Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

David,

Whenever you look at an U and an I [also O and E] in a Hebrew word  
you see a universal identity marker [also known as a personal  
pronoun], invariably. If T is not radical, then it is a personal  
pronoun, invariably. I have said this repeatedly on this list [also,  
of course, in my book, which can be seen in its entirety at  
www.hebrewetymology.com].
It is for illustrative purposes only that I specifically read -U- as  
HU), and -I- as HI). Consider the example of $-U-LAX, $AL-U-AX, and  
$ALX-U, of the root $LX, 'send'. Even though the latter means 'THEY  
have sent' I permit myself to read it as $ALX-HU) by virtue of the  
universality of U.
I am preparing now a reply to Kenneth Greifer in which I will  
elaborate on this in some greater detail.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Nov 28, 2007, at 5:47 PM, David Kummerow wrote:

> Hi Isaac,
>
> Who said anything about "mechanical translation"? I thought we were
> attempting a semantic analysis here with this discussion? If so, BH
> melek and malkut equate semantically, or overlap semantically, with
> English "king" and "kingdom" respectively. The -ut suffix is joined to
> malk-, but crucially not to address the addressee and simultaneously
> point out some third-person referent. If anything, I would say that  
> your
> own approach is far too "mechanical" in finding personal pronouns in
> every nook and cranny. Just because there is a 'u' and a 't' does not
> mean that we have to see a morphological makeup of one or two personal
> pronouns, only that we have here two phonemes, /t/ and /u/, which,
> unsurprisingly due to their phonemic status, are found in some  
> personal
> pronouns also many, many other words and morphemes in BH.
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
>
>
> > Pere,
> >
> > The flow chart should go, methinks, this way
> >
> >                   ----------> MELEK, king
> >
> > MLK, root
> >                   ----------> MALKUT, kingdom, kingship
> >
> > Now, matters become befogged because we jump from one language to
> > another and think that by mechanical translation we achieve
> > understanding. To understand the Hebrew you need to explain to   
> > yourself
> > what MELEK and MALKUT mean without using the English  equivalents,  
> > only
> > the root MLK.
> >
> > Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
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