Benjamin Suchard | KU Leuven (original) (raw)

Books by Benjamin Suchard

The first half of the book of Daniel contains world-famous stories like the Writing on the Wall. ... more The first half of the book of Daniel contains world-famous stories like the Writing on the Wall. These stories have mostly been transmitted in Aramaic, not Hebrew, as has the influential apocalypse of Daniel 7. This Aramaic corpus shows clear signs of multiple authorship. Which different textual layers can we tease apart, and what do they tell us about the changing function of the Danielic material during the Second Temple Period? This monograph compares the Masoretic Text of Daniel to ancient manuscripts and translations preserving textual variants. By highlighting tensions in the reconstructed archetype underlying all these texts, it then probes the tales’ prehistory even further, showing how Daniel underwent many transformations to yield the book we know today.

The Development of the Biblical Hebrew Vowels investigates the sound changes affecting the Proto-... more The Development of the Biblical Hebrew Vowels investigates the sound changes affecting the Proto-Northwest-Semitic vocalic phonemes and their reflexes in Tiberian Biblical Hebrew. Contrary to many previous approaches, Benjamin Suchard shows that these developments can all be described as phonetically regular sound laws. This confirms that despite its unique transmission history, Hebrew behaves like other languages in this regard.

Papers by Benjamin Suchard

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2024

Ezekiel 9 and 10 feature a supernatural figure described as a man "clothed in linen (לָבֻשׁ בַּדִּ... more Ezekiel 9 and 10 feature a supernatural figure described as a man "clothed in linen (לָבֻשׁ בַּדִּים)" (Ezek. 9:2). This article identifies this and related expressions (including those in Daniel) as calques of Akkadian labiš kitê, used to describe certain classes of priests or perhaps as a term for a class of priests itself .

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 2024

A small number of Old Aramaic words attest a spelling of the inherited "feminine" suffixes as -t.... more A small number of Old Aramaic words attest a spelling of the inherited "feminine" suffixes as -t. Strikingly, all of these words occur in syntactic contexts where Proto-Semitic would use the accusative case. Wherever the nominative or genitive case is expected instead, the "feminine" suffix is not spelled with -t. This includes several forms that are here argued to showcase a development of the "feminine" plural ending *-āt- into *-ā, spelled -h in the Sefire inscriptions and left unspelled in the Tell Fekheriye inscription. This identification of-h and zero as spelling the "feminine" plural suffix provides us with enough evidence to establish the syntactic conditioning of-t in accusative contexts vs.-h or zero in other contexts. The retention of t in the accusative follows naturally from the longer retention of word-final *-a in Proto-Aramaic compared to *-u and *-i, which is supported by morphological developments in the verb. Together with the plene spelling of the "masculine" plural ending as -wn in nominative contexts and as -yn elsewhere in the Tell Fekheriye inscription, the identification of a separate accusative form of the "feminine" suffixes shows that Old Aramaic retained a partial contrast between the three Proto-Semitic cases. Later on, this case distinction was lost, while accusative forms in -t became lexicalized adverbs.

Afrika und Übersee, 2023

The main Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic) verbal adjective is characterized by an ǝ-u vowel melody. Bas... more The main Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic) verbal adjective is characterized by an ǝ-u vowel melody. Based on cognate evidence, the most basic form of this adjective, 0 1-stem 1ǝ2u3, derives from a *1a2uː3-pattern and thus shows assimilation of *aCuː > ǝCu. This assimilation does not operate in a set of specialized numerals shaped like 1ä2u3, which should be reconstructed as *1a2u3-with short *u. Short *u also yields Ge'ez u in the nonaccusative case of the masculine cardinal numerals, like *ɬalaːθtu > śälästu 'three'; this ending goes back to the Proto-Semitic diptotic nominative. The assimilation of *aCuː > ǝCu, on the other hand, also affected the personal pronoun *huːʔa-tuː > wǝʾǝtu, the perfect of fientive verbs like *gabaruː > gäbru 'they did', and the jussive of stative verbs like *yitrapuː > yǝtrǝfu 'may they remain'. Ə was leveled to other parts of these paradigms, solving several longstanding problems of Ge'ez morphology.

Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages, 2023

A historical relationship has long been suspected between the Northwest Semitic existential parti... more A historical relationship has long been suspected between the Northwest Semitic existential particles like Biblical Hebrew יֵשׁ and Biblical Aramaic אִיתַי , negative existentials like Syriac layt and Akkadian laššu, the Arabic negative copula laysa, and the East Semitic verbs i-ša-wu “to exist” (Eblaite) and išû “to have” (Akkadian). But due to various formal and semantic problems, no Proto-Semitic reconstruction from which all these words can regularly be derived has yet been put forward. This article argues that the Akkadian sense of “to have” is typologically the oldest and reconstructs a Proto-Semitic grammaticalization of *yiyθaw “it has” to *yθaw “there is/are”. Also in Proto-Semitic, a negative counterpart was formed through contraction with the negative adverb “not”, yielding *layθaw and *laθθaw.

Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 2023

Nabataean Aramaic contains a large number of loanwords from Arabic. Together with other evidence,... more Nabataean Aramaic contains a large number of loanwords from Arabic. Together with other evidence, this has been taken as an indication that the Nabataeans used Aramaic as a written language only, while a Pre-Islamic variety of Arabic was their spoken language. Based on a comprehensive review of the evidence, however, this article concludes that both Arabic and Aramaic were in spoken use in the Nabataean Kingdom and Late Antique Northwest Arabia. Departing from this modified understanding of the linguistic status of Nabataean Aramaic, various features of Pre-Islamic Arabic are then examined based on the Nabataean evidence: the realisation of the voiceless sibilant /s/, nominal morphology, the reflexes of stem-final *y, verbal syntax, and the lexicon.

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2022

The Ethiosemitic verb hlw ‘to be present’ is strange in three regards: it shows an unusual altern... more The Ethiosemitic verb hlw ‘to be present’ is strange in three regards: it shows an unusual alternation between -o and -awa in Classical Ethiopic; it is formally Perfect, but used in the present tense; and it has no verbal cognates in other branches of Semitic. This is because it is originally not a Perfect, but a presentative particle, to be connected with other Semitic presentatives reflecting *hallaw. Due to the leveling of the second person object suffixes to the Perfect endings in Ethiosemitic, suffixed presentative forms like hallo-ka could be reanalyzed as consisting of a verbal stem hallo- and a subject ending -ka. Other forms of the paradigm, including the 3m.sg Perfect hallaw-a, were then created by analogy with III-w 02-stem verbs like fannawa ‘to send’.

Biblica, 2022

Daniel 5 contains a number of historical inaccuracies, most glaringly the identification of Nebuc... more Daniel 5 contains a number of historical inaccuracies, most glaringly the identification of Nebuchadnezzar as Belshazzar’s father. This article argues that all mentions of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 5 may be secondary, suggesting that the oldest version of the text could have been written soon after the Neo-Babylonian period. The queen’s speech in vv. 10-12 contains a number of archaic linguistic features which may support such an early dating. These are the use of a morphologically distinct jussive, the use of two perfects in the expression 'she spoke, saying', and the use of infinitives without a preceding preposition.

Journal of Biblical Literature, 2022

The presence of words deriving from Greek κιθάρα (“cithara”), σαμβύκη (“sambuca”), ψαλτήριον (“ps... more The presence of words deriving from Greek κιθάρα (“cithara”), σαμβύκη (“sambuca”), ψαλτήριον (“psaltery”), and συμφωνία (“symphonia”) in Dan 3 has long been taken as damning evidence against the traditional sixth-century BCE date of composition for the book of Daniel. For the past fifty years, however, scholars have increasingly argued that Greek loanwords could have occurred in sixth-century Aramaic. In this article, I challenge the underlying assumption that the Greek words in Dan 3 result from lexical borrowing. They are characterized by a lack of phonological and morphological integration. This suggests that they are not established loanwords but instances of code-switching: Greek linguistic material was inserted into an Aramaic framework by a multilingual author, writing for an audience that was similarly multilingual. As widespread proficiency in Greek is not known to have occurred in the Near East before the Macedonian conquests of the 330s, the identification of these words as code switches thus limits their use in Dan 3 to the Hellenistic period and strongly suggests that they were used for literary effect: together with the lack of Greek code-switching elsewhere in the chapter, they highlight the transience of worldly empires. The phonology of the Greek underlying these code-switches as revealed by the use of matres lectionis, moreover, points to a terminus post quem of ca. 200 BCE, later than the story collection of Dan 2–6 is usually held to have been put together.

Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2021

The Proto-Semitic genitive ending on triptotic nouns is commonly reconstructed as *-im (unbound s... more The Proto-Semitic genitive ending on triptotic nouns is commonly reconstructed as *-im (unbound state)/*-i (bound state). In Akkadian, however, this case ending is long -ī- before pronominal suffixes. Since the length of this vowel is unexplained, I argue that it is original and that the Akkadian bound state ending normalized as -i should also be reconstructed as long *-ī, explaining its retention in word-final position. This form seems more original than Proto-West-Semitic *-i. Hence, the Proto-Semitic bound state genitive ending should also be reconstructed as *-ī. Through internal reconstruction supported by the parallel of kinship terms like *ʔab-um 'father', I arrive at a pre-Proto-Semitic reconstruction of the genitive ending as *-ī-m (unbound), *-ī (bound). This paper then explores a hypothetical scenario where the genitive ending *-ī is derived from the adjectivizing 'nisbe' suffix through reanalysis of adjectival constructions like *bayt-u śarr-ī 'the/a royal house' as construct chains with meanings like 'the/a king's house'. With the addition of mimation and the resultant vowel shortening, this yielded the Proto-Semitic construction with a genitive, *bayt-u śarr-im. The genitive case failed to develop with diptotic nouns because they did not take mimation and in the dual and plural because the nisbe adjective was derived from the uninflected (singular) noun stem; hence, these categories all retain the more original contrast between the nominative and an undifferentiated oblique case.

Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2021

In his 2021 monograph "The Valediction of Moses", Idan Dershowitz argues that the manuscripts off... more In his 2021 monograph "The Valediction of Moses", Idan Dershowitz argues that the manuscripts offered for sale by Moses Wilhelm Shapira in 1883, generally considered to have been forged, were genuine and contained a pre-exilic source text of Deuteronomy he refers to as V. Based on Dershowitz’s new critical edition of the text, this paper examines the historical and philological evidence for this thesis. V’s literary dependence on the Masoretic Text can be demonstrated on text-critical and linguistic grounds, which makes a pre-exilic date of composition highly unlikely. An analysis of the historical, literary, and linguistic arguments presented by Dershowitz moreover shows that nothing in V proves its authenticity, while the orthography and certain linguistic features strongly support the identification of this text as a forgery produced between 1870 and 1880.

Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages, 2021

In both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, there is a construction formed by the existential m... more In both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, there is a construction formed by the existential marker followed by a non-verbal clause. This construction is used to mark polarity contrasts, i.e., to contrast a non-negated sentence with its negated counterpart or vice versa. If the subject of the non-verbal clause is a personal pronoun, this is incorporated in the existential marker as a pronominal suffix, but the presence of such a suffix is not an essential feature of the construction.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2021

This paper provides a new explanation for the insertion of *a in plural forms of *CVCC-nouns also... more This paper provides a new explanation for the insertion of *a in plural forms of *CVCC-nouns also formed with an external plural suffix, e.g. *ʕabd- : *ʕabad-ū- 'servant(s)', in various Semitic languages. This *CVCaC-ū- pattern is usually considered to be a remnant of the Proto-Semitic broken plural system in Northwest Semitic, but we show that it goes back to Proto-Semitic in this form. Internal evidence from Semitic as well as comparative evidence from Afroasiatic points towards a pre-Proto-Semitic plural suffix *-w- underlying the external plural suffixes. This suffix created a consonant cluster in the plural of *CVCC- nouns, triggering epenthesis of *a. As the prime example of broken plural formation in Northwest Semitic thus seems to be purely suffixal in origin, we conclude by briefly considering the implications for the history of nominal pluralization in Semitic.

Vetus Testamentum, 2021

The many qere notes in the Aramaic passages of the Hebrew Bible show that the Biblical Aramaic re... more The many qere notes in the Aramaic passages of the Hebrew Bible show that the Biblical Aramaic reading tradition goes back to a different variety of Ara-maic than the consonantal texts. While this qere dialect differs in important respects from every well attested dialect of Aramaic, it closely resembles a small number of documents from first and second-century CE Palestine. This suggests that this was the time and place at which the reading tradition was fixed, not just of the Biblical Aramaic portions of the Hebrew Bible, but of the Hebrew Bible in its entirety.

Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions, 2020

Benjamin Suchard treats the phenomenon of irregular reflexes of the vowels *i and *u in Biblical ... more Benjamin Suchard treats the phenomenon of irregular reflexes of the vowels *i and *u in Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic from a novel perspective of ‘phonological adaptation’, whereby speakers of one language adapted borrowed forms to their own phonology. This process is known to be irregular. The author makes an innovative suggestion that in Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, respectively, the irregular reflexes of the vowels *i and *u are due to the phonological adaptation of Biblical Aramaic to pre-Tiberian Hebrew phonology and of Biblical Hebrew to Palestin-ian Greek phonology. Such a process sheds light on general developments in the reading traditions and linguistic realities of Palestine of late antiquity.

Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2019

For nearly a thousand years, the texts of the Hebrew Bible were transmitted both in writing, as c... more For nearly a thousand years, the texts of the Hebrew Bible were transmitted both in writing, as consonantal texts lacking much of the information about their pronunciation, and orally, as an accompanying reading tradition which supplied this information. During this period of oral transmission , sound changes affected the reading tradition. This paper identifies a number of sound changes that took place in the reading tradition by comparing their effects on Biblical Hebrew to those on Biblical Aramaic, the related but distinct language of a small part of the biblical corpus. Sound changes that affect both languages equally probably took place in the reading tradition, while those that are limited to one language probably preceded this shared oral transmission. Drawing this distinction allows us to reconstruct the pronunciation of Biblical Aramaic as it was fixed in the reading tradition, highlighting several morphological discrepancies between the dialect underlying it and that of the consonantal texts.

Hebrew Studies, 2018

Much has been written on the synchronic phonological analysis of Tiberian Hebrew. Most of the lit... more Much has been written on the synchronic phonological analysis of Tiberian Hebrew. Most of the literature dealing with this problem, however , is based on outdated ideas about Tiberian Hebrew phonetics. This paper provides a new phonological analysis of the Tiberian Hebrew vowels based on the pronunciation of Tiberian Hebrew as reconstructed by Geoffrey Khan. This results in the identification of three phonemically short vowels, /ɛ̆ ă ɔ̆/; five vowels that are underspecified for length, /i ɛ a ɔ u/; and five that are phonemically long, /ī ē ɔ̄ ō ū/. I conclude that the Tiberian vocalization is largely phonemic, since every vocalic phoneme is always spelled with one and the same vowel sign. Moreover, the occurrence of five underspecified and five phonemically long vowels matches the description of the Hebrew vowels given by Joseph and David Qimhi, suggesting that they, too, aimed to capture the phonemic level of Hebrew phonology.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2018

Several verbal forms reconstructed for proto-Semitic strongly resemble reconstructed forms in pro... more Several verbal forms reconstructed for proto-Semitic strongly resemble reconstructed forms in proto-Berber: compare Semitic yV-PaRRaS to Berber y-əFăRRăS, Semitic yV-PRaS to Berber y-əFRăS, and Semitic yV-PRuS and yV-PRiS to Berber y-ăFRəS. We suggest that these forms are historically related and sketch a line of development from the reconstructed meanings to their attested uses. yVPaRRaS, originally imperfective, retains that value in both Berber and Semitic. yVPRas, originally stative, gained a perfective meaning in Berber and Semitic; the stative meaning is retained in Berber, but was largely lost in Semitic. yVPRus/yVPRiS, originally perfective, retained that meaning in Semitic, merging with the newly perfective yVPRas forms; in Berber, yVPRaS completely replaced perfective yVPRuS/yVPRiS, relegating the latter to non-aspectual uses. We conclude by considering the quality of the first vowel; the alternation seen in Berber y-əFRăS and y-ăFRəS supports reconstructions as yiPRaS and yaPRuS/yaPRiS, conforming to the Barth–Ginsberg Law of Semitic.

Kleine Untersuchungen zur Sprache des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt, 2017

Most of the Biblical Hebrew verbal paradigm of lamed-he (III-wy, tertiae infirmae) roots can regu... more Most of the Biblical Hebrew verbal paradigm of lamed-he (III-wy, tertiae infirmae) roots can regularly be derived from a triconsonantal reconstruction by one simple sound law, *V̆₁WV₂ > *V̄₂. The otherwise unexplained masculine singular imperative and infinitive construct are the regular reflexes of *bni and *binātum < *binyatum. A renewed consideration of Semitic imperative and verbal noun morphology shows that these reconstructions are the expected forms for these roots.

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2024

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 2024

Afrika und Übersee, 2023

Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages, 2023

Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 2023

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2022

Biblica, 2022

Journal of Biblical Literature, 2022

Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2021

Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2021

Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages, 2021

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2021

Vetus Testamentum, 2021

Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions, 2020

Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2019

Hebrew Studies, 2018

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2018

Kleine Untersuchungen zur Sprache des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt, 2017

Journal of Semitic Studies, 2017

The Modern South Arabian third person feminine pronouns show an unexpected reflex s for Proto-Sem... more The Modern South Arabian third person feminine pronouns show an unexpected reflex s for Proto-Semitic *s1. This s is argued to be the regular outcome of *s3 = * ts, which replaced *s1 = *s in these forms due to phonological reanalysis in constructions like *malkat sī' 'she is a queen' → *malkat tsī'. In Hadramitic, these feminine pronouns also reflect *s3 , but their relation to the Modern South Arabian forms remains unclear.

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 2016

Evidence from various Semitic languages suggests that 'hollow' verbs should not be reconstructed ... more Evidence from various Semitic languages suggests that 'hollow' verbs should not be reconstructed with a vowel as their middle radical, but with three radical consonants, the middle one being *w or *y. In the past, forms from Biblical Hebrew have been cited as being incompatible with such a reconstruction. This paper shows that almost all parts of the Hebrew hollow paradigm can easily be derived from their strong counterparts, leaving only the nip̄ʿal imperfect and the hip̄ʿil participle as anomalies. These two forms are then investigated in more detail. The nip̄ʿal imperfect, yikkon, is argued to be an analogical extension of the stem found in the perfect, nåk̠on, based on the model of the geminate roots. The hip̄ʿil participle, mešib̠ , is shown to be the regular outcome of earlier *mihatīb-, a reconstruction which is supported by cuneiform transcriptions .

In historical linguistics, the prevailing view is that sound change is phonetically regular: with... more In historical linguistics, the prevailing view is that sound change is phonetically regular: within one language variety, the same sound in the same phonetic environment always undergoes the same sound changes, regardless of other factors like word meaning or part of speech. Many of the sound changes previously identified for Biblical Hebrew, however, seem to operate irregularly or only affect certain categories of words. Earlier attempts to make sense of these processes are either hindered by outdated assumptions about the nature of Hebrew, rely on implausible appeals to analogy, or offer explanations that are contradicted by other Hebrew data. This dissertation takes a fresh, holistic look at the sound changes affecting the vowels of Biblical Hebrew, starting from the reconstructed Proto-Northwest-Semitic stage. The sound changes investigated include the Canaanite Shift (*ā > *ō), the contraction of diphthongs and triphthongs, (pre-)tonic and pausal lengthening, changes of *i > *a and *a > *i, and the loss of word-final vowels. Additionally, the interaction of these sound laws with various morphological changes is examined in a concise historical morphology of Biblical Hebrew. The conclusion is that purely phonetic conditions can indeed be established for practically all sound changes affecting the Biblical Hebrew vowels.

In this departmental talk, I present some of the major findings and remaining questions from my n... more In this departmental talk, I present some of the major findings and remaining questions from my nearly completed research project on how Biblical Aramaic was formed.

Since the last decades of the twentieth century, the once-dominant Documentary Hypothesis of the ... more Since the last decades of the twentieth century, the once-dominant Documentary Hypothesis of the redaction of the Pentateuch has increasingly come under fire. The strongest objections have been raised against the existence of an Elohist ‘E’ source as a coherent document that can be separated from the Yahwist ‘J’ parts of the non-‘P(riestly)’ texts of Genesis (Gen), Exodus, and Numbers. Today, only a minority of scholars continue to posit the existence of E as a separate Pentateuchal source.

A major argument against the existence of E as a documentary source is its fragmentary nature. Perhaps most saliently, it appears to lack a beginning. While proponents of an E source have argued that this beginning was removed as part of the redaction process or perhaps even accidentally lost during written transmission of the text, these explanations remain hypothetical of necessity.

A seemingly unrelated problem is the origin of Gen 14. This narrative of the Levantine campaign of four Eastern kings clashes with the surrounding texts in both tone and content and has the formal hallmarks of the beginning of an independent work, not the continuation of a story in progress. Accordingly, it is today nearly universally regarded as a sui generis interpolation which cannot be connected with any of the more widely recognized Pentateuchal sources.

There are, indeed, compelling arguments to separate Gen 14 from the J and P corpora. The relationship between Gen 14 and the postulated E source, however, is less clear-cut. In this talk, we will critically reassess the arguments against assigning Gen 14 to E and consider some in favour. By connecting Gen 14’s beginning-without-a-continuation and E’s source-without-a-beginning, we may simultaneously shed light on the enigmatic history of Gen 14 and remove a major objection against the existence of E as a stand-alone source document.

$Research paper thumbnail of Biblical Hebrew הלוא זה\זאת\אלה and Medial Deixis Demonstratives$

Besides the highly frequent proximal demonstratives זה, זאת, and אלה and distal demonstratives הו... more Besides the highly frequent proximal demonstratives זה, זאת, and אלה and distal demonstratives הוא, היא, הם, and הן as well as their byforms, Biblical Hebrew attests a set of demonstrative pronouns that occur only sporadically: הלז (Jdg 6:20; 1 Sam 14:1; 17:26; 2 Kgs 4:25; 23:17; Zech 2:4; Dan 8:16), הלזה (Gen 24:65; 37:19), and הלזו (Ezek 36:35). Contrasting with the proximal and distal deictic value of the more common demonstratives, these pronouns express medial deixis, indicating objects, people, and places that are observable, but at some distance (Garr 2008).

Similar forms occur in the different stages of Rabbinic Hebrew, where reliable manuscripts and epigraphic sources attest the pronouns הלז, הלה, הללו, הלוז, הלזו, and הלוו. As recently shown by Bunis (2022), these continue a reconstructible paradigm in which a medial or distal marker *hallā- was prefixed to the proximal demonstratives m.sg. זה, f.sg. זו, and pl. אלו.

In this talk, we identify a potential Biblical Hebrew source construction for this *hallā-prefixed paradigm in the combination of the presentative הל(ו)א (cf. Sivan & Schniedewind 1993) with demonstrative זה (Gen 44:5; Ex 14:12; Jdg 9:38; 1 Sam 21:12, 29:3,5; Isa 58:6; Jon 4:2; Zech 3:2), זאת (2 Sam 11:3; Jer 2:17), and אלה (Hab 2:6). Most of these attestations can readily be interpreted as expressing medial deixis, like the הלז(ה) and הלזו pronouns. This supports the status of this construction as the source of both the Biblical Hebrew and the Rabbinic Hebrew prefixed pronominal paradigms. By identifying this diachronic relationship, we hope to shed new light on the use of Biblical Hebrew הל(ו)א (especially together with demonstrative pronouns), on the origin of the rare Biblical Hebrew medial demonstratives like הלז and related forms like Classical Arabic allaðī, and on the originally medial function of the similar demonstratives in Rabbinic Hebrew.

References:
Bunis, Ivri J. 2022. ‘Historical Morphosyntax of hallā- Demonstratives in Rabbinic Hebrew as Evidence for Spoken Hebrew in Amoraic Palestine’. Maarav 26.1–2, 161–195.
Garr, W. Randall. 2008. ‘The Medial Demonstratives הלזה, הלזו, and הלז’. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.2, 383–389.
Sivan, Daniel, & William Schniedewind. 1993. ‘Letting Your “Yes” Be “No” in Ancient Israel: A Study of the Asseverative לא and הֲלֹא’. Journal of Semitic Studies 38, 209–226.

East Semitic: The Akkadian present-durative (G-stem) 'to cut off' 'to fall' 'to take care of' 3sg... more East Semitic: The Akkadian present-durative (G-stem) 'to cut off' 'to fall' 'to take care of' 3sg iparras imaqqut ipaqqid 3m.pl iparrasū imaqqutū ipaqqidū Modern South Arabian (MSAL): The Jibbali imperfect (Ga-, Gb-stem) 'to be able' 'to be(come) poor' 3m.sg yəḳɔdər yəféḳɔŕ 3m.pl yəḳɔdər yəféḳér Ethiosemitic: The Ge'ez imperfect (01-stem) 'to say' 3m.sg yənäggər 3m.pl yənäggəru Proto-Semitic: *yVqattVl, yVqattVlū (e.g. Huehnergard 2019, 62). Contrast Central Semitic: The Classical Arabic imperfect (Stem I) 'to do' 'to kill' 'to steal' 3m.sg yafʕalu yaqtulu yasriqu 3m.pl yafʕalūna yaqtulūna yasriqūna The Classical Arabic jussive (Stem I) 'to do' 'to kill' 'to steal' 3m.sg yafʕal yaqtul yasriq 3m.pl yafʕalū yaqtulū yasriqū Shared with Northwest Semitic incl. Ugaritic, Aramaic, Canaanite (Hebrew).

The oldest and most conservative Semitic languages share a highly similar nominal case system, co... more The oldest and most conservative Semitic languages share a highly similar nominal case system, contrasting the nominative case with the genitive and accusative (in the singular) or oblique (in the dual and plural). Among the classical Semitic languages, Hebrew is a notable example of a language that has lost this case system, no longer marking the syntactic role of nouns by means of different suffixes. The same holds for Classical Syriac, Biblical Aramaic, and, it is generally assumed, all earlier attested forms of Aramaic.

In this talk, we will consider the word-final spelling of the feminine suffixes *-at- (singular) and *-āt- (plural) in Old Aramaic. Reflexes of these suffixes are spelled with -t, -h, or left unspelled. Interestingly, these spellings are syntactically conditioned, with -t corresponding to contexts where the Semitic case system would dictate the use of the accusative and the other spellings occurring elsewhere. Together with the attestation in the Tell Fekheriye inscription of the spelling of the ‘masculine’ plural ending as -wn in nominative contexts and -yn elsewhere, corresponding to the reconstructed case endings *-ūna (nom.) and *-īna (obl.), this shows that Old Aramaic maintained a partial distinction between all three inherited cases, a distinction that may have been preserved in some dialects up to the middle of the first millennium BCE.

NOTE: link to video recording (Vimeo) under '2 Files' above. Biblical Aramaic is a hybrid, built... more NOTE: link to video recording (Vimeo) under '2 Files' above.
Biblical Aramaic is a hybrid, built out of multiple written and spoken forms of Aramaic. How did the readers who fixed the Biblical Aramaic reading tradition determine the normative pronunciation of every word? Examining the way in which they solved grammatical conflicts showed that the reading tradition was constructed by moving from the smallest linguistic units to larger ones. In this process, the readers took care to respect the purely consonantal features of the written text, while taking liberties with non-consonantal features such as vowel letters.

The inscriptions in the Nabataean script, originating in the kingdom based in present-day Jordan ... more The inscriptions in the Nabataean script, originating in the kingdom based in present-day Jordan (4th c. BCE–106 CE), are characterized by a mix of Aramaic and Arabic features. The linguistic core of these inscriptions is Aramaic, but Arabic loanwords and syntax are conspicuously present. Together with other indications for the use of Arabic in the Nabataean realm, this has led to a common conception that “the Nabataeans” wrote Aramaic, but spoke Arabic.

In this talk, I will consider the evidence for the linguistic status of Nabataean Aramaic from the perspective of language change. During the Nabataean period and afterwards up to the Early Islamic period, an increase in Arabic features in the texts supports the idea that Arabic was spoken in the (former) Nabataean territories. At the same time, however, the Aramaic attests linguistic changes that cannot point to Arabic influence. Rather, these changes reflect the influence from spoken Aramaic vernaculars. It appears that besides Arabic, Aramaic was also in spoken use during the Nabataean period.

After the Roman annexation of the Nabataean kingdom, the evidence points to the limited continuation of Aramaic as a spoken language up to the fourth century CE among certain segments of the population in the North Arabian oases. These Aramaic speakers had a high social position and may have been Jewish. The steady rise of Arabic as a written language then reflects the absence of spoken Aramaic among other social groups, such as non-elites and non-Jewish elites.

Many syntactic features of Late Biblical Hebrew are due to Aramaic influence. This includes the u... more Many syntactic features of Late Biblical Hebrew are due to Aramaic influence. This includes the use of the various tenses. Understanding the Late Biblical Hebrew verbal system thus hinges on our understanding of the Aramaic verbal system with which it was in contact.

The Biblical Aramaic of Ezra and Daniel provides us with a corpus of Aramaic from roughly the same time and place as much of the Late Biblical Hebrew literature. Its verbal system is the subject of fairly recent studies by Gzella (2004), Shepherd (2008), Li (2009), Carver (2019,2021), and Andrason et al. (2019,2021). In this talk, I review these studies as well as the data themselves and propose a new analysis, taking into account the textual history of the corpus and the difference between the languages of the consonantal text and the reading tradition. Special attention is paid to the many different uses of the Imperfect and the active Participle.

The Hebrew Bible (alternatively: the Old Testament, Tanakh) has a long and complicated history of... more The Hebrew Bible (alternatively: the Old Testament, Tanakh) has a long and complicated history of composition and transmission. Texts composed throughout the first millennium BCE became part of one and the same liturgical corpus. After Hebrew died out as a spoken language in the second century CE, the pronunciation of the biblical texts was passed
on orally, parallel to the written text, until systems to capture all the necessary phonological information in writing were developed in the early Middle Ages. How did this unique history shape the sounds of Biblical Hebrew? And to what extent can we still treat Biblical Hebrew as a natural language?

In this talk, we will examine both the diachronic and the synchronic phonology of Biblical Hebrew. For the most part, the historical phonology of Biblical Hebrew conforms to the Neogrammarian Hypothesis: when language contact and morphological change are not in play, the sound changes it underwent are regular and phonetically conditioned.
Nevertheless, the exceptional mode of transmission has also had certain effects setting Biblical Hebrew phonology apart from that of natural languages.

Besides the base layer of Imperial Aramaic and the significant influences from Arabic, Nabataean ... more Besides the base layer of Imperial Aramaic and the significant influences from Arabic, Nabataean Aramaic contains a number of Aramaic features that do not derive from Imperial Aramaic. Their distribution suggests that Nabataean Aramaic was originally imported from another, Aramaic-speaking area. This talk then considers whether this source area could be the neighbouring region of Judea and concludes that it is not.

Linguistic evidence has played a large role in the debate over the dating of the book of Daniel. ... more Linguistic evidence has played a large role in the debate over the dating of the book of Daniel. From roughly 1900 onwards, the presence of words deriving from Greek κιθάρα ‘cithara’, σαμβύκη ‘sambuca’, ψαλτήριον ‘psaltery’, and συμφωνία ‘symphonia’ in Daniel 3 was taken as damning evidence against the traditional sixth-century BCE date of composition and as a strong argument for the second-century BCE composition of Daniel in the context of the Maccabean crisis. For the past 50 years, however, scholars have increasingly argued that Greek loanwords could have occurred in sixth-century Aramaic. Two recent papers even argue that the Greek loanwords provide evidence against second-century composition. This talk questions the assumption that the Greek words in Daniel 3 result from lexical borrowing. They are characterized by a lack of morphosyntactic and phonological integration. This suggests that they are not established loanwords, but instances of code-switching. Greek linguistic material was inserted into an Aramaic framework by a multilingual author, writing for an audience that was similarly multilingual. As widespread proficiency in Greek is not likely to have occurred in the Near East before the Macedonian conquests of the 330s, the identification of these words as code-switches thus limits the composition of Daniel 3 to the Hellenistic period. The phonology of the Greek underlying these code-switches as revealed by the use of matres lectionis moreover points to a terminus post quem of ca. 200 BCE, strongly supporting a Seleucid context for the composition of Daniel 3.

Data from Samaritan Hebrew is seldom used in the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic. This talk explo... more Data from Samaritan Hebrew is seldom used in the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic. This talk explores whether this is justified and what comparison to its relatives can teach us about the nature of Samaritan Hebrew. On the one hand, some Samaritan Hebrew forms are nigh impossible to reconcile with those found in the Semitic family as a whole. This suggests that Samaritan Hebrew contains a high degree of artificiality, even randomness. Yet some features unequivocally reflect knowledge of an authentic form of Hebrew. As already recognized by Ze’ev Ben-Hayyim, this combination of artificiality and authenticity shows the disconnect between the First Temple–period language of the Pentateuch’s consonantal text and the Second Temple–period language underlying the Samaritan reading of the text. A strong tendency towards analogical levelling explains other peculiarities. Samaritan Hebrew forms can thus support established reconstructions, but they can rarely be taken as independent evidence.

The Tiberian reading tradition of Biblical Aramaic reflects many morphological disagreements with... more The Tiberian reading tradition of Biblical Aramaic reflects many morphological disagreements with the consonantal text. This shows that this reading tradition goes back to a different variety of Aramaic than the one the texts were written in. Occasionally, conflicts between the original language of the Biblical Aramaic corpus and the language of the readers who fixed the reading tradition are resolved in a more subtle fashion, through compromise. Where necessary and possible, the consonantal text was twisted to produce a reading that sat better with the kind of Aramaic the readers were familiar with. This talk will examine a number of cases where originally active verbs were reinterpreted as passives and consider what this tells us about the formation of the Biblical Aramaic reading tradition.

The Northwest Semitic languages regularly pluralize the nouns of the highly common *CVCC- type by... more The Northwest Semitic languages regularly pluralize the nouns of the highly common *CVCC- type by inserting an *a-vowel between their second and third radical in the plural stem and also adding separate plural endings, unlike the broken plural system attested in many other Semitic languages. This pluralization pattern is generally held to be a shared innovation of the Northwest Semitic subgroup. In this talk, we argue that this pluralization mechanism may instead be reconstructed as such for Proto-Semitic. Investigating the Proto-Semitic plural endings, we trace them back to a single pre-Proto-Semitic plural suffix *-w-, based on internal and external, Afroasiatic evidence. We then suggest that the characteristic *a of the plural stem is not originally a pluralizing infix, but rather an epenthetic vowel, which was inserted to resolve a consonant cluster that would have occurred in these forms at the pre-Proto-Semitic stage: *CVCC-w-V- > *CVCaC-w-V-. This newly suggested origin of the *CVCaC-ū plurals eliminates most of the remaining evidence for broken plural formation in Northwest Semitic and calls for a reassessment of the history of Semitic plural formation and the status of the Northwest Semitic subgroup.

In this poster presented at the conference "Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew: New Perspectives in Phi... more In this poster presented at the conference "Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew: New Perspectives in Philology and Linguistics" (University of Cambridge, 8-10 July 2019), I identify the regularity in two morphological characteristics of the Biblical Hebrew consecutive perfect. Their subtle phonetic conditioning argues against intentional differentation of this tense from the normal perfect.

Sound changes that affected Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic in exactly the same way probably... more Sound changes that affected Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic in exactly the same way probably took place during the oral transmission of the combined Biblical reading tradition. By cancelling out the effects of these sound changes, we can reconstruct a more original version of the pronunciation of the Biblical texts.

The lexeme ʾāmar ‘to say’ is the most frequent verb in the Hebrew Bible. Cross-linguistically, fr... more The lexeme ʾāmar ‘to say’ is the most frequent verb in the Hebrew Bible. Cross-linguistically, frequent words tend to be more irregular, and ʾāmar is no exception to this tendency. Especially the stem alternations in the prefix conjugation make ʾāmar unlike any other Hebrew verb. In this talk, I present a number of new Hebrew sound laws that bear on the morphology of ʾāmar. Specifically, I describe the regular dissimilation of unstressed *u to *i next to bilabial consonants, as in PNWS *rummān-, BH rimmōn ‘pomegranate’, and a set of stress shifts leading from the original situation of automatic penultimate stress to the phonemic stress system of Biblical Hebrew, elaborating on the model presented in Joshua Blau’s Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (1976; Wiesbaden: Harassowitz). These sound laws were formulated to explain other phenomena, but as we will see, taking them into account makes the historical derivation of the various prefix conjugation forms of ʾāmar completely regular.

The language of Targum Onqelos continues to defy classification. Isoglosses typical for Western A... more The language of Targum Onqelos continues to defy classification. Isoglosses typical for Western Aramaic occur besides typical Eastern Aramaic features. A majority of scholars attribute this mixture to the text’s supposed transmission history, positing that it was written in Palestine and edited in Babylonia, but this remains uncertain. This talk will consider the question starting from a similarly unclassified dialect of Aramaic, which has largely escaped attention by hiding in plain sight: that of the Biblical Aramaic reading tradition, which reflects a different dialect than the Biblical Aramaic consonantal text. This dialect does not match any known form of Aramaic; a number of characteristic isoglosses show that it is close to the language of Targum Onqelos, yet not identical to it. The closest match is found with a small number of texts attributed to leading Pharisaic and Rabbinic figures from first-century CE Palestine, a setting that is also plausible on dialectological grounds. Given the linguistic similarities between the dialects of the Biblical Aramaic reading tradition and Targum Onqelos, this supports the Palestinian origin of the latter and provides us with new insights into the origin of both texts in the transformational period in Jewish history surrounding the destruction of the Second Temple.

The Biblical Aramaic texts as they have reached us occasionally indicate that the received pronun... more The Biblical Aramaic texts as they have reached us occasionally indicate that the received pronunciation differs from the consonantal spelling. This is marked by the so-called ketiv/qere distinction. Intriguingly, the reading tradition as codified in the vocalization and the qere consistently reflects a different form of Aramaic than the one in which the Biblical texts were originally written. This dialect underlying the reading tradition is not a descendant of the dialect of the consonantal text, but rather a different Aramaic variety altogether, as can be seen from its retention of some inherited features that were lost in the consonantal text (e.g. the gender distinction in the third person plural).

In this talk, we will attempt to localize the origins of this dialect on dialectological grounds. We will consider three linguistic features that, together, differentiate the dialect of the reading tradition from most other forms of Aramaic:

1. The change of *y > ʔ between *ā and a stressed vowel;
2. The non-assimilation of n before another consonant (or dissimilation of assimilated clusters); and
3. The retention of h in the suffix -ōhī ‘his (with plural nouns)’.

By examining the occurrence of these features and their spread over time, we will arrive at a time and place where a dialect combining all three of them could plausibly have been in use: late Hasmonaean or early Roman Palestine.

Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2023

Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 2023

Journal of Semitic Studies, 2023

Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2022

Journal of Historical Syntax, 2022

Laura Grestenberger, Charles Reiss, Hannes A. Fellner, and Gabriel Z. Pantillon (eds), Ha! Lingui... more Laura Grestenberger, Charles Reiss, Hannes A. Fellner, and Gabriel
Z. Pantillon (eds), Ha! Linguistic Studies in Honor of Mark R. Hale. Wiesbaden: Reichert. 2022. xvi + 422 pp. Hardbound: ISBN: 978 37 520 0606 3 | € 110 ·e-Book: ISBN: 978 37 520 0085 6 | € 110 https://doi.org/10.29091/9783752000856

Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2021

Journal of Semitic Studies, 2020

Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2019

Bibliotheca Orientalis 75/3-4, 2018

Bibliotheca Orientalis 75/1-2, 2018

Bibliotheca Orientalis 74/5-6, 2017

Bibliotheca Orientalis 72/5-6, 2015

Bibliotheca Orientalis 71/5-6, 2014

Bibliotheca Orientalis 71/3-4, 2014

On 31 March 2020, an online conference on Semitic languages and linguistics will be held, featuri... more On 31 March 2020, an online conference on Semitic languages and linguistics will be held, featuring 14 invited speakers and open for all to attend. This booklet contains the program and abstracts. Information on how to join will be provided via Twitter (https://twitter.com/bnuyaminim) closer to date.

Slides for a very cursory introduction (in Dutch) to various Aramaic varieties used in Biblical a... more Slides for a very cursory introduction (in Dutch) to various Aramaic varieties used in Biblical and Rabbinic literature, aimed at students who already have a good command of Biblical Hebrew.

A handout for the first half of a class on the historical grammar of Hebrew. This handout mainly ... more A handout for the first half of a class on the historical grammar of Hebrew. This handout mainly focuses on phonology, as morphology and syntax are covered in the second half of the course.

Through a careful examination of the data from Biblical Hebrew, Phoenician, and Amarna Canaanite,... more Through a careful examination of the data from Biblical Hebrew, Phoenician, and Amarna Canaanite, the 'Canaanite Shift' of Proto-Northwest-Semitic *a: and *a'$ > *o: is shown to have operated in stressed and unstressed syllables, except after rounded vowels in the previous syllable and directly following *y.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.-popular misquotation of Mark Twain * This chap... more Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.-popular misquotation of Mark Twain * This chapter is dedicated to the victims of the recent outburst of violence in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the region. [Funding statement.] I thank Shloime Ludmir, Nachshon Rodrigues Pereira, Mira Korulski-Rosenthal, and Benjamin Chai van Zuiden for sharing their knowledge of various contemporary forms of Hebrew with me, and Ephraim Ayil for many discussions on the history of Hebrew.

A review of arguments for the linguistic status of Arabic and Aramaic in the Nabataean realm and ... more A review of arguments for the linguistic status of Arabic and Aramaic in the Nabataean realm and the implications for the Arabic features attested in Nabataean Aramaic.

The story of the Writing on the Wall in Daniel 5 portrays Belshazzar as the last king of Babylon ... more The story of the Writing on the Wall in Daniel 5 portrays Belshazzar as the last king of Babylon and son of Nebuchadnezzar. As both of these roles are historically inaccurate, scholars have taken this portrayal as evidence for late authorship of the story. Text-critical and literary analysis shows, however, that the mentions of Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 5 are all secondary. Moreover, vv. 10-12 contain a number of surprisingly archaic linguistic features that are hard to square with a late date of composition. In the absence of major historical inaccuracies in the core narrative, this suggests that the story may have taken shape at a relatively early time after all.

Despite Idan Dershowitz's recent arguments, the distribution of Classical and non-Classical verb ... more Despite Idan Dershowitz's recent arguments, the distribution of Classical and non-Classical verb forms in the Hebrew of the Shapira strips shows that they are a modern forgery, not a pre-exilic transcript of a source text of Deuteronomy.

In both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, there is a construction formed by the existential m... more In both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, there is a construction formed by the existential marker followed by a non-verbal clause. This construction is used to mark polarity contrasts, i.e. to contrast a non-negated sentence with its negated counterpart or vice versa. If the subject of the non-verbal clause is a personal pronoun, this is incorporated in the existential marker as a pronominal suffix, but the presence of such a suffix is not an essential feature of the construction.

While *u is normally said to be the least stable vowel in Biblical Hebrew, this article identifie... more While *u is normally said to be the least stable vowel in Biblical Hebrew, this article identifies a number of contexts in which it is regularly preserved, most importantly in pretonic and word-initial syllables. The conditioning of the retention in the latter category supports a late date for vowel reduction, which seems to have taken place in the fixed reading tradition of the Hebrew Bible rather than in Hebrew as a living language.

This paper aims to reconstruct a more original form of Isaiah 21:11–17, normally seen as two or t... more This paper aims to reconstruct a more original form of Isaiah 21:11–17, normally seen as two or three separate prophecies against various North Arabian nations. It is argued that these verses originally formed a unified prophecy relating to Sennacherib's campaign against the Arabs, Kedar and the North Arabian town of Dumah in 690 BCE. This provides some support for the interpretation of Isaiah 21:1–10 as reflecting Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon in 689 BCE. An excursus on the strange morphology of several verbs in Isaiah 21:12 shows that contrary to a commonly expressed opinion, they cannot be Aramaisms.

The Ethiosemitic verb hlw ‘to be present’ is strange in three regards: it shows an unusual altern... more The Ethiosemitic verb hlw ‘to be present’ is strange in three regards: it shows an unusual alternation between -o and -awa in Classical Ethiopic; it is formally Perfect, but used in the present tense; and it has no verbal cognates in other branches of Semitic. This is because it is originally not a Perfect, but a presentative particle, to be connected with other Semitic presentatives reflecting *hVl. Due to the levelling of the second person object suffixes to the Perfect endings in Ethiosemitic, suffixed presentative forms like hallo-ka could be reanalyzed as consisting of a verbal stem hallo- and a subject ending -ka. Other forms of the paradigm, including the 3M.SG Perfect hallaw-a, were then created by analogy with III-w 02-stem verbs like fannawa ‘to send’.