Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Noun in -WT

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Noun in -WT
  • Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:16:04 -0400

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





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page