# passive participle?



## matakoweg

I have a question about Genesis 37:33
When Jacob recognized the coat of Joseph, he says:
טָרֹף טֹרַף, יוֹסֵף.
the first is an infinitive absolute and the second word is according a site about biblical hebrew Verb Qal Passive Perfect 3rd Mas. Sing.
but the vowels seem different from a passive participle or a perfect 3rd mas sing.
Who can explain this to me?


----------



## hadronic

Qal passive "doesn't exist" (anymore), and had been substituted by Nif'al.
Some traces of a former Qal passive are believed to be found in some places of the scriptures. This may be one of them. It can look similar to Pu'al, and has sometimes be erroneously vocalized as a Pu'al by the Massoretes, while the imperfect _yuqtal_ has been analyzed as a Huf'al.


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> Qal passive "doesn't exist" (anymore), and had been substituted by Nif'al.
> Some traces of a former Qal passive are believed to be found in some places of the scriptures. This may be one of them. It can look similar to Pu'al, and has sometimes be erroneously vocalized as a Pu'al by the Massoretes, while the imperfect _yuqtal_ has been analyzed as a Huf'al.



Why is everyone so quick to blame the Masoretes? Could this not have been an actual late phonetic merger?


----------



## aavichai

I also don't blame the Massoretes. I'm with you.
but the passive Qal looks like the passive of Pu'al.

i'll give you more examples

Exodus 15:4 
וּמִבְחַר שָׁלִשָׁיו, טֻבְּעוּ בְיַם-סוּף
the root ט-ב-ע exist in Qal but not in Pi'el
therefor this form is a passive of the Qal
cuz we assume that if we see passive form so we need to have also an active

***In your case טָרֹף טֹרַף the first word is infinitive absolute of Qal already, so the Qal continue to the verb after it.
and again - there is no Pi'el but we have Qal


also
Exodus 3:2 וְהַסְּנֶה, אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל
again we don't have the root א-כ-ל in pi'el - but we have it in Qal
so that's a clue for you to know

There are cases in Yuqtal - the passive Qal of the "future"
I forgot where (when i'll remember i'll write it)
where the Massoretes changed the vowels to be read as future NIF'AL
cuz through time the NIF'AL replace the Quttal of the Qal and become the passive

so when they saw "yqtl" and should be read "yuqtal" the put vowels as "yiqatel"

(all that if i'm remembering right) (if not i will shamfully be apologize)


----------



## hadronic

I believe Qal passive doesn't have the dagesh khazaq in its second root consonant, and that it was added by the Massoretes for "alignment" (just like _yuqtal_ vocalized as _yiqqatel_). 
There has been some confusion, but no merging I would say. That dagesh can't have appear from regular phonological processes, unless by analogy to and confusion with Pu'al.


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> I believe Qal passive doesn't have the dagesh khazaq in its second root consonant, and that it was added by the Massoretes for "alignment" (just like _yuqtal_ vocalized as _yiqqatel_).
> There has been some confusion, but no merging I would say. That dagesh can't have appear from regular phonological processes, unless by analogy to and confusion with Pu'al.



That's exactly what I'm saying. The loss in general of the pa'al passive could easily have caused its remnants to shift to pu'al (by analogy or from confusion, or whatever) in the spoken tradition itself. There is no basis to say that it had to have been the Masoretes who did this when they were writing down the vowels. Every generation before them is equally likely to have been the culprit, which makes it unlikely that it was the Masoretes themselves.


----------



## origumi

Also עֶגְלַת בָּקָר אֲשֶׁר לֹא עֻבַּד בָּהּ, אֲשֶׁר לֹא מָשְׁכָה בְּעֹל (Deuteronomy 21:3). Here the בה makes it even more difficult - it looks like עגלת בקר אשר לא עֻבַּד בה [שדה].


----------



## aavichai

the example of the "future" is the root ש-ט-ף
we have שטף in qal
in Levi 6:21 there's וְשֻׁטַּף בַּמָּיִם
passive Qal "past"
------- by the way the Exodus 3:2 וְהַסְּנֶה, אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל is participle
-------- You see the Kamats under the כ
--------- also ther's אין before the אֻכָּל so it's not a verb but participle

in your example טָרֹף טֹרַף there is a patah - so it's the QATAL form ("past")
you can see that also from the context

back to שטף
in Levi 15:12 וְכָל-כְּלִי-עֵץ יִשָּׁטֵף בַּמָּיִם
we see NIF'AL "future" but we don't have any other NIF'AL but only QAL
so it actually had to be "Yushtaf" but the Massoretes signed it as "yishatf" (with double SH)


----------



## hadronic

I'm not sure I understand what you need.
If for the perfect form, we can say "but that verb doesn't exist in the Pi'el so it has to be Qal passive", we can't do that for the imperfect, since a Nif'al form, as a suppletive of the Qal passive, can automatically be construed. This Nif'al form doesn't need to "pre-exist" to be used,as opposed to non-passive Nif'al like נראה, נולד, נפגש,...


----------



## bazq

According to Fassberg the internal passive of Qal contained a short vowel in an open pretonic syllable. This kind of realization had become impossible at some point in Hebrew, and in order to maintain the passive form there was a doubling of the second consonnant, creating a closed syllable. That's when the mix-up with pu''al occured. He argued that this was another milestone in the general tendency of Qal verbs shifting to Pi'el with no semantic difference (most evident in late BH and onward).


----------



## Drink

aavichai said:


> the example of the "future" is the root ש-ט-ף
> we have שטף in qal
> in Levi 6:21 there's וְשֻׁטַּף בַּמָּיִם
> passive Qal "past"
> ------- by the way the Exodus 3:2 וְהַסְּנֶה, אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל is participle
> -------- You see the Kamats under the כ
> --------- also ther's אין before the אֻכָּל so it's not a verb but participle



The qamatz is because of the pausal position (end of the verse). אֻכָּל cannot be a participle because the qal passive participle is אָכוּל.


----------



## hadronic

Drink said:


> The qamatz is because of the pausal position (end of the verse). אֻכָּל cannot be a participle because the qal passive participle is אָכוּל.



So is it the perfect or the imperfect of passive אכל? Also, I've never seen אינו followed by a finite tense...


----------



## hadronic

bazq said:


> According to Fassberg the internal passive of Qal contained a short vowel in an open pretonic syllable. This kind of realization had become impossible at some point in Hebrew, and in order to maintain the passive form there was a doubling of the second consonnant, creating a closed syllable. That's when the mix-up with pu''al occured. He argued that this was another milestone in the general tendency of Qal verbs shifting to Pi'el with no semantic difference (most evident in late BH and onward).



I see. It seems similar to כתובה _k'tubba_, צהובה _ts'hubba_ then, in which I believe the gemination is not etymological.


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> So is it the perfect or the imperfect of passive אכל? Also, I've never seen אינו followed by a finite tense...



How could it be the imperfect if there is no prefix (unless it's the first-person singular, but that would make no sense)? Morphologically, it could be the imperative, but that would make absolutely no sense. Maybe it's some sort of infinitive? Otherwise, it is the perfect (just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist).


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> I see. It seems similar to כתובה _k'tubba_, צהובה _ts'hubba_ then, in which I believe the gemination is not etymological.



Why not? Interestingly, Arabic verb form IX (اِفْعَلَّ ‎ifʿalla) is frequently used with colors and geminates the third root consonant, which reminds me a lot of the צָהֹב/צְהֻבָּה color pattern. It also might be connected to the פִּעְלֵל binyan (שַׁאֲנַן, רַעֲנַן, אֻמְלַל). Arabic also has some noun patters that geminate the final root consonant, which makes the קְטֻלָּה noun pattern not very unusual.


----------



## hadronic

You may be right, I'm not saying.
But there are a number of cases where the last radical is geminated to preserve the shortness of the last vowel : _qatan / q'tanna, maš'av / maš'abbim_ (and many other maqtal nouns), _havhav / havhabbim_...
For me, they are all phonologically motivated processes that have no etymological ground, but I'm not saying I'm the speaker of truth


----------



## hadronic

Drink said:


> Otherwise, it is the perfect (just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist).


 
Of course, that's why I'm asking  I didn't say I never saw henceforth it's wrong... 

You're right, I got mixed up with imperfect first person. I'll check what the "grammars" say on this one..


