Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

  That's right, Will.  Solid evidence in Semitics is always a better basis 
for one's opinion than personal speculation . The latter has become more and 
more the norm in this list.

 As for the Arab equivalent to the Heb. /oti//otkha/ etc, I know off hand 
only the form "Ayyaka"  ( a Shaddah in the Y); it is in one of the first 
verses of the Quran. In the earlier Phoenician there are quite a few examples 
of  /)t/ , /)yt/.

   Uri Hurwitz



>  I don't think it's tenable to derive (e.g.) אתה (/'atta:/) from את + הו
(/'e:t/ + /hu:/).  The pronoun /atta:/ corresponds to forms in other
Semitic languages that have an internal /nt/, such as the Arabic form
ﺍﻧﺖ (/'anta/), whereas forms such as אתי (/'o:ti:/) pretty much exclude
the possibility of the preposition /'e:t/ having an original /nt/.  (We
would expect to see a form with a daghesh in the taw if that were so.)

-- 
Will Parsons
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