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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel and the Binyanim (Re: Verb Stem Confusion)
  • Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 22:32:22 -0500

David,

you can rest assured that the claim for intensity or repetitiveness for the Piel is, not only factually, but also inherently, baloney. The belief that $ABAR is for two pieces but $IBER is for many pieces, that QABAR is for one corpse but QIBER is for many corpses, that $ATAL is for one tree but $ITEL is for many trees, is an obvious fizzle. The "reduplication of the middle radical" is also in my opinion a linguistic fata morgana.
Piel is a root augmented by to infixed personal pronouns for the actors, that's all. It is like the Hipil except in this latter binyan the first personal pronoun is prefixed.
Present-day Hebrew makes great use of Piel to create verbs of shifted meaning, say, $ATAQ, 'kept quiet' versus $ITEQ, 'paralalyzed'. Indeed, in Jeremiah 12:13 QACAR is 'reaped', but in Psalms 102:24 QICER is 'cut short'.
Also, verbal forms out of foreign words: TILPEN out of telephone, FIXES out of fax, FIRMET out of format.

Isaac Fried

On Feb 9, 2009, at 5:12 PM, David Kummerow wrote:


Isaac,

We can hardly "rest assured" by your claim when a) you have provided no
substantiation of your claim, nor interaction with the arguments of
Greenberg, Fehri, Kaufman, etc.; and b) you have demonstrated consistent
linguistic incompetence in other areas and an unwillingness to learn
linguistic method. As such, your claims of "sheer nonsense" can simply
be dismissed.

Greenberg particularly has provided the typological background for
understanding the verbal form. Under such an analysis, the reduplication
of the middle radical is both predictable and explainable.

Of course, as I've stated previously, the verbal plurality function of
the Piel I take as one of its functions, with a
resultative/causative/estimative function of (generally) stative verbs
being its other main function, as Jenni and others have shown.

Regards,
David Kummerow.




You can rest assured that the the claim of intensity or repetition
(RAKAD versus RIKED) for the Hebrew piel is sheer nonsense.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Feb 9, 2009, at 7:37 AM, Peter Bekins wrote:

Yitzhak,

Thanks for the plug. For what it is worth, I personally disagree with
Goetze and lean towards the view that the doubling indicates
plurality as is common in Semitic (and non-Semitic) languages. This
was argued well by Joseph Greenberg (though I haven't put up a
summary of this paper yet):

Greenberg, Joseph H. “The Semitic ‘intensive’ as verbal plurality: a
study of grammaticalization. Pages 577-587 in Semitic studies in
honor of Wolf Leslau on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday.
Edited by Alan S Kaye. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991.

I summarize Kouwenberg's study of the D-stem (piel) in Akkadian in
which he reaches the same conclusions:

http://balshanut.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/kouwenberg-njc-gemination-
in-the-akkadian-verb-studia-semitica-neerlandica-33-assen-van-
gorcum-1997/

Peter Bekins

On Feb 9, 2009, at 12:52 AM, b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

Peter Bekins discusses one article on the Piel here:
http://balshanut.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/goetze-albrecht-the-so-
called-intensive-of-the-semitic-languages-jaos-vol-62-no-1-
march-1942-1-8/

Also relevant is his discussion here:
http://balshanut.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/the-complicated-
morphology-of-the-semitic-binyanim/

Yitzhak Sapir

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--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

Subject:
Re: [b-hebrew] Word pairs in biblical and semitic literatures
From:
fred putnam <fred.putnam AT gmail.com>
Date:
Mon, 9 Feb 2009 08:46:54 -0500
To:
Olivier Randrianjaka <rev_oli AT hotmail.com>

To:
Olivier Randrianjaka <rev_oli AT hotmail.com>
CC:
b-hebrew Forum <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>, steve AT voiceinwilderness.info


Dear Olivier,

Good question!

Hendiadys is a phenomenon of general human thought and language; it is not
restricted or special to the biblical writings. Identifying a hendiadys is
more of an art than a science, and not everyone agrees that every pair is or
is not a hendiadys.

There are probably two primary kinds hendiadys: "parallel" and
"complementary".

In parallel hendiadys two verbs, nouns, or other forms together refer to a
single entity or idea, as though the thing referred to were divided into its
two main components, e.g., "ladies and gentlemen" (= everyone here present),
"going out and coming in" (= all the affairs of life).

But not everyone agrees. Some biblical scholars see, for example, "heaven[s]
and earth" (Gn 1.1) as a hendiadys for "everything" or as the biblical way
of referring to what we now call the "universe", others view them as
identifying the basic components of our physical--earth and sky-- without any
reference beyond human sense apprehension.

In complementary hendiadys two verbal forms have the same conjugation
["tense"], subject (person, gender, number), and are linked by a conjunction
(W-); they do not need to have the same stem/binyan. The first verbal
modifies the second. MHR and $KM can mean "do X quickly" and "do X early in
the morning", respectively, HLK can mean "do X more and more [or
continually]", and $WB can mean "do X again" ("X" = the second verbal). This
does not mean that MHR, $KM, HLK, and $WB do have their "regular" or
"normal" function, but rather that they may sometimes modify another verb.

I hope that this is helpful.

Peace.

Fred


Dear Putnam,

I am glad to get your reply, but may I bother you a little bit? Could you
tell me please how do you recognize that such occurence is a hendiadys or
not. Are you using software or book or this is becase of your good knowledge
of biblical hebrew?

Thanks for your helps

Best regards,

Olivier Randrianjaka

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 5:26 PM, fred putnam <fred.putnam AT gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Olivier,

Thanks for your note.

I've glanced quickly at occurrences of CHESED ... WEMETH with eight words
of each other in a single v. (28 occurrences). Their use suggests that they
can be considered a word-pair, even though (as you point out) they normally
primarily as a hendiadys (23xx), since they also occur five times as
parallel terms in synonymously parallel lines (Pss 57.11; 69.14; 108.5;
117.2; Is 16.5); perhaps we should add Josh 2.12 to this list, even though
its parallel clauses are not poetic lines.

So perhaps they were primarily a hendiadys that could also be split between
parallel lines so that they functioned as a word-pair (again, as the latter
term has come to be used).

Great question!

Peace.

Fred

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 2:44 AM, Olivier Randrianjaka <rev_oli AT hotmail.com>wrote:

Fred Putnam,

Thank you for your contribution, I am quite brand new in this and I am
wondering according to your explanation whether paired words like CHESED
WEMETH, which is sometimes should be translated as a "hendiadys" are also
classified as word pairs.
Thanks for your helps.

Olivier Randrianjaka

Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 19:07:22 -0500
From: fred.putnam AT gmail.com
To: l_barre AT yahoo.com
CC: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org; steve AT voiceinwilderness.info
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Word pairs in biblical and semitic literatures

Dear Lloyd,

Word-pairs tend to occur in parallel poetic lines, as you suggest, and
the
pairs that you list from Pr 10.1b-c are, of course, semanticaly parallel
pairs *in this verse*, but this is not really the way that the term has
come
to be used in the study of ANE poetry (on which see my earlier post).

To use the same example, "wise/foolish" and "father/mother" are
word-pairs,
since they occur together, and in this order, not infrequently in the
Bible.
But are "makes glad" and "heaviness" a word-pair? [I cite the same
version
for consistency.] The piel of SMX [Sorry--I don't have my
transliteration
scheme to hand.] occurs 26xx (times) in Biblical Hebrew (15 of which are
in
Pss/8xx & Pro/7xx--it is a more-or-less "poetic" form). None of its
occurences parallel TWGH, apart from Pr 10.1. Even in Jer 31.13, where
the
"mourning", "joy", "sorrow", "rejoicing", &c. occur--with several
"slots"
into which TWGH would seem to fit--it does not occur. This suggests
quite
strongly that the verb SMX and noun TWGH are not a word-pair.

TWGH occurs only 4xx (Ps 119.28 (no parallel); Pr 10.1; 14.13; 17.21),
so
there is not much evidence upon which to identify them as a pair.

On the other hand, TWGH is either the predicate or subject of Pr 14.13b,
where it occurs with--but does not parallel--the noun SMXH; in Pr 17.21
it
parallels the qal of SMX, but their order is opposite that of Pr 10.1
(TWGH
in 17.21a, qal of SMX in 17.21b). While this implies that these roots
were
understood as antonyms--SMX is negated in order to create a synonymous
parallelism--it does not establish their identity as a word- pair; there
is
not a large enough sampling to draw this conclusion.

I hope that this makes sense.

Thanks for asking, Steve--this is an interesting line of conversation.

Peace.

