Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com>]

Hi Fred

On 3 February 2011 18:38, fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Take proverbs 31:15. If someone read those words to you today, without
> identifying the source of the words, (other than the person speaking to
> you) ... how would you "hear" the two verbs; ותקם (va-ta-kam); and ותתן
> (va-ti-ten)?
>
> a. "and she rose;" "and she gave?"
>
> b. "and she is rising;" "and she is giving?"
>
> c. some other manner?
Probably c... and she rises ... and she gives. If I heard them
together like that in one sentence. However, this would probably flow
from the context of the sentence rather than just from the words
themselves.
E.g. if I heard the sentence as part of a narrative /story, I would
probably hear "and she rose" ... "and she gave" .
And if I heard only the two words (no sentence), I would probably
hear: "and she will rise" ... "and she will give".
>
> And is what you "hear" first determined by your initial decision that:
>
> a. the speaker is speaking to me in "modern" or current hebrew; or
>
> b. the speaker is speaking to me in biblical hebrew language?
My first reaction on hearing Hebrew would normally be to hear "modern"
Hebrew (and that is the way I would hear it if I heard the words in
isolation). However, in this case the repeated waw's will probably tip
me off to the fact that it is biblical Hebrew. In "modern" Hebrew the
waw functions exclusively as a conjunction and is also much less used
than in biblical Hebrew. E.g. you would very seldom (if ever) begin a
sentence with waw.

Shalom
Chavoux Luyt