Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Pere:

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:43 PM, Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Though I did not write it, I intended, Karl, to say discussing on "biblical
> Hebrew", not Hebrew in general.
> The debate would center on biblical Hebrew.
>

What you are asking for, as far as I can tell, is for a major research
program on the order of Rolf Furuli’s on the yiqtol and qatal verbs. What
makes it harder is that there are traditions put on the language by the
Masoretes and many generations of their followers that will have to be cut
away for the research to have results.

>
> And within this, the discussion would not be limited to the masoretic
> pointing... but to many aspects of the issue.
>

There are many who will not accept any such study unless it remains true to
the Masoretic points.

>
> Or we could deal with nouns ending -YT (CPYT, carpet, in Is 21:5; R)$YT,
> beginning, in Gn 1:1; )XRYT, end, in Ps 37:37...).
> How there are too adjectives ending -YT, as KTYT, beaten (1Ki 5:25)?
> Is there any relation between nouns ending -YT and adjectives ending -YT?
>

As far as I can tell, no. We have no evidence that they were even pronounced
the same. To complicate matters, it may very well be that many of the places
where we read the -YT suffix as adjectives, may have been counted as nouns
by native speakers prior to or during the Babylonian Exile when they were
written. For a modern analysis, one would need to start with the over 2700
words that end with a -YT suffix, remove the large majority of which are
lamed-heh verbs, separate the remaining hundreds (my guesstimate) of words
into nouns and adjectives, then analyse each example—a process that could
take months, if not years, to complete. As far as I can tell, no one has
done such a study.

This is a study I would not recommend to a person contemplating a PhD
dissertation, as there are too many traditionalist profs who believe the
Masoretic points are sacrosanct and would nix any dissertation that does not
remain true to them.

>
> There are many issues like these, that can be of interest of many.
>
>
Of those nouns that end in a -WT suffix, which was the beginning of this
thread, how many of them are naturally plural nouns, like “scissors” in
English, how many are feminine nouns in plural, and other questions? The
same sort of major research project would need to be carried out.

>
> Friendly,
>
> Pere Porta
> (Barcelona, Catalona, Spain)
>

Karl W. Randolph.

>
>