Fred

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 6:06 PM, LM Barre <l_barre AT yahoo.com> wrote:

Words used in parallel members--matching subject, verbs, objects,
adjectives etc.

A wise son maketh a glad father:
but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.

"Wise son" is paired with "foolish son," "maketh glad" is paired with
"heaviness" and "father" is paired with "mother."

Lloyd Barré



--- On Sat, 2/7/09, Steve Miller <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net> wrote:

From: Steve Miller <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Word pairs in biblical and semitic literatures
To: "'b-hebrew Forum'" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 1:16 AM

Can someone please explain: What is a word-pair? Thanks.

Sincerely,
-Steve Miller
Detroit
www.voiceInWilderness.info
And I saw: and behold, a black horse, and he that sat upon it having a
balance in his hand. And I heard as a voice in the midst of the four
living
creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts
of
barley for a day's wages: and do not injure the oil and the wine. (Rev
6:5b-6)
The chariot in which are the black horses goes forth into the land of
the
north. (Zech 6:6a)
-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-hebrew-
bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of James Spinti
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 12:30 PM
To: b-hebrew Forum
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Word pairs in biblical and semitic
literatures

Not terribly recent, but have you looked at the 3 volumes of Ras
Shamra
Parallels from Biblical Institute Press?

HTH,
James
________________________________
James Spinti
Marketing Director, Book Sales Division
Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 30 years
Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies
jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com
Web: http://www.eisenbrauns.com
Phone: 574-269-2011 ext 226
Fax: 574-269-6788

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-hebrew-
bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Olivier Randrianjaka
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 12:53 AM
To: george.athas AT moore.edu.au; b-hebrew Forum
Subject: [b-hebrew] Word pairs in biblical and semitic literatures


Hi all of you!!I am looking for the most recent works concerning
Word
pairs studies in Biblical as well as in ancient Semitic literatures,
CAN
ANYONE HELP?Thanks a lot. Olivier RandrianjakaPhD Student atMission
School
and TheologyStavanger, Norway
________________________________________________________________ _
_______________________________________________
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b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew




_______________________________________________
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--
--)---------------

Fred Putnam

Philadelphia Biblical University

215-702-4502 (office/voicemail)
215-393-9683 (home)
www.fredputnam.org (website)
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------------------------------
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--
--)---------------

Fred Putnam

Philadelphia Biblical University

215-702-4502 (office/voicemail)
215-393-9683 (home)
www.fredputnam.org (website)





--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

Subject:
Re: [b-hebrew] B in Gen 1:1 (was Hebrew considerations)
From:
K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Date:
Mon, 9 Feb 2009 08:13:45 -0800
To:
b-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>

To:
b-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>


Lloyd:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 3:35 PM, LM Barre <l_barre AT yahoo.com> wrote:

Context decides. The waters are not created in Gen 1:2. They pre-exist as
in Egyptian cosmology.


Here you are reading your presuppositions into the text.

There is nothing here in the text itself that indicates that the waters
pre-existed. This is a rather simple piece of prose where
the exegetical reading of the text indicate that the waters were created as
part of the creation of the earth.

Many of us consider eisegesis (reading ideas into the text which are not
explicitly there) as invalid. Further that is a practice of theology, not
linguistic analysis.


Lloyd Barré, PhD


Karl W. Randolph.



--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

Subject:
Re: [b-hebrew] Hyksos
From:
K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Date:
Mon, 9 Feb 2009 08:27:01 -0800
To:
b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>

To:
b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>


Yigal:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 8:09 PM, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> wrote:

Dear Bryant,

I fail to see even the slightest connection to Hebrew language in this
thread. So it will not be allwed to cary too far. From a historical point
of
view, it's adding speculation on top of speculation - what's the point?

Yigal Levin


I can see the connection, though more as a definitional question.

In other contexts, the royal family ruling the country has been called by
the name of that country, even when ethnically they are not of the country.
So what Bryant is asking, is it within the context of the Hebrew language
that the Hyksos, the ruling class in Egypt, would be called "Egyptian" in
spite of the fact that they were asiatic Semites? I have wondered the same
question before myself.

The only problem I can see is that we have too little information to give a
definite answer to that question.

Karl W. Randolph.




--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

Subject:
Re: [b-hebrew] Iron and Curses in Deuteronomy 28
From:
K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Date:
Mon, 9 Feb 2009 09:12:34 -0800
To:
B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>

To:
B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>


Yitzhak:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>wrote:

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 8:10 PM, K Randolph wrote:

Uh, Yitzhak, before answering this, I checked every verse that you
mentioned, found that you gave the wrong numbers for a couple, and read
meanings into the text that the text cannot support when reading
carefully.
As for the URLs, I already gave them, why should I repeat myself? The
same
with some of the other arguments you repeated?
Karl,

Before answering this you should have taken a deep breath, and asked
yourself, is it possible, in an even remote way, that it is your Bible
whose
verse numbers are off for Ex 20:22-23?


Possible, but unlikely. So far I have found no where where the consonantal
text differs from the WLC, and after your question here, checked and it
doesn't here either.

Really, your reluctance to provide your sources is your own disadvantage.


I already did, so why should I do it again specifically for you?

But it is your expectation that others provide evidence when you won't
follow through, that other explain their "misreadings" when it is your
reading that should be explained, and in the above paragraph relating to
abject ignorance, your simple failure to say you're sorry that is really
offensive.


Why should I say I'm sorry for your mistake?

Yitzhak Sapir


Karl W. Randolph.



--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

Subject:
Re: [b-hebrew] Iron and Curses in Deuteronomy 28
From:
Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
Date:
Mon, 9 Feb 2009 17:44:56 +0000
To:
B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>

To:
B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>


On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 5:12 PM, K Randolph wrote:

Before answering this you should have taken a deep breath, and asked
yourself, is it possible, in an even remote way, that it is your Bible
whose
verse numbers are off for Ex 20:22-23?

Possible, but unlikely. So far I have found no where where the consonantal
text differs from the WLC, and after your question here, checked and it
doesn't here either.

The verse divisons are not part of the consonantal text, but part of the
cantillation. Just because the WLC is placed online electronically does not
mean you know how to read it correctly.

Read here: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/shavuot/ofe.html
(I would translate the relevant points but you can read consonantal Hebrew).

Yitzhak Sapir



--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

Subject:
Re: [b-hebrew] Iron and Curses in Deuteronomy 28
From:
K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Date:
Mon, 9 Feb 2009 09:51:55 -0800
To:
"b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>

To:
"b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>


Yitzhak:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>wrote:

Dear Harold,


I think your reading of Num 35 is very very forced. If the author
went through the trouble of differentiating iron from wood or stone,
and metal weapons were generally available also in bronze, it
would have been appropriate to add a listing for bronze.


Two things:

1) The word in Hebrew is not "weapon", rather "implement". While it is true
that weapons are a subset of implements, this would include all the tools
that a working man would more likely have in his hand, like hoes, hammers,
etc. which were more likely made of iron than more expensive bronze. (As far
as I can tell, there was no specialized word in Biblical Hebrew for
"weapon".)

2) As far as I can tell, there was no word in Biblical Hebrew for generic
"metal", hence listing one, and possibly the one most common for implements,
would stand in for all metals (implements of gold and silver can also kill,
but would be very, very unlikely in the hands of a working man).


Yitzhak Sapir


Karl W. Randolph.



--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

Subject:
Re: [b-hebrew] Exodus 18:26 - Y$PW+W
From:
K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Date:
Mon, 9 Feb 2009 10:15:17 -0800
To:
"b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>

To:
"b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>


Jason:

2009/2/8 Jason Hare <jaihare AT gmail.com>

Exodus 18:26
וְשָׁפְטוּ אֶת-הָעָם בְּכָל-עֵת אֶת-הַדָּבָר הַקָּשֶׁה יְבִיאוּן
אֶל-מֹשֶׁה וְכָל-הַדָּבָר הַקָּטֹן יִשְׁפּוּטוּ הֵם׃
W$P+W )T-H(M BKL-(T )T-HDBR HQ$H YBY)WN )L-M$H WKL-HDBR HQ+N Y$PW +W HM

I'm just wondering what the form Y$PW+W is there. Shouldn't it be
יִשְׁפְּטוּ Y$P+W instead of יִשְׁפּוּטוּ Y $PW+W? Is there a special
significance to this form?

Thanks,
Jason Hare
Rehovot, Israel


One of the things that took a while getting used to when reading the text
without points is that the materes lexionis are optional, i.e. they
sometimes are included, sometimes not. In this case, I read this as a simple
Qal imperfective.

Karl W. Randolph.


--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

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