Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

[Karl]:
> When dealing with qal, niphal, piel, etc., are we dealing with
> inflections, or are we dealing with synonyms?
> This is the question brought up by Randall in his post on KWN.

Yes, that is the question.

> As far as I
> understand his post, he treats roots as historical accidents that
> have minimal influence on the meanings of words.

Roots are explanations about where a word came from.
This is true in every language.
In fact, what more does one want from etymology?

> In this, I think he is influenced by modern usage, modern
> lexicography and translations.

You deduce this because I happen to speak Arabic and Hebrew?
The data on le-haxin להכין showed non-predictable collocations
with 'food' in Biblical Hebrew.
Do you want le-haxin basar to mean
'to cause the beef to be established, (immovable on a dish)'?
Or do you prefer le-haxin basar "to prepare the beef,
(perhaps in a nice curry sauce, or maybe in today's culture,
hot and sizzling off the charcoal)? (cf. Gn 43.16, Ps 78.20,
1 Chr 12.39, 2Chr 35.14-15.)

> I think there are many who agree with him.

Hopefully. You might come around, too. I mean that
in as inviting a way as it can be. It especially happens
when people start using the language in two directions and
noticing that they must restrict their 'predictions' in order to
move in the direction of attested usage at any period. This is
why I emphasize and repeat that a person must always
take their theory out 'for a test drive'. They must actually use
the language for communication. We do an English
evening lecture for students called 'the leaning tower of
Pisa' showing how beautiful, intricate systems can be built,
'perfect', as long as gravity is ignored.

> I, on the other hand, understand these as different inflections that
> point to different functions applied to verbal action. The qal is
> simple action, while the hiphil indicates causal inflection, while the
> hitpael has the action focus on the actor, often in a reflexive action,
> and so forth.

But how do you know and show that this "inflectional view" is not the
influence of 'first year pedagogy' (first year lies, as you
sometimes say) and heavy reliance on an analytical lexicon in a
foreign language?

There is a simple way to test.
See what your predictions produce, and then
compare the predictions to attested occurrences. Then try to explain
the gap as 'accident', until the improbability reaches fantastic
proportions. Every person goes through this stage when learning
their first language, even in later languages, though
'caretakers' (other speakers) shorten the time process. You can do
this below with higgid yaggid le-haggid.

...
> One aspect of the question: I do not expect these words to be
> used in the same way as their nearest equivalents in other
> languages. >

Good advice and recommended to be followed. But this advice
is irrelevant, except that this email is unfortunately in English.
You are free to write in BH.
The BH vocabulary is restricted, but we find that most things
are communicable even within the restrictions.

> To give an example, NGD has the meaning of: “to be(come)
> before, in front of ⇒ hi. to cause to be in front of, most often
> used in giving a message, making sure the it is received,
> i.e. “in your face” in modern American parlance”
...
> Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I have some observations on this proposal that need to
be discussed and cannot be overlooked if we want
to get to the bottom of the question.
Others are free to comment as well.

This proposal on higgid is a triple etymological mistake.

First, it does not explain why higgid yaggid is limited to
speaking and not physical movement, weapons, etc.,
despite the very physical 'neged' "in front of", and despite
your implication in saying "most often", as if
non-communication examples were known. All 369
examples are restricted to communication. Amazing.
Fantastic.

Secondly, it implies an agressiveness or negativity
borrowed from English, though I am sure that this
was inadvertant on your part and only by way of example.

Thirdly, as a very common verb occurring 369 times,
it does not explain the unexpected lack of nagad (qal)
or naged (qal pa`el) or nigged (pi``el), et al.

(Please note that I am not denying etymology or its
usefulness. It may explain things like the preposition in
1Sm 17:31. But it doesn't explain the overall, restricted
field of meaning to 'reveal, explain, tell',
or to quote Qaddari's lexicon in Biblical Hebrew:
  גלה, באר/פרש ,ספר דבר אשר לא היה ידוע
"gilla [Gn 3.11], be'er/peresh [Gn 41.24],
sipper davar asher lo haya yadua"
We don't want anyone to think that this is because of
foreign language translation or English!)

Examples like this, multiplied as many times as needed,
in as many Semitic languages and dialects as needed,
are why a person must treat non-passive Nif`al, Pi``el,
Hitpa``el and Hif`il as words, (within what is called
derivational morphology in linguistics
[different word development], as opposed to
inflectional morphology [same word marked with a
syntactic/grammatical tag]).

And the fact that we are having a thread like this
may justify my claim that prevalent pedagogy
may be problematic. People are too easily
trained to think etymologically, without their even
realizing that that is what they are doing. I think
that this is a useful and necessary discussion and
I thank you for addressing the question.

braxot
(yes, blessings (in general), and not only "etymologically
when on one's knees". This too has a story, like the Hebrew
le-varex לברך pi``el but a different dialect
developing להבריך hif`il [Edomite].)

Randall Buth

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