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> You may be right, I'm not saying.
> But there are a number of cases where the last radical is geminated to preserve the shortness of the last vowel : _qatan / q'tanna, maš'av / maš'abbim_ (and many other maqtal nouns), _havhav / havhabbim_...
> For me, they are all phonologically motivated processes that have no etymological ground, but I'm not saying I'm the speaker of truth



I'm not convinced. Why would the shortness of the last vowel need to be preserved? Also, _qāṭān_ does have a long vowel in the m.sg. and there are plenty of instances of _qāṭāl / q'ṭālā_ adjectives. And why should _maqṭāl_ nouns behave differently from _miqṭāl / miqṭālīm_ nouns? I think the gemination is very much etymological, otherwise there is really no reason for it.


----------



## hadronic

The original pattern has a short vowel, that regularly lengthens under the stress, but
whose shortness is kept in derived forms by geminating the last radical.

Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar/93. Paradigms of Masculine Nouns - Wikisource, the free online library

Gesenius exposes that at length, cf. 93_s, ee, kk, nn, oo, _ where he adresses words like עולם (olammim), קטן, צהוב, עקרב, etc..

Not saying it's the golden truth, just sharing some thoughts.


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> The original pattern has a short vowel, that regularly lengthens under the stress, but
> whose shortness is kept in derived forms by geminating the last radical.
> 
> Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar/93. Paradigms of Masculine Nouns - Wikisource, the free online library
> 
> Gesenius exposes that at length, cf. 93_s, ee, kk, nn, oo, _ where he adresses words like עולם (olammim), קטן, צהוב, עקרב, etc..
> 
> Not saying it's the golden truth, just sharing some thoughts.



Summing up Gesenius's theory: "Sometimes a sharpening of the third radical takes place, in order to keep the preceding vowel short". The only problem is he doesn't explain _why_ it needs to be kept short, when in other cases it does not need to be. But also, Gesenius is outdated. He's good as a reference and starting point, but not for final decisions. Even some of his examples (like Proverbs 23:27, which he says is עֲמוּקָה, but is actually עֲמֻקָּה) are simply wrong. Although the existance of מָתוֹק / מְתוּקָה has always bugged me.


----------



## aavichai

Drink said:


> The qamatz is because of the pausal position (end of the verse). אֻכָּל cannot be a participle because the qal passive participle is אָכוּל.



in this case - i don't agree
Even if it wasn't in a pausal position - its still have a kamatz
the if we see אין before it - its already participle - it doesn't need the reason of "pausal" to explain the kamatz

like 2Kings 2:10
וַיֹּ֖אמֶר הִקְשִׁ֣יתָ לִשְׁא֑וֹל אִם־תִּרְאֶ֨ה אֹתִ֜י לֻקָּ֤ח מֵֽאִתָּךְ֙ יְהִֽי־לְךָ֣ כֵ֔ן וְאִם־אַ֖יִן לֹ֥א יִהְיֶֽה
the word לקח is in participle passive with a kamats
in the verse of אכל the fact that it stands in a pausal have no effect


----------



## Drink

aavichai said:


> in this case - i don't agree
> Even if it wasn't in a pausal position - its still have a kamatz
> the if we see אין before it - its already participle - it doesn't need the reason of "pausal" to explain the kamatz
> 
> like 2Kings 2:10
> וַיֹּ֖אמֶר הִקְשִׁ֣יתָ לִשְׁא֑וֹל אִם־תִּרְאֶ֨ה אֹתִ֜י לֻקָּ֤ח מֵֽאִתָּךְ֙ יְהִֽי־לְךָ֣ כֵ֔ן וְאִם־אַ֖יִן לֹ֥א יִהְיֶֽה
> the word לקח is in participle passive with a kamats
> in the verse of אכל the fact that it stands in a pausal have no effect



There, לֻקָּח is also pausal (mahpach sometimes has the pausal form). לֻקָּח and אֻכָּל cannot be participles because no binyan has a passive participle with that form. Qal passive participle is פָּעוּל, and the other binyanim's participles all start with מ. Anyway, this verse makes perfect sense without having to say that it is a participle.


----------



## hadronic

Well, Gesenius cannot be both outdated and not explaining why  

Granted, he doesn't provide an explanation (should there always be one?), but outside of the colors, none of these words exhibit the same sharpening of third radical in Arabic  (עולם, etc...), so I doubt that this sharpening is part of the mishkal. I'd rather say that the short vowel is part of the mishkal, and _sometimes_ it induces a sharpening of the last radical.


