My problem, Rolf, with the your hypothesis (quite believable for DSS sectarian compositions) is that the non-existence of the form says nothing about the earlier state of the language. Your data (thanks for your very generously detailed postings, BTW, that I hope to follow up when I get to a library) does seem to ahow at the least that the some apocopated forms were still being used in the DSS materials. Now, this might be an attempt to write in a Biblical register and might not regmflect tye every day Hebrew. Did you class your data by literary style? Or am I misreading the DSS materials? Still, if the DSS Biblical materials tend to display the same orthography as the Massoritic, and we see similar features in Ugaritic (loss of final mim - ויקטל where the usual prefix conjunction has יקטלם suggestibg */wa-yaqtulū/ and */yaqtulūm/ respectively) then we are surely entitled to draw the conclusion that the jussive form at least as being certain to a tolerable standard. But of course I don't know the Ugaritic materials at all, really. You've taught Ugaritic. Is this something near what the evidence shows? John Leake ---------------------------------- 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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