Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

john, i do really believe that semitic languages do show an ancient bilateral
verb stratum throughout. but i also agree with you that establishing specific
evidence may be difficult in most cases. 
incluindo ($$ / (T.T.

in view of ishinan's analysis, i observe the hebrew 
L(S (chew) and (SH (dough).
 
by the way, concerning the biblical root $XH i see clearly an underlying
biradical root $X = low (strong 7807, job 22:29). also the 
root $XX (21 occurrences, strong 7817) shows that the 
H was not necessarily radical.

could H$TXWH be the result of a fusion of two roots: 
$X+XWH rather than change of one root to another?

nir cohen

Hmm, Nir, I'm not sure that I'd want to try and draw too many conclusions from
biliteral roots myself. I agree that they are possible, and indeed the
biliteral root is supposed to be the origin of the triliteral root, but that's
in the deeply obscure pre-history of the Semitic languages. To really
systematicaly get to grips with biliteral roots I suspect you'd need a wide
knowledge of the earliest Semitic languages and of the other Afro-Asiatic
languages too, at least Egyptian. It would be a fascinating study, I agree,
but the material is likely to be too vague and to early to be of any
demonstrable help in understanding Hebrew as we know it. On the other hand,
identifying the mechanisms for root production would be interesting where a
root seems to exist in Hebrew alone.  שחה in our recent discussion is a good
case in point, where we can see where the one root transforms into - or is
read as - another and a new root comes ino existence. Naturally, if biliteral
proto-roots catch your interest, however, that's likely to be personally
helpful, so don't be put off by me.
 
John Leake