2015 Biblical Hebrew Nominal Patterns (original) (raw)

[Forthcoming 12/2021; Author’s post-print (final accepted) version] Taking a functional, cognitive, and communication-oriented approach, this paper posits that in Ancient Hebrew, the noun אִישׁ often played a distinctive role: to signal to an audience that its referent is essential for grasping the depicted situation. In such cases, this noun's meaning resides mainly on the level of the discourse between the speaker and the audience, rather than on the semantic level. Three types of biblical evidence are presented in support of this idea: אִישׁ-headed appositions; relative clauses that either serve in lieu of a substantive or modify אִישׁ; and clauses that introduce an unquantified subset of a known group. The tests involve comparing cases where אִישׁ is present in a referring expression versus similar cases where it is absent. The study found that all of the studied cases with אִישׁ were sketching a new or modified situation, in which this noun's referent was profiled as a key participant. In contrast, all cases without אִישׁ treated the referent of interest as a given element. The hypothesis accounts for 157 biblical instances of אִישׁ that scholars had deemed pointless or puzzling. Hence it yields a Hebrew Bible text that is more coherent and informative. [Open Access: CC BY-SA 4.0]

A taxonomic database composed of the more than 3000 Hebrew roots appearing in the Hebrew Bible and their arrangement into Phono-Semantic Fields (hereafter "PSF") according to their internal biliteral root morphemes. The result is a comprehensive inventory of the monosyllabic morphemes composing the language of Biblical Hebrew. This database can then be used to help decipher the over 1600 most difficult to translate terms [single use hapax legomena ] found in the Biblical Text. A list of these difficult words is also provided. Current situation: At present, when confronted with a difficult to translate Hebrew hapax legomenon, a student of the Biblical Hebrew texts must rely upon the comments of those prior biblical scholars fluent in Biblical Hebrew who, using their own rationale, chose to translate the hapax one way or another. Other than to peruse Hebrew or Hebrew/English dictionaries, the student himself has no other convenient tool for determining the choices available that might help him in validating the given translation or possibly deciding on another.

This contribution comprehensively analyses how Targum Jonathan Malachi (TgJ Ma) renders the Hebrew Text (HT) of the book of Malachi. The study shows that this Targum constitutes a mix of technical and exegetical translation techniques in a generally periphrastic rendering to make it theologically acceptable. It furthermore demonstrates how obscure ambiguous passages and idiomatic expressions are remodelled by contemporizing interpolations. Added prepositions bring clarity to imagery and scanty syntactical expressions. Anthropomorphism is rendered indirect to express obvious reverence before the deity. The relative pronoun ד is widely employed to express various relationships. Single words are extensively substituted to express the underlying meaning of the biblical text and there is evidence for the use of stock words. 1.

This article challenges the notion of diglossia, invoked by Gary A. Rendsburg (1990) as one of the parameters of linguistic variation in Biblical Hebrew, from both the method-ological and linguistic points of view. Firstly, thus far the existence of diglossia in Biblical Hebrew has been widely accepted, although no Hebraist has demonstrated the functional specialization between spoken and written Hebrew (i.e. low vs. high varieties) in biblical times. Secondly, among the alleged diglossic isoglosses presented by Rendsburg, 1) gender neutralisation; 2)-ֶ‫ׁש‬ instead of ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ׁש‬ ֲ‫א‬ as nota relationis; and 3) the proleptic pronominal suffix are discussed. Finally, by combining the sociolinguistic and pragmatic approaches this survey aims to cast new light on these debated isoglosses.

Огласовки в современном иврите — система диакритических знаков, созданная масоретами Тверии в первом тысячелетии нашей эры в рамках деятельности по кодификации библейского текста и претерпевшая ряд изменений в ходе развития языка. Знаки огласовок позволяют и сегодня правильно прочитать текст, записанный согласными буквами, однако значение рассматриваемой в этой книге системы гораздо больше, потому что она отражает закономерности словообразования и словоизменения, фактически являясь формализованным способом описания всей морфонологии нормативного иврита. Знакомство с темой, которой посвящено данное пособие, позволит лучше понимать грамматическое устройство современного иврита и будет полезно любому человеку, изучающему этот язык. (Ver. 2.10)

An introduction into Biblical Aramaic for beginners with basic knowledge of Biblical Hebrew

Nunation refers to the addition of nun to a word, as either a suffix or an infix, in order to mark a specific grammatical category. For example, the Aramaic plural nominal suffix that corresponds to Hebrew 'n', involves nunation (whereas the Hebrew suffix involves mimation). In a pre-biblical phase of the Hebrew verbal system it would seem that nunation had clear semantic value, but in Biblical Hebrew, its many uses remain ill understood.

This dissertation presents a quantitative study of the vocalization of the Hebrew inseparable prepositions (beth, kaf, and lamed). Both synchronic and diachronic dimensions are addressed. After a synchronic survey and analysis, a few regularities of the vowels of the inseparable prepositions in the Tiberian text are discovered. These regularities are mostly syntactically, rather than semantically, based. The vowels of the inseparable prepositions tend to be heavy, and light vowels are employed only in a certain syntactical constructions. The observation that these syntactical constructions usually prescribe a lack of definite article indicates a connection between the audio feature of the light vowel and the textual feature of the absence of definite article. This in turn argues for an early dating of the vowels of the inseparable prepositions. The diachronic survey covers the vocalization in the Babylonian and Palestinian traditions, the Greek transliteration in the second column o...

A detailed summary of the grammar of the Hebrew verb, based on a few fresh theoretical perspectives regarding Hebrew phonetics, syllable quantification, and the construction of complex Hebrew word forms from the simple elements of the language.