Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>> "Note well: the fem. singular suffix is -a. The "-h" was never pronounced.
The older form of the singular suffix was *-at, which is why the
poss.pron. have
a 't' with them.">>
>
>  Compare colloquial Arabic usage which is like Hebrew, to the standard
classic Arabic used to to this day that retains this aspect of Proto-Semitic.
ezov haqqir>

I almost follow you, except that classical Arabic has a dual graph for this,
the 'ta marbutta'. The Arabs wrote a 'h' shape just like BH, and then added
two dots to show the 't' sound. When reading "full style, with the case
ending", the 't' will be pronounced, but when reading without "i`raab" not
only does the case ending drop, but the 't' as well. Again, just like the
outcome in BH.
The process was quite natural, phonetically, and took place in the
Hebrew verb, too.  *halakat > hal-xa.
However, with verbs, both Aramaic and Arabic preserved the 't' sound.

ezov haqqir-!-ve-tov lihyot zanab le-aryot millihyot rosh le-shu`alim

Randall





-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
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