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  • From: Daniel Purisch <daniel.purisch AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] More than one Qal form listed!
  • Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:20:17 +0300

Dear John,

I'd just like to pipe in very quickly. You should probably consider that our corpus of Biblical Hebrew was written over quite a long period of time, bridging many dialects, each with its own peculiar phonology. The real miracle is that Biblical Hebrew is so uniform, though of course the transmission process and the Masoretic vocalization certainly had much to do with that. Another point to mention: we group all the gutterals together, but in reality, each letter functions a little bit differently. The example that you provided below is a case in point. Pe-aleph verbs prefer the LE):E- vocalization while pe-ayin verbs prefer the LA(:A - vocalization. In addition to this, there are two future tense forms for Paal/Qal, one with a characteristic O vowel in the last syllable, and one with a characteristic A vowel in the last syllable. The selection of one over another is determined by the historical progression of the language, and not by simple phonological processes, and therefore one must learn the paradigm of each verb. The O-vowel set is by far the more common one, and, in my experience, it is the productive one today in Modern Hebrew (that is, new verbs seem to always get put into this form - evaluate for yourself if this is at all relevant for Biblical Hebrew studies...).

For the purposes of a program, I would suggest that you find your sources in the verb tables used for Modern Hebrew. Get a book like 501 Hebrew Verbs, or, what I prefer, Luchot Pealim (http:// www.seferisrael.com/product_info.php?products_id=105). The second book especially will give you much more detailed (and typo-free) charts of verbal conjugations, which will make many of the general rules more clear to you, I think. Of course, many of these rules have developed in Modern Hebrew to systemize the variation that we find in the vocalization of Biblical Hebrew, but if you are looking for something straightforward, this may be the best way.

I'll let the others share their comments.

Take care,
Daniel

PS: I'm sure Gesenius's grammar (GKC) is online somewhere. Google it.

On 29/06/2007, at 01:23, Brak wrote:

Ok, this just might be my last wacko grammar question.

For the Pe Guttural verbs I have two versions listed.
For example:
Qal Imperfect 3MS: YA(:AMOD
Qal Imperfect 3MS: YEX:EZAQ

So why are there two?
Or better asked: What is the criteria for choosing one over the other?


--

B"H
John Steven

"If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you
behave."
-Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
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