----------



## aavichai

Drink said:


> There, לֻקָּח is also pausal (mahpach sometimes has the pausal form). לֻקָּח and אֻכָּל cannot be participles because no binyan has a passive participle with that form. Qal passive participle is פָּעוּל, and the other binyanim's participles all start with מ. Anyway, this verse makes perfect sense without having to say that it is a participle.



1. How לֻקָּח is pausal when it connects with the after it מֵֽאִתָּךְ֙
2. according to the context it is not in "Past" tense
3. פעול is also passive of Qal - no problem
4. When you say "No binyan has a passive participle with that form... the other binyanim's participles all start with מ"

No Binyan have a passive like פעול neither
but what they do have is a passive that looks like the active with the U
from Piel (original pa'al with Dagesh) Pu'al -- the PA turns to PU
from Hif'il (original Haf'il-Haf'al) Huf'al -- The Ha turns to HU
and from Pa'al -- Pual -- the PA turns to PU

what you said about a passive starting with מ
thats right - when the participle active start with מ also
MEFA'EL -- MEFUAL
MAF'IL -- MUF'AL
but the active of QAL without מ thats why
POEL -- PUAL

5. the verse with the סנה that איננו אכל has the word אין
you cannot say this is imperfect ----edit: i mean perfect ("Past")
6. I will check later for more verses to support what im saying
but still - the verse that i put before is not in pausal but connected to the word after it.


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> Well, Gesenius cannot be both outdated and not explaining why



Why not?



hadronic said:


> Granted, he doesn't provide an explanation (should there always be one?),



If he doesn't give a reason, then there is no reason for me believe him.



hadronic said:


> but outside of the colors, none of these words exhibit the same sharpening of third radical in Arabic  (עולם, etc...), so I doubt that this sharpening is part of the mishkal. I'd rather say that the short vowel is part of the mishkal, and _sometimes_ it induces a sharpening of the last radical.



You can't do such precise comparisons between Hebrew and Arabic, individual words have changed too much between them. and there are many mishqalim that have no Arabic equivalent and vice versa. Also, עולם itself never has gemination. I think you misread that part. He was saying that some words _like_ עולם (i.e. first syllable stable, and second syllable with qamatz) geminate the final consonant. Without better reason, I would just have to say that they are two different mishqalim.


----------



## Drink

aavichai said:


> 1. How לֻקָּח is pausal when it connects with the after it מֵֽאִתָּךְ֙



Because it's a mahpach. Pausal positions don't always make much sense.



aavichai said:


> 2. according to the context it is not in "Past" tense



It's in the perfect tense (i.e. indicating that him being taken is before them seeing that he was taken).



aavichai said:


> 3. פעול is also passive of Qal - no problem



פָּעוּל and sometimes פָּעִיל are the only passive _participles_ of qal.



aavichai said:


> 4. When you say "No binyan has a passive participle with that form... the other binyanim's participles all start with מ"
> 
> No Binyan have a passive like פעול neither
> but what they do have is a passive that looks like the active with the U
> from Piel (original pa'al with Dagesh) Pu'al -- the PA turns to PU
> from Hif'il (original Haf'il-Haf'al) Huf'al -- The Ha turns to HU
> and from Pa'al -- Pual -- the PA turns to PU
> 
> what you said about a passive starting with מ
> thats right - when the participle active start with מ also
> MEFA'EL -- MEFUAL
> MAF'IL -- MUF'AL
> but the active of QAL without מ thats why
> POEL -- PUAL



I was only talking about passive _participles_. The passive participles are פָּעוּל/פָּעִיל for binyan qal, מְפֻעָל for binyan pi'el/pu'al, and מֻפְעָל for binyan hif'il/huf'al. There is no participle with the form פֻּעָל.



aavichai said:


> 5. the verse with the סנה that איננו אכל has the word אין
> you cannot say this is imperfect



It is actually the perfect. And you are right that it seems unusual, but nevertheless, that's the way it is. One alternative I proposed above is that it is some sort of infinitive.


----------



## hadronic

If he doesn't give a reason, doesn't explain anything and just states the observable, how can he be outdated? Facts are facts...

Yes, there are 2 mishkalim, that's what I said earlier. But they differ in the quantity of the last vowel, not in an underlying dagesh of the last radical.
Or even let's say, one mishkal, with unpredictable behaviour. It's not that extraordinary.


