Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

yigal, uri,

concerning abraham's name, and the H-infix hypothesis 
one direction is to examine the general use of similar 
infixes in BH.

a paper in "Morphology" (eds Booij, Ehrmann, Mugdan, de Gruyter 
2000 ~pp 547-52) of an unidentified author made a typological 
study of many languages, to the effect that an infix may imitate a
corresponding affix but its meaning may be more "intrinsic" than the 
affix. in our case, a candidate may be the definite article H- (??).
moreover, the infix formation is a relative of the doubling formation. 
in other words, an H-infix may be tantamount of a doubling of a vowel A.

consider the following examples of mostly BH infixes/doubles. 
i did not check each of them carefully - some may be based on 
wrong associations.
 
1. RB -->                    RHB,HRHYB      HTRBRB, RBYBYM, RBBH and RBU)
2. NWR,NR,)WR (light)        NHRH,NHYR (illumination); NHWR (aramaic)
3. BR                        BHYR;        BRWR
4.  ML                        MWHL; 
5.  ??                        CHL           CLYL, CLCL, CLWL 
6. MR (aramaic: MR(H), arabic: MRH)  MWHR
7.  T$                         HTY)$. 
8. BWR                         B(R
9. BWR                         B)R
10. BRY (aramaic)              B)R
11. ???                        R($          R$R$
12. RM                         R(M, R(MH 
13. YD                         Y(D, NW(D          
14. CR                         C(R, 
15.  ???                        L(G          LGLG 
16. L$                          L(S
17. MK                          M(K
18. KYB                         K)B
19. (BL?)                       HBL, BHLH       
20. (D (hebrew)                 $HYD (arabic)
21. $Q                          $HQ            $Q$Q  
22. BW$                         HB)Y$            BW$$  
23. Y$R                         $(R             $R$RT
24. QR, KRH                     $(RH  
25. YKL                         KHL (aramaic) 
26. GWR                         G(R   
27.  ???                        G(L             GYLWL
28. QM                          Q)M (aramaic)
29. QD                          Q(D (arabic)
30 NPQ (aramaic)                PHWQ
31 DWY/DWH                      D)B
32 )BH, )WH                     )HB
33 ???                          R(C             RCC, RCWC
34 NWY                          N)H, N)WH

can this provide a plausible basis for a discussion on the 
H in abraham's name? (i have no similar comment to make 
on jim's R-hypothesis).

nir cohen

PS my own name provides another example:
35  KN, MKYN                   KHN            YKWNN