Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

We need only recall the fundamental statement of Hebrew grammar:

A Hebrew word (sans attached prepositions) consists of a root plus  
personal pronouns.

A personal pronoun (PP) כינוי גוף is a temporary universal  
name given to a "thing", or object, in order to identify it, in other  
words, a PP is an identity marker.
The PP may come before the first, after the last, or in-between the  
radical letters. For "infixes" the Hebrew language uses as identity  
markers the sound I (in my opinion a contracted HI היא ), the sound  
U (in my opinion a contracted HU הוא ), and also E and O, with no  
gender implied. In order not to confuse the root no consonant is  
allowed (with rare exceptions) between the radical letters.
At the root ends the identifiers may contain N (as in ANI), M (as in  
HEM), T (as in AT), H (as in HEN), and K (as in ANOKIY).
U-T is the combined HU-AT.
For example:
SUGAR = S-HU-GAR with the internal HU referring to the thing used for  
locking.
SAGUR = SAG-HU-R with the internal HU referring to the locked thing.
SAGRU = GAGR-HU, 'they locked'.
HUSGAR = HU-SGAR, 'he was turned in', HUSGRU = HU-SGR-HU, they were  
turned in'.
KAP, 'palm of the hand, spoon', KAP-IY, 'my spoon', KAP-IY-T, 'a  
little spoon, an effeminate spoon'.
XALAB, 'milk', XALB-U, 'they milked', XALAB-IY, 'my milk', or  
'milky' (M.), XALAB-IY-T, 'milky' (F.).
XAN-U, 'they parked, they encamped', XAN-U-T, 'store'.
MELEK, 'king', MALK-U, 'they ruled', MALK-U-T, 'kingship, kingdom',  
MALK-U-T-IY, 'regal' (M.), MALK-U-T-IY-T, 'regal' (F.).

etc., etc., etc..

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 20, 2011, at 6:03 AM, Pere Porta wrote:

> Dear b-hebrew listers,
>
> I would like to propose a debate on nouns in -WT in the Bible. And  
> so, DMWT,
> image (Is 40:18) and similar.
> I think there are three kinds of such nouns:
>
> 1. Those that derive from bases lamed-heh (or lamed-yod if you  
> prefer):
> DMWT, image; GLWT, exile (Is 20:4)... These substitute the heh of  
> the base
> by -WT
> 2. Those that are produced by inserting a W between the last two root
> consonants, the last of which is T. And so, SHERWT, service, built  
> on the
> basic SHERET, to serve (Dt 18:7)
> 3. Those that simply add -WT to the three consonants of the base:  
> SKLWT,
> stupidity (Ec 10:13), of the basic SEKEL, stupidity (Ec 10:6); MLKWT,
> royalty (1Ch 29:25), of the basic MELEK, king.
>
> Now, nouns in 1. are distributed in two types:
> --those that take shewa in their first root consonant: D:MWT
> --those that take qamats in their first root consonant: GFLWT
>
> Am I right?
> Are there some other kinds of nouns in -WT?
>
> Friendly,
>
> --
> Pere Porta
> (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew