Short Notes: APQ (original) (raw)

This study proposes a novel semantics for the Biblical Hebrew qatal form that includes both perfective and perfect/anterior meanings. I begin by evaluating other theories of qatal and give six criteria with which they might be evaluated, showing past analyses to be inadequate. These criteria are given as an external check on what makes a satisfactory analysis more generally, and though we can learn from past contributions, they ultimately fall short in one of these six areas. In contrast, I show that my theory meets these six criteria for what makes an adequate theory. The single meaning that I give for the qatal form is labelled a “perfect,” which I define as an aspectual form that refers to a temporal interval in which either a state holds with a possible preceding event or an event takes place that potentially precedes a state. This is qatal’s particular contribution to the context, though it may have different interpretations as it interacts with various verbal predicates and sy...

Q’eqchi’ (Mayan stock, K’ichean subgroup) is an ergative language; a finite verb form obligatorily carries information on the person and number of the absolutive participant, i.e., the unique argument of an intransitive verb or the direct object of a transitive one. The set of personal absolutive markers includes five morphemes; the third person singular has no overt marker. These morphemes in Modern Q’eqchi’ are prefixes in a finite verbal predication and enclitics in a non-finite predication. In a finite verb form, the place of an absolutive prefix is between the tense-aspect prefix and personal ergative prefix (in a transitive predication) or verb root (in an intransitive one). This paper argues that during Colonial Q’eqchi’ (used in the second half of the 16th century and slightly later) the general structure of a verbal complex was completely different, and all personal absolutive markers were in fact enclitics. They were enclitisized to tense-aspect morphemes that functioned syntactically as main predicates of a complex construction. Further diachronic change consolidated a verbal complex, conditioning the transition to affixation.

PLEASE NOTE ERRATA AT THE END OF THIS PAPER; ERRORS WERE INTRODUCED AFTER CORRECTED PROOFS HAD BEEN SUBMITTED TO THE JOURNAL. In the pre-Hann era, the graphs 望 and 朢 were used interchangeably to represent two homophonous words, 'full moon' and 'look into the distance', both read wanq < *mjang(s). While the phonetic component of 望 is obviously 亡, it is not easy to identify a phonetic component in the form 朢, and more difficult still for the earlier shell and bone inscription (SBI) form 𦣠. In this paper I discuss the distribution of the three forms in inscribed and manuscript texts and in the transmitted pre-Hann corpus, the words represented by these graphs together with their associated word families, and the function of the graphic constituents of the three forms of the graphs.

This article explores how nine specific words used in Kaqchikel have changed through time, since the seventeenth century to our days. It discusses semantic changes, shifts in part of speech and contextual use. Some reasons explaining these changes are suggested.

This paper discusses the stem variance of the root ḥbq in the Bible, suggesting that its inconsistent conjugation does not reflect the original Biblical Hebrew, but rather results from an anachronistic pronunciation created by the Masoretes. The paper reviews the research of Masoretic anachronisms and the methodologies developed to identify them, applying these to the case of the root ḥbq. It concludes that ḥbq belongs to a specific type of Masoretic anachronism, in which original Qal forms were misvocalized by the Masoretes as Piel under the influence of Mishnaic Hebrew. After presenting biblical and extra-biblical evidence to support this conclusion, the paper discusses some of its main implications for the diachronic study of ancient Hebrew: the "late spelling paradox," the scope of the phenomenon of substituting Piel for Qal, and the relation between Masoretic anachronisms and the scholarly debate about the linguistic reliability of the Masoretic text.