Sorry, but I don't do "Akkadian".
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Nov 3, 2010, at 2:10 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Isaac Fried:
I may have found a little backing for your controversial view of a
final ayin, and in an unexpected source at that: Akkadian weak
verbs. Akkadian has no ayin (which may be telling us something
right there). But many Akkadian verbs are cognates of Hebrew verbs
that end in ayin. So what is the nature of Akkadian verbs that are
cognates of Hebrew verbs that end in ayin? Take a gander at this
statement from a standard Akkadian grammar textbook:
“Verbs third weak (i.e. with a weak third radical) are by far the
largest class of weak verbs [in Akkadian]. They include all verbs
which in related languages have as third root consonant the
appropriate representatives of Proto-Semitic 'aleph, h, h-dot [soft
heth], 'ayin, ghain, waw, yodh.” Richard I. Caplice, “Introduction
to Akkadian” (2002), at p. 56.
All three of your designated culprits are there: final H, aleph,
and ayin. So when an Akkadian verb is cognate to a Hebrew verb
that ends in ayin, that Akkadian verb will be weak, and in
particular, its third radical, which substitutes for ayin (because
Akkadian has no ayin), will be “a weak third radical”. What
scholars call “a weak third radical” you call “filler” and I call
“a mere verbal suffix”. But aren’t we all describing the same
phenomenon? There is no tri-consonantal root in )RB( or $M( or YD
(. Those are archaic 2-consonant roots all the way -- RB, $M and
YD -- with the final ayin being a mere verbal suffix [or, if you
insist, “filler”].
Isaac Fried, who would have thought your ideas and Akkadian weak
verbs would fit together so nicely? In fact, we could figure out
all sorts of important things in the Bible if we could get beyond
seeing the final ayin in Hebrew verbs as being an integral part of
the word’s original, true root. For example, why insist that the
meaning of the Anakim giant’s name )RB( is “Four”? That makes no
sense. Rather, )RB( as the Bronze Age proper name of an Anakim
giant means “Be Big”. The archaic 2-consonant root of )RB( is RB,
which means “be big; be great; be many; be bigger than three,
that is, be four”. So call that Anakim giant “Mr. Big”, not a
nonsensical “Mr. Four”.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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