>>>> BTW, we are speaking of the pre-history of Hebrew here - athough the qal passive seems to be well attested in the Biblical text, the hishtaph'el was obviously no longer a productive stem by Biblical Hebrew times.
-------- >>>> Agreed. I see its survival in this one term as a bit of a relic, sort of like "goodbye" in English. It survived in a fixed form whose origins were probably lost in the mists of time. --------- i suspect there are more remnants of the H$TF(L form in hebrew.i refer to H$T(BD, H$TKLL, H$TRBB, H$TXRR, etc, though i must add three comments here: 1) to save the grammar books these forms were declared pertaining to four-letter roots at some point. however, this is mere posthumous rationalization: they represent the same H$TF(L form you are talking about here. 2) similarly, $XRR, $KLL, $RBB, $(BD, $RBt, $LHB, are nothing but remnants of a canaanite $F(L form, which was left out of hebrew grammar. some are modern, like $DRG, and i am not sure about $(RK. 3) these words are not biblical, as far as i know, and a natural conjecture here is that they were borrowed from the arabic. but i suspect some of them are mishnaic, and at least $LHBT is biblical as well as aramaic, and appears three times in the OT, besides the more "normal" LHBH, attesting to some remnant use of SF(L in hebrew. שַׁלְהֶ֫בֶת noun feminine flame (Aramaic שַׁלְהוֺבִיתָא ) — in ׳לַהֶבֶת שׁ Ezekiel 21:3, of judgment; so שַׁלְהָ֑בֶת Job 15:30; רִשְׁמֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה Songs 8:6 i.e. Yahweh-flame = powerful flame (> JägerBAS i.471 JastrJBL xiii (1894), 111 explains יָֿה here as encl. particle) nir cohen _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