----------



## hadronic

Gesenius calls _quttāl_ a remnant of Qal passive participle. I think I'm taken by his thorough explanation.


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> If he doesn't give a reason, doesn't explain anything and just states the observable, how can he be outdated? Facts are facts...



"Sometimes a sharpening of the third radical takes place" is a fact; "in order to keep the preceding vowel short" is a conjecture. And he doesn't give any evidence or explanation to support this conjecture. Also, I have already given you an example of how facts can change as well.



hadronic said:


> Yes, there are 2 mishkalim, that's what I said earlier. But they differ in the quantity of the last vowel, not in an underlying dagesh of the last radical.
> Or even let's say, one mishkal, with unpredictable behaviour. It's not that extraordinary.



Given our current text, there are 2 mishqalim that differ in both vowel quantity and gemination -- that's a fact. If you want to say that the gemination is not original -- that's a conjecture. (And whether you call them separate mishqalim, or separate sub-mishqalim of one mishqal is irrelevant.)



hadronic said:


> Gesenius calls _quttāl_ a remnant of Qal passive participle. I think I'm taken by his thorough explanation.



But קָטוּל is the original qal passive participle, so what could קֻטָּל be a remnant _of_? And can you link me to where Gesenius talks about this? (To be clear, I'm not against this explanation, I just haven't yet seen enough evidence.)


----------



## hadronic

Of course at this stage, I'm only stating a conjoncture. Did I say the opposite? That's how I personally see the things, the same way you personally see _ukkal_ as a perfect and _maš'abbim_ as an original geminated third.

Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar/50. The Participle - Wikisource, the free online library

_Section 50a
_
To be clear : he says nothing. But that's how he personally see the things.


----------



## aavichai

Hi Drink

you said that the לקח מאתך is pausal form
can you give me more example where a pausal form exist when the word after it connected with it.
because pausal happends where is it needed for pause (like its name - no matter what sign it has)

in this case there is no way and no reason for pausal at all

you can say that the word מאתך is in pausal form - and I will agree
so two pausal one after the another without reason?
I think you worng at this

לקח has an object מאתך - you can't say its pausal and seperate it from his object
like sayibg "taken. from you."

if you give me more examples i'll be happy to learn because i dont know any
pausal like that.


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> Of course at this stage, I'm only stating a conjoncture. Did I say the opposite? That's how I personally see the things, the same way you personally see _ukkal_ as a perfect and _maš'abbim_ as an original geminated third.
> 
> Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar/50. The Participle - Wikisource, the free online library
> 
> _Section 50a
> _
> To be clear : he says nothing. But that's how he personally see the things.



Thanks. It seems he starts off with the view that אֻכָּל et al. are passive participles of pi'el/pu'al, and rejects that view in favor of saying that they were originally from qal. However, he does not explain what led to the assumption that they are participles in the first place, other than the qamatz, which I am coming to see is fairly compelling evidence against it being a perfect, but that does not _necessarily_ make it a participle. Note that in Arabic, the only passive participles of form I is maf`uul, which is likely related to the פָּעוּל, but with an additional m- prefix, and in some views also fa`iil, which is related to פָּעִיל. There is no fu`al participle form.


----------



## hadronic

Also, if it's a perfect, why is לוקח and not לוקחתי when "I am taken" is intended ?

And same as אין + perfect, where else do we see forms like תראה אותי קטלתי, when so many other instances show תראה אותי קוטל, with a participle? 

Finally, it's not because it has a perfect sense that it is a perfect. Pa'ul (/pu''al) can assume a resultative / stative passive meaning, like דלת פתוחה.


----------



## Drink

Yes, those are all good points. Does quṭṭāl ever occur with suffixes (i.e. quṭṭālīm, etc.)?


----------



## aavichai

hadronic said:


> Also, if it's a perfect, why is לוקח and not לוקחתי when "I am taken" is intended ?
> 
> And same as אין + perfect, where else do we see forms like תראה אותי קטלתי, when so many other instances show תראה אותי קוטל, with a participle?
> 
> Finally, it's not because it has a perfect sense that it is a perfect. Pa'ul (/pu''al) can assume a resultative / stative passive meaning, like דלת פתוחה.



why should it be: "אם תראה אותי לוקחתי מאתך"

when the word is active you will say: "תראה אותי לוקח אותך/ממך..."
I still don't get where does it have a problem to be a passive participle


----------



## hadronic

Aavichai, that is exactly what I'm saying.


----------



## aavichai

ohh, your'e lucky then
I was about to F***** beat your A**


----------



## Drink

Another possibility is that these are the passive versions of the קִטֵּל mishqal, which usually has a similar meaning to an active participle of qal (for example, פִּקֵּחַ / פָּקַח and עִוֵּר / עָוַר). So perhaps this קֻטָּל mishqal is the same thing but with a passive meaning? What does Ge(se)nius say about קִטֵּל?


----------



## hadronic

Didn't find anything valuable in Gesenius. I didn't even find what he has to say about the doubling in פְּעֻלָּה.

But regarding שאנן and רענן that you mentioned earlier as an example of duplicated third radical pattern (but notice that duplication is not gemination), he does say that the feminine and plural forms do actually geminate the last radical :שאנַנָּה, etc... which backs up  his theory of gemination in order to keep the vowel short, like in קטנה _q'tănna._


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> which backs up  his theory of gemination in order to keep the vowel short, like in קטנה _q'tănna_



It certainly backs up the theory that the gemination is not "original", but it says absolutely nothing about _when_ or _why_ the gemination appeared. I think that keeping the vowel short is a rather silly reason, because I don't see why the vowel needs to be kept short. At least in the case of the qal passive, I have a reasonable explanation: that the gemination is to preserve the u-quality of the vowel, since it was nevessary to distinguish the form as a passive, and since without gemination we could have expected it to reduce to schwa.


----------



## hadronic

It's precisely what he says in 52e:
Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar/52. Piʿēl and Puʿal - Wikisource, the free online library

"In these cases there is no need to assume any error on the part of the punctuators; the sharpening of the second radical may have taken place in order to retain the characteristic _ŭ_ of the first syllable (cf. Arab. _qŭtĭlă_ as passive of _qătălă_), and the _a_ of the second syllable is in accordance with the vocalization of all the other passives".

Also, as I see it,  "keeping the vowel short" is almost always synonymous to "keeping the vowel quality". He could have used "in order to keep the vowel quality" instead, he would have meant the same. 

Pretonic short vowels can also lengthen, we see a lot with qamatz and tsere (ענב '_enav_, שכר _šexar_,...), but but is there any example with _u_, expected to change to _o_? I'm not aware of any.


----------



## Drink

I guess I wasn't clear, but I meant preserving the quality _distinction_ of the the u-vowel from i-vowels and a-vowels. The slight lowering of the vowel from /u/ to [o:] would still have preserved this distinction and so would not have needed to be avoided (but I actually suspect that the short-u was actually already [o] before it was lenthened). However, I suspect that, as most other short u-vowels that weren't fulfilling a grammatical function, it would have either been reduced to schwa or merged with the i-vowels. If you compare Hebrew with Arabic and Aramaic, you will find a lot more short u-vowels in the latter two. It seems to me that the short u-vowel was retained only in a small set of mishqalim (and in fact these mishqalim have a much clearer grammatical function than some other mishqalim, which I bet is not a coincidence), passive verbs, and a few stative qal verbs, in all other places it merged with i-vowels or was reduced to schwa. But then of course the question is why it could not have been lengthened quṭal > qōṭal. I do not know why, but there is a lot that we (or at least I) don't know about the details of vowel changes in verbs (such as why qāṭal rather than qāṭāl?, why mēqīm rather than māqīm?, why hiqṭīl rather than hiqṭēl?, etc), so the whole picture is just not clear enough.


----------



## hadronic

The few stative Qal verbs, are you refering to קטון qaton or יכול yaxol? Even those ones lost their_ ŭ_...  (I just noticed that these two verbs conjugate with xolam xaser in the past, qatōnti, yaxōlti, which also is a weird thing to add to the list of things we (or at least I) don't understand...).

The only noun-mishkal that preserved _ŭ_ that I'm aware of, is פעולה p'3ulla, with precisely gemination of the lamed.


----------



## hadronic

What are the examples of short _u_ merging with _i_-vowels?


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> The few stative Qal verbs, are you refering to קטון qaton or יכול yaxol? Even those ones lost their_ ŭ_...  (I just noticed that these two verbs conjugate with xolam xaser in the past, qatōnti, yaxōlti, which also is a weird thing to add to the list of things we (or at least I) don't understand...).
> 
> The only noun-mishