Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 9/7/07, Pere Porta wrote:

> > Is 54:17 ywcr is 3ms imperfect so that y is not a root letter.  I
> > think the w may originally have been a root letter I think it's not
> > likely.  The verb form is a Qal passive.  The  verb type is a weak
> > verb with initial y.

First, a small correction: In general the w is probably not considered
to be a root letter.  I think it is possible it may have been originally,
but it's not likely.

> PP - In the tools I have at hand I read ywcr is a Hoph'al imperfect form. I
> ask: What is the difference between Hophal and Qal passive?  Is Qal passive
> a regular or consistent conjugation?

All the main conjugations - Qal, Piel, Hiphil, had internal passive forms -
Qal passive, Pual, Hophal.  In Aramaic, the three disappeared almost entirely
and were replaced by other verb forms.  In Hebrew, they remained but Niphal
(originally not passive) replaced most of the functions of the Qal passive.  
In
general, it is vocalized similarly to either a Pual or Hophal.  However, just
because it sounds the same and just because that even with the vocalization
we are left with an ambiguity as to which verb from it is, does not mean that
it did not exist as a regular verb form.  In many cases we can only tell 
whether
a verb is Pual/Hophal or Qal passive from the verb being used and its context.
Thus, if the verb elsewhere has a Hiphil or Piel but no Qal, it is
probably a Pual
or Hophal, respectively.  If the verb elsewhere has a Qal but no Piel
and Hiphil,
it is probably a Qal passive.  If the verb elsewhere has Qal and one
of Piel/Hiphil
it may be hard to tell since the passives are semantically very close ("he was
V'd" vs. "he was caused to be V'd").  Perhaps one can use the distribution of
participles for some inference, transitivity of the verb, and also in
special cases
like the verb mwt where the meaning "died" is already very passive, one may
infer that a hophal ("he was caused to be dead") is intended.  (Note that mwt
has a Hophal passive participle but no Qal passive participle).

> > Lev 20:10 is not comparable.  It is 3ms imperfect Hophal.  The verb type
> > is
> > a weak verb with medial w (and this is why it's not comparable).
>
> Why would they not be comparable? The inner structure of ywcr (Is 54:17) and
> of ywmt (Lev 20:10), of ywd$ (Is 28:27) and of ywsb (Is 28:27) is, to my
> sense, QUITE THE SAME. Even if the verb type where these words are built
> from is not the same.

ywsb has a qamats and is a pausal form.  ywmt is part of a phrase that has
mwt read together (that is, there is no word pause between the two words and
it reads mwtywmt).  This means that mwt does not have separate stress but
its stress is a function of its presence in the combined phrase.  Finally, 
just
because different verb forms/verb types developed in one form to a similar
vocalization does not mean this is true for all verb types of that verb form.
So, if you see ywmt and you realize that the verb type is medial w weak,
you should compare it against others that are medial w weak.  A real
similar example of a Hophal appears with ycq (but see the above comment
on semantic similarity).

> YS > Is 28:27 ywd$ is 3ms imperfect Qal of a medial w weak verb:
>
> PP - I do not understand. Why ywd$ (Is 28:27) would be 3ms imperfect Qal
> while ywmt (Lev 20:10) would be 3ms imperfect Hophal?

Hophal and Qal have two very different meanings.  One cannot simply say, "if
the word has this vocalization it is X."  One has to say, "if a word
of this verb
type has this vocalization, it may be X, Y, or Z."  Now, look at X, Y, and Z,
and determine the meanings.  After all, if you don't discern any difference of
meaning between Hophal and Qal, what use is it to try to determine which
of the two it is?

Yitzhak Sapir