Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Randall:

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

> [b-hebrew] Scope of data – infinitive absolute
> > [RB]
> > >> or if one doesn’t
> > >> recognize an infinitive absolute structure being used for a finite
> verb,
> . . .
> > Already on this list you were presented with
> > Ecc 4:2 shabbeaH ani
> >
>
> [Karl]
> > In context this is a classic participle. Only the pointing “contaminates”
> it
> > to something else.
>
> [RB]
> So apparently Karl reads this as a qal verb. We can test the probability of
> this by looking for confirmation. Unfortunately, the MT has too few
> occurrences for disambiguation (a participle meshabbeaH would have done
> so),
> so we look for outside points of confirmation. Mishnaic Hebrew
> distinguishes a
> qal “to improve, rise in value (intransitive)’ from a pi``el ‘to praise’.
> That
> qal meaning, of course, conflicts with Ecc 4.2, but it does suggest that a
> qal
> might have existed during BH times, accidently unattested, but with a
> different
> meaning than the pi``el ‘praise’.


Seeing as Aramaic has a word $BX, at least in some of its dialects, meaning
‘to grow’ and ‘to increase in value’, can this example be one more evidence
in favor that Hebrew was spoken as a second language, and that Aramaic was
the primary language spoken not only by the hoi polloi, but even by the
elites, during the Second Temple and Mishnaic periods? In other words,
seeing as this meaning is post Biblical, are we dealing with a loan word
from Aramaic?


> And the MT, of course, sees the
> BH verb as a pi``el, which is congruent with the consonantal text and with
> mishnaic Hebrew. Finally, one can look at Arabic, a language that
> split off from NorthWest Semitic languages and Hebrew before attested,
> written BH. Arabic has a “cognate pi``el” verb sabbaHa ‘he praised’.
> Another point
> of confirmation. The probability is definitely in favor of reading as
> a pi``el. A theory
> can stand isolated improbabilities, of course, but here it is unnecessary.
> A pi``el infinitive makes good sense in BH, it corresponds with
> mishanic Hebrew,
> it correspends with the MT, and it corresponds with comparative Semitics.
> What’s not to like?.
>
> >> and Est 9:5 ve-abbed (+ transitive objects). Plus others.
>
> [Karl]
> > If you look at Est 8:6, this is a noun. and here in context it is also a
> > noun. It is connected with MKT that precedes it.
>
> This might be a double mistake.
> First, Est 8:6 is a different word `bdn,
> as is Est 9:5(A)   w-'bdn.
> However, I referred to Est 9:5(B), later in the verse,  ve-abbed,
> where the infinitive absolute is a separate clause that lists whom they
> killed.
> Reading charitably, it appears that you did not refer to the correct clause
> in my comment.
>
> In verse 5 there is only )BDN as a noun, there is no later in the verse
listing whom they killed.

>
> >> May I suggest that you read your “friends” Gesenius 113 y-gg,
> Jouon-Muraoka
> . . .
> > This e-list does not need to repeat lengthy, published, conclusive >
> discussions.
>
> > How much are these published discussions based on the Masoretic points,
> > which are untrustworthy?
>
> Here, several problems or mistakes. First, there does not appear to be
> an answer
> or even a willingness to learn.
>

There are three problems with this statement:

1) You took my statement out of context, which included the reason for the
question.
2) You didn’t answer my question.
3) I don’t have ready access to those books. They are most likely in a
library in another town a couple of hours away, one way, but I don’t want to
take a day off just to find out if they are worth the effort.

This third point has been a sore point on this list, as people will
reference books and articles, and simply assume that everyone has access to
those works, when that is often not the case.


> … To what degree are the MT
> vocalizations morphologically untrustworthy?
>

I didn’t say “morphological”, rather “according to meaning”. If you are
going to criticize, at least get the criticism accurate. By not being
accurate, your whole following paragraph was irrelevant.


> [RB]
> >> And the references to Western European languages is really an old dodge.
>
> [Karl]
> > It’s no dodge, it’s a serious question. Even though the infinitive
> absolute
> > construction is not a Western European phenomenon, how much of the
> > understanding thereof is contaminated by Western European thought?
>
> So how much is based on Western European? None, or imperceptibly.
> Maybe the reverse question needs to be asked:
> How much of your reluctance to admit the structure is contaminated by
> Western European thought?
> But we don’t need either question. The structure exists in BH, as you will
> find out when you take the time to study the question.
>

Two questions:

1) How many of that structure are there in the text?
2) What is the meaning of that structure?

In particular, a proposed answer to the second one, that it sometimes stands
in for a finite verb, sounds like it is influenced by Western European
thought.

And the answer to the first question is that there seem to be far fewer,
possibly only a fraction the number, as you and other grammarians count.

>
> [RB]
> >> Do you know le-shabbeaH as a qal verb anywhere?
>
> [Karl]
> > I checked the consonantal text of Eccl. 4:2 in both WLC and Aleppo, both
> have it written as ושׁבח, not לשׁבח as you have in your question above.
>
> You missed my point. le-shabbeaH is an infinitive vocabulary citation in
> order to refer to a vocabulary item as a pi``el. It was not a citation of
> text.
> Sometimes communication breaks down, but it always helps to ask
> ‘what might be referred to here that would make sense?’
>

Were you asking if such a form existed? If so, the answer to it is one
word……“Duh!!!”

Since I didn’t expect that sort of question, I then took it in the context
of the previous discussion. So what did you mean by that question?

>
> >>  I cite the above
> >> grammarians for you to learn that these are the tip of an iceberg
>
> > It is an appeal to authority when you mention them and not their
> arguments.
> > You don’t need to reproduce their complete arguments, a paragraph should
> > suffice to cover their main points.
>
> Actually, it is an appeal to their data. That is what ‘tip of the iceberg’
> means in context. And a paragraph summarizing their main points cannot
> communicate the weight of accumulative data against your position. You
> will need to go through these sources. In fact, if I summarized their
> argument, I suspect that you would accuse me of an ‘appeal to authority’.
>

Well, then, present their data, or at least a summary thereof. An appeal to
authority is when you merely drop their names, but leave us guessing if that
was their position, with the context that they support your position.

>
> In addition, since the above won't cover all of the examples in Dead Sea
> Hebrew, I will kindly add one of them for you to see, (although it is not
> from the Bible, there is nothing that is not understandable from BH):
>
> 4Q398 fr 14-17 (4QMMT C 25ff)
> זכור [את ]דויד שה[ו]א איש חסדים
> [ו]אפ ה[ו]א [נ]צל מצרות רבות
> ונסלוח לו
> ואף אנחנו כתבנו אליך מקצת מעשי התורה
> שחשבנו לטוב לך ולעמך
>
> It's a nice example of their Hebrew including biblical syntax that was
> not known in Aramaic. And it doesn't rely on the MT vocalization, either.
> Just a main clause infinitive absolute, not Aramaic, good Hebrew.
>

I see an imperative. Where’s the infinitive? While the vocabulary is
Biblical, the syntax isn’t. It just feels weird.

>
> So you are aware that there is a lot of data, too much for this list and
> for discussions that are already too long. If you don't want to look at
> it, already collected and published, then I won't be able to go and
> rewrite it all for you on list.
>

For purposes of this list, you can ignore all the examples from cognate
languages and post Biblical Hebrews, and just give Biblical examples. So
far, the vast majority of the examples listed on this discussion have not
been infinitives, nor infinitives standing in for finite verbs, therefore
you have yet to demonstrate your claim.

At least one claim, that they are common, appears to be false.

>
> The rest of the too-long discussion loses relevancy with the above and
> is deleted.
> You can certainly cite pieces if needed to respond to the above.
>
> for example:
> . . .
> [Karl]
> >This whole section is based on two fallacies:
> >
> >1) just because certain sounds, hence phonemes, are found in other,
> cognate
> >languages, therefore they were necessarily found in Hebrew as well.
>
> No Karl, you’ve not digested the argument. Comparative linguistics assumes
> the opposite, that the phonologies of related languages are different
> and that they have different phonemic inventories. But one studies
> and explains the correspondences and divergencies.
>

The arguments that I have heard over the years claiming that the alphabet
never fit Hebrew well were based on the belief that Hebrew has always had
all the phonemes found in MT and later Hebrews. The support for that claim
are the many phonemes found in the other, cognate languages.

My response is that Second Temple, Mishnaic and later Hebrews were corrupted
by people who spoke Hebrew as a second language, corrupted by importing
phonemes and phoneme patterns from their primary language.

This goes back to the question, was the Hebrew alphabet developed for the
Hebrew language? If so, did the developer(s) follow the normal practice of
one letter per phoneme (excepting vowels in this case, to stop nitpickers)?
If the answer to the first question is yes, and the second would be unusual
if it were not yes, then we have de facto historical evidence that the
language originally had only 22 consonantal phonemes, not the larger number
seen today nor the larger number found in cognate languages.

>
> etc., etc.,
>
> but not related to the infinitive absolute
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth AT gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life


When one reads an unpointed text, the context becomes very important. For
example, זכר morphologically can be one of four possibilities:

1) qatal verb, either qal or niphal
2) qal participle
3) noun
4) infinitive
and with non-standard spellings, an imperative or other function.

It is through context that we eliminate possibilities.

Some years back, I realized that I noticed far fewer infinitives than
previously when I used an analytical lexicon and Masoretic points. At the
time I shrugged it off as maybe being a faulty memory. This discussion
reminded me of that realization, and also gave me an answer, that I really
do notice far fewer infinitives: because where the context and morphology
call for a participle, I read a participle; where they call for an
imperative, I read an imperative; and so forth, and this discussion points
out that many of them were pointed as infinitives.

This brings up a question I asked before, is this an example of many places
where the Masoretes were wrong in how they pointed the text?

Karl W. Randolph.