Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ishinan" <ishinan AT comcast.net>]

Ishinan:

Ibn Asher,  Mūsā ibn Maymūn and all the other Hebrew scholars mentioned in 
the previous response are in complete agreement of the existence of "tagnis" 
or homonyms in Hebrew.  Having recognized the homonymic conflict in Hebrew 
might have caused frequent misunderstandings of the scriptures, these 
scholars authored numerous treatises on this very topic.  As G. R. Driver 
put it, "this misunderstanding was mainly attributed to the deficiencies of 
the Hebrew alphabet."

The crux of the matter is, so far, all the examples offered by Karl are 
simply homonyms. A simple comparative exercise of these terms with their 
cognates in sister Semitic languages with a more developed alphabet can put 
this matter to rest.

Hope that this helps.

Best regards

Ishinan B. Ishibashi


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Vadim Cherny : "

I agree, it is hard to argue with ben Moses ben Asher and Rambam ) However, 
the fact is that they understood homonyms differently from modern 
grammarians. Thus, for example, Rambam in Moreh Nevuhim treats "elohim" as a 
homonym denoting God, angels, rulers, or judges. We would, of course, find 
those meanings closely related. It seems that for Rambam any two meanings 
were homonyms, even if semantically related. In a sense, he spoke of 
theological rather than semantic homonyms. Still in other words, while we 
call *totally unrelated* meanings homonyms, Maimonides calls them homonyms 
if they are not *strictly equal* in theological terms. To that end, he 
introduced a concept of perfect and imperfect homonyms."


Previously Vadim Cherny also wrote:

"The thing is, Hebrew lacks homonyms. What you see as homonyms are actually 
related meanings. As Karl saw for himself, finding the common meaning 
requires some study but it is always there. This is a function of root 
cells. I take Steinberg's  dictionary  for a fine example of such search. "

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