something is, /post factum/, out."
Actually, YC) represents the concept of motion from a previous state or
location into a new state or location from the perspective of the arrival
position. This motion, and not simply the state of being "out," is
represented by the verb.

- Existential import is brought into MC) through the niphal binyan, in which
NMC) means "to be found," "to exist." All of the connections with existence
that you have shown come from this and not from any existential force behind
the QAL form of MC) or the basic meaning of the shoresh itself.

I stand by what I wrote to John offlist, saying that MC) and YC) do *not*
mean the same thing, especially not in the verses that he listed, which
would be great for the disucssion to keep us on topic. In the Genesis verse,
it says that "for Adam, he did not find a help corresponding to him" --
WL)DM L) MC) (ZR KNGDW - ולאדם לא מצא עזר כנגדו. It is only through the fact
that Chavah did not exist that she could not be found, of course. However,
this is not the case always with MC).

In the Psalms verse, it says that "Israel emerge[d] from their midst" --
WYWC) Y&R)L MTWKM - ויוצא ישראל מתוכם. This indicates the action of Israel's
separation from the Egyptians and the move from being "in their midst" to
NOT being so. The verbs do not, in any way, mean the same thing -- any more
than KL) means "to eat."

Jason Hare

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