Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

isaac, fred,

on the esthetic level, i have no problem with fred's constructions. 
but as a scientist i cannot relate to them for (at least) four 
reasons: 1) he makes a heavy a priori hypothesis, to wit,

> "but you need to trust that Hebrew is fully and entirely systematic."

2) he makes gross simplifications, strating with:

> "First you look at the single-consonant ( I consider 
aleph, ayin, and a final he as just filler letters) verbs, for  
instance: ABAH (root B),..."

and going through a free association of similar sounding consonants.

3) he ignores a long lasting linguistic reseach on the semitic languages.

4) his dialectic is on the metaphysical, rather than factual, level.

in addition, the following is my personal view. isaac allows for
vowel fuzziness (letters A,H,W,Y) which reflects precisely the 
fuzziness of the western, alfabetic semitic dialects. and his
consonant fuzziness is exactly the one represented in akkadian and ugarit
cuneiform. so, as hebrew was formed amidst all these influences, it
also acquired these two types of fuzziness, explaining isaac's "hits". 
his "misses" are a result of his belief that this fuzziness is, by 
itself, a universal law, e.g. declaring a moratorium on all auxiliary 
AHWY letters, identifying all S,$ and C,Z pairs, etc.

nir cohen