Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yaakov Stein" <yaakov_s AT rad.com>]

Isaac, 
 
Please do not misunderstand my statements.
I am not sticking blindly to traditional grammar books,
and I have a lot of respect for researchers who try to systematically
discover the original forms using internal evidence and logical
reasoning.
 
However, as a scientist, I am also rather skeptical about theories
based on insufficient evidence.
 
To show you what I mean, imagine someone 1000 years from now 
trying to understand the terminating WT in various words in modern
Hebrew. 
He comes across  )CM)WT  (independence).
Someone tells him that the terminating WT is such words is
pronounced ut and is different from the terminating WT in 
)CMWT  (bones) which indicates a plural form.
 
But our researcher is unconvinced. He doesn't believe that Hebrew
speakers idiosyncratically distorted and bloated their words,
and claims that we can not be sure how the WT was pronounced
and that all WT meant plural forms. This leads him to conclude
that independence comes from bones, and he theorizes that
this derived from Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones.
 
OK, our researcher gets a paper out of this, but WE know that
it is nonsense.
 
How can we conclude that ALL terminal H mean feminine forms ?
Zeidel (Hikrei Lashon) gives examples of terminal H as an archaic plural
form.
We certainly have the directive final H.
So why is the paragogic H the only one you can't accept ?
 
Y(J)S