Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Hitpael 1st pers plural bow down/worship

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "J. Leake" <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk>
  • To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hitpael 1st pers plural bow down/worship
  • Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:54:43 +0100 (BST)

 
I must admit, Dave, that that's not how I see the 'hole':
 
                                Basic  G-stem              Emphatic  D-stem            Causative H-stem
 
active                      qal                                  pi'el                                     hiph'il
 
passive                   qal passive                    pu'al                                    hoph'al
 
reflexive/middle     niph'al (? hithpa'al)        hithpa'el                              hishtaph'el
 
As I see it the question is whether here was an original hithpa'al as a qal reflexive, perhaps replaced into the hithpa'el as the qal passive was by the niph'al. But the connection between the H-stem causatives and SH-stem in oher Semitic languages is supposed to be strong. So perhaps the pre-NWS system had a shaph'ala for a hiph'il.
That fits much better with the Arabic system:
 
                                Basic  G-stem              Emphatic  D-stem          Reciprocating      Causative H-stem
 
active                      fa'ala                              fa''ala                               fâ'ala                     'af'ala 
 
passive                   fu'ila                                fu''ila                                fû'ila                       'uf'ila
 
reflexive/middle     infa'ala / ifta'ala              tafa''ala                            tafâ'ala                  istaf'ala
 
 In fact the N-stem can probably be better seen as a separate agent-less passive pattern that replaced the qal passive at some point than specifically tied to the qal. 

BTW, we are speaking of the pre-history of Hebrew here - athough the qal passive seems to be well attested in the Biblical text, the hishtaph'el was obviously no longer a productive stem by Biblical Hebrew times.

John Leake

 
'inna SâHiba Hayâtin hanî'atin lâ yudawwinuhâ: 'innamâ, yaHyâhâ.
(He who lives a comfortable life doesn't write about it - he lives it.)
Tawfiq al-Hakim, Yawmiyyât Nâ'ib fil-'Aryâf.

From: Dave Washburn <davidlwashburn AT gmail.com>
To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, 15 June 2013, 1:13
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hitpael 1st pers plural bow down/worship



On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 3:26 PM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
Ken:

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 12:06 PM, Ken Penner <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, but I don't really think anybody can deny that the word exists.


--
Dave Washburn

Check out my Internet show: http://www.irvingszoo.com/

Now available: a novel about King Josiah!


_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page