Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

You really should edit your responses, as this is getting a bit long.

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 1:29 PM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not quite sure what you've said
>
> [KarlR]
> ...
> >These suffixes you mention here could be examples of such, and not
> > because of dropping an initial yod.
>
> [RB]
> So where is an example where a root with yod produces an adjective
> without a suffix and no yod?
> You haven't answered this.
> I don't see any precedent for assuming that an "adjective rad" is
> from y.r.d.
> But we have every morphological reason to suppose that it is
> from r.d.d.
>

You really should google the list for the discussion we had a few years ago
about why some nouns have an ending heh or tau, and others from the same
roots and apparently very similar meanings don’t. It appears that those
words with a dropped first letter yod mostly fall within a pattern of nouns
adding a final heh or tau.

As for morphology, there are more false attestations to roots than I can
count on my fingers and toes, with plenty left over. Where derivatives can
be connected to roots, I tend to take them more seriously than many modern
lexicographers, but I have a high standard before I allow that a word can be
a derivative of a particular root.

>
> >
> > [KarlR]
> > I just looked up in a concordance, and there RD is listed as a qal under
> > YRD.
>
> [RB]
> What concordance does that and why would you accept it?
>
> Oh, it’s just some hand written one from some years back. It is the 
> *Konkordanz
zum hebräischen Alten Testament* by some guy named Gerhard Lisowsky,
published by Württembergische Bible Anstalt in Stuttgart, 1958. I agree with
him that it is from the root YRD but I question whether it is a qal. It is
the context and other uses that lead me to agree with him.

>
>
>
> [KarlR]
> >But Jeremiah used the word “land” and the people had not yet left the
> land.
> >They were still in Judea, preparing to leave, and in that preparation they
> >had left their farms and villages. So this is a return within the land,
> not
> >unto a land which they had left.
>
> [RB]
> Try the verb y.sh.b.  'reside, sit, remain' "in the land". You've brought
> no
> explanation for the preposition, no precedent for such a sense of the
> verb with this preposition, and no acknowledgement that all the
> ancients read the Hebrew differently from you.
>
> You don’t consider context a precedent?

>
>
>
>
> [KarlR]
> >This is an example where the Masoretes got it wrong as far as meaning is
> >concerned. I read this as a shegolate noun. Context and syntax lead me to
> >that conclusion.
>
> (RB) PS: a "shegolate noun [sic]" would be a profanity,


How is it a profanity? On second thought, I don’t want to know. I’m happy in
my ignorance in this matter.


> I assume that you
> mean 'segolate'?
>
> [RB]
> But you haven't stated what the word actually IS. Just what word are
> you claiming is correct, and what word are you claiming that the
> Masoretes got wrong?
>
> This is ironic, because the Masoretic pointing would fit a segolate
> pattern.
> [weshavti] could be from a segolate *a- noun, except that the one noun that
> exists in the language was built on an *i- vowel, not the *a- of the MT in
> this verse.
>

Then the MT pointing is wrong. At the very least, go with the majority
evidence. When context, syntax and grammar all favor one reading, and the MT
sits alone with another, why not go with the majority evidence?

I seem to remember hearing from somewhere long ago that going with the
majority of evidence is an exegetical principle, is that not so?

>
>
> [KarlR]
> >As for pronunciation, my guess is that it may have been SeBeTe (the
> written
> >consonants in capitals, the proposed vowels in minuscule). Or with the
> >suffix as in this verse as SeBeTiYa. In both cases, the final syllable
> >unstressed, almost to the point of not being there.
>
> [RB]
> I assume that you intended "$" for "S" in the paragraph above. (Otherwise
> you've just made Hebrew "sh" sound like Arabic 's', though their
> phonologies
> do have a long and different history.)
>

I have no idea what the Arabic ‘s’ sounds like, I was thinking of the
English ‘s’. After all, you asked me for sounds, not phonological
histories.

>
> So it appears that you are arguing for a new word *shebete that is not the
> infinitive from y.sh.b. ?
>

Nah, not a new word. Just one found on page 1403 of the concordance whose
title I listed above.

>
> And why is this better than whatever is Masoretic?
>

Where I disagree with the concordance are the same places where I disagree
with the Masoretes, because the concordance agrees with the Masoretes.

I have nothing against the Masoretes. I just acknowledge that they were
fallible humans, just like anyone else. Their pointing is theirs, from
fallible humans, it is not original. As a result, I take their pointing
merely as suggestions, no better, no worse than other human made guides to
reading the Tanakh. Here I am talking about their pointing as guides to
meaning, not to pronunciation.

I weigh context as more important than the Masoretic points as a guide to
meaning. And when I add syntax and grammar, then it is easy to follow the
majority of evidence.

>
>
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth AT gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life


Karl W. Randolph.