Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Leake <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk>]

Yes, Karl,(paragogic nuns they're called, aren't they?)  but in Hebrew they're so infrequently used that one has to assume the tripartite mood system had collapsed. In Arabic and Ugaritic (and apparently Phoenician and Punic) they are the one consonantal  indicator of the indicative mood (the final vowels are the main clue, of course, but rarely indicated)

John Leake

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ان صاحب حياة هانئة لا يدونها انما يحياها

He who has a comfortable life doesn't write about it - he lives it

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On 29 May 2013, at 15:07, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

John:

I notice that there are final nuns on some plural verbs in Biblical Hebrew, is that somehow related to what you mention below?

Karl W. Randolph.

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 6:29 AM, John Leake <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Indeed, Krahmalkov maintains that the tripartite distinction between indicative, subjunctive and jussive was strictly maintained in Phoenician, and that this continued into Neo-Punic. In the last phases of Punic the subjunctive was orthographically represented, but the subjunctive and jussive were always distinguishable from the indicative since Phoenician maintained the final nun of the 2nd and 3rd persons plural in the indicative prefix form)

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ان صاحب حياة هانئة لا يدونها انما يحياها

He who has a comfortable life doesn't write about it - he lives it

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