Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Petr Tomasek <tomasek AT etf.cuni.cz>]

> >>
> >> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 12:06 PM, Ken Penner 
> >> <kpenner AT stfx.ca<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'kpenner AT stfx.ca');>
> >> > wrote:
> >>
> >>> Do the following help?
> >>>
> >>> Joüon §59g: "In the light of Ugr. tštḥwy “she prostrates herself,” what
> >>> used to be considered hitpa̧ʿlẹl, represented almost entirely by the
> >>> frequent הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה to worship, to prostrate oneself, is most likely 
> >>> a
> >>> Hištafʿel of √ חוי."
> >>>
> >>
> >> From where does he get this?
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> > What you're seeing, both there and in the Jouon quote, is a grammarian
> > trying desperately to figure out what's going on with this unique word. It
> > used to be taught that it was a hitpa`el of $XH with metathesis of the 
> > shin
> > and the tau, and no clue why the waw. But as Ken already mentioned,
> > Ugaritic has shown us that the root is actually XWH and the stem is a
> > hi$tap`el. Once upon a time we had a grid of stems with a hole in the
> > middle:
> >
> >                      Basic             Emphatic              Causative
> >
> > Active             qal                  pi`el                    hip`il
> >
> > Passive          nip`al               pu`al                   hop`al
> >
> > Reflexive         nip`al                 ?                      hitpa`el
> >
> > Thanks to Ugaritic, we now know what goes where the question mark is. And
> > yes, it only survives in this one word in that language, too. That's an
> > accident of preservation,…
> 
> 
> So the evidence is that because the Ugaritic grammar has this pattern,
> therefore it must be found in Biblical Hebrew as well? Why should I buy
> that argument?

The argument is:
  a) semitic languages build causative stems either using the ha-/ʾa- prefix
or using a ša- prefix. (or variants thereof...)
  b) the infix -it- makes a reflexive stem variant in semitic languages

So a stem having a š- prefix and -it- infix is a regular causative
reflexive stem from the point of view of a comparative semitic grammar.

The only problem is that for Hebrew š- prefix is not the primary 
way of how causative stems are build. This poses however no problem
since one finds such rare stems in many other semitic languages.
See e.g. שׁזיב in Aramaic and so on.


Petr Tomasek