Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Sasson Margaliot <sasson AT live.com>]

Relating to few questions from W. Parsons:

Question 1: 
> What on earth do you mean by your 'little a' and 'little n'?

Answer: I didn't invent 'little a' and  'little n'.  In Distributed Morphology, "little a" is the standard notation for morphemes that turn a root or stem into an adjectival stem; similarly "little n" produce verbal stems and "little v" - verbal ones.

Question 2: 

> The more fundamental question, though, is what explanatory power does
> your theory have? 

There are 5 rules. Any pair of these rules (there are 10 such pairs) may sometimes apply to the same word. In these cases, the theory predicts that both rules will identify the inner root consistently.

Question 3:

> If I understand your rules properly, the root of DeReKh is RK, 

> but the root of SeFeR is SF, but what semantic reason is

> there to think the De- in DeReKh is a prefix 

> or the -eR in SeFeR is a suffix? 

The verbs exhibit change-of-state vs manner duality.  

"little v" morphemes that produce "manner" verbs are prefixes. 

The verb DaRaKh is clearly a manner verb. The nominal stem for DeReKh is derived 

from already-complex verbal stem.

Question 4:

> Or why think these two subclasses of segolate nouns 

> should be analysed differently in this manner?

One subclass of segolate nouns has 'a' (DaR.KiY), while 

the other has "i" (SiF.RiY). In the new theory, this previously unexplained fact 

is understood: stems with prefix have 'a' 

Notice that semantic and morphological criteria both make the same prediction.

Question 5:

> The English examples you cite are not examples of gemination, but of
> an orthographic convention. I.e., the doubled letters do not indicate
> a change in the articulation (a "doubling") of the consonant, but
> secondarily indicate the quality of the preceding vowel.

In modern Hebrew the situation is similar: "geminated" constants are only indicated in writing, with usually no change in the actual articulation of the consonants (except for: 'v','ph',and 'kh', which turn into 'b', 'p' and 'k') - yet the preceding vowel behaves as if found in a closed syllable.

Question 6:

> > For the triplet (K,T,V), there is a word-form "K.TuB.Bot",
> >
> > According to the rule #1, the existence of a noun where the theird
> > radical is geminated suggest that the root in this case if is TV
> 
> And the K is a prefix? Why?

All the creation/consumption verbs (including KaTaV) are classified with "activity/manner" verbs, 

so the "little v" here is a prefix. That leaves (T,V) to be a root. 

Not surprisingly, the root-final consonant is geminated in K.TuB.BoT 

Sasson Margaliot

Jerusalem

> Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 17:28:07 -0400
> To: sasson AT live.com
> CC: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Five Rules for root-identification
> From: wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu
>
> On Tue, 25 Jun 2013 10:31:25 +0300, Sasson Margaliot <sasson AT live.com> wrote:
> > A new system for root-identification was introduced in article "CVC
> > Roots in Hebrew":http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001641
> >
> > The Rule #1 is the Lexical Gemination Rule:
> >
> > Unmotivated geminination of a consonant in nouns suggests the
> > geminated constant is a root-final.
>
> Interesting, but I'm not convinced.
>
> Question: Under "Lexical Gemination", example #6, you state:
>
> (6) Ge.DuL.Lah ‘greatness’
>
> We conclude that in (6), [D, L] is the Root.
>
> The Root is merged first with ‘little a’ (spelled out by ‘G’), and then
> with ‘little n’ (spelled out by ‘u’).
>
> What on earth do you mean by your 'little a' and 'little n'?
>
> The more fundamental question, though, is what explanatory power does
> your theory have? If I understand your rules properly, the root of
> DeReKh is RK, but the root of SeFeR is SF, but what semantic reason is
> there to think the De- in DeReKh is a prefix or the -eR in SeFeR is a
> suffix? Or why think these two subclasses of segolate nouns should be
> analysed differently in this manner?
>
> > Gemination of root-final is a common phonological process, that
> > happen in various languages, including English:
> >
> > brimming, clubbing, cutting, fitting, getting,grabbing,
> > hopping,letting, lobbing, logging, rubbing, setting, slamming,
> > stabbing, swimming,spitting, splitting, travelling, vetting, ...
>
> The English examples you cite are not examples of gemination, but of
> an orthographic convention. I.e., the doubled letters do not indicate
> a change in the articulation (a "doubling") of the consonant, but
> secondarily indicate the quality of the preceding vowel.
>
> > For the triplet (K,T,V), there is a word-form "K.TuB.Bot",
> >
> > According to the rule #1, the existence of a noun where the theird
> > radical is geminated suggest that the root in this case if is TV
>
> And the K is a prefix? Why?
>
> William Parsons