Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Steve:

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:05 AM, <berlant AT advanced-studies.org> wrote:

>
> On March 17,2010, George Athas wrote"
>
>  >It comes down to the acceptance of those postulates. However, they
> can't really be accepted (see Yitzhak's response). So, you can't
> really build a plausible theory on unacceptable assumptions.
>
> What do you find unacceptable about the postulate that
> tri-consonantal roots were derived from bi-consontantal roots, and
> what is the alternative? That the former were derived full-blown ex
> nihilo, like Athena from the head of Zeus?
>

Or how about, as it says in Genesis, that man was created during the sixth
day as a fully functioning adult, complete with language able to express the
full range of human thought? With that being the case, there is no need to
speculate that tri-consonantal were derived from bi-consonantal roots,
because a fully functioning language would be able to contain
tri-consonantal roots from the beginning.

It sounds like that your speculation is from a different religion.

And although the postulate that Tet was a reflex of Tav may not be
> acceptable, the postulate that Tet and Tav were often confused within
> and between languages should be acceptable?
>

This doesn’t support your theory.

>
> However, even if the latter postulate isn't acceptable, the identity
> Pe-Tet/open = Pe-Tav/open is still, imo, sufficient grounds for
> believing that the roots are variants.
>

You can speculate all you want, but your thoughts absent observations always
remain speculations, can neither be proven nor disproved.

>
> Regards,
>
> Steve Berlant
>
> Karl W. Randolph.