Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Resh: To be Guttural or not to be Guttural - that is the Question!

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Brak <Brak AT neo.rr.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Resh: To be Guttural or not to be Guttural - that is the Question!
  • Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:58:52 +0100

On 28/06/2007 23:19, Brak wrote:
The reason why I am so concerned about this is because I am writing a computer program that allows you to enter a root and the form you want it in, and it would give it to you.

So if you entered $MR, Qal Perfect 3MS the program would give you $FMAR
Or if you entered (ZB, Nif'al Imperfect 1CP the program would give you N"(FZ"B

So hence the words BRK and KRT are causing a big problem.

Is Hebrew so haphazard that such a program would be impossible to create, that basically every word really has to be treated is if it is in a world of its own? I mean what is the logic for BRK and KRT to be treated different?

I understand your frustration, John, but it may be that there is in fact no logic here. Sometimes real language is arbitrary. You can find plenty of arbitrary irregular verb forms in English, as in almsot every real language. In fact Hebrew is much less irregular than English, given the special rules for verbs with gutturals etc. But it is not always uniform and regular.

My advice would be to treat the forms of BRK as the rule and the very few anomalous forms of KRT and a few other verbs as exceptions, as GKC does.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page