On Sat, 4 May 2013 08:08:38 -0700, K Randolph <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Mike Burke <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Is ו a word in Hebrew?
>
> Depends on how you understand “word”. It is a prefix (the context of your
> question indicates that you are asking about the prefix, not the letter
> itself).
>
> Most languages allow for prefixes and suffixes on words that change meaning
> in predictable ways. One example in English is the suffix -‘s to indicate
> the possessive.
>
> The waw prefix in Biblical Hebrew functions in the same manner as separate
> words do in other languages, but does that make it a word within Biblical
> Hebrew?
I would say yes. It is a matter of definition, and since one can
argue that since it is never written separately and has no accent of
its own, it is not a word in its own right. It makes more sense
linguistically to consider it a separate word, however, since it's not
bound closely to the following word the way inflexional endings are,
for example.
Compare Latin _pueris virginibusque_ "for boys and girls", where the
-is and -ibus are inflexional endings to the words _puer_ and _virgo_,
and thus not words in themselves, but the -que ("and") is considered a
word in its own right, although it is always used as an enclitic to
the preceding word, forming a single accentual unit with it.
Incidentally, I've seen a good argument that the English possessive
suffix -'s should be considered a word, not an inflexional ending,
but that has nothing to do with Hebrew.
--
Will Parsons
μὴ φαίνεσθαι, ἀλλ' εἶναι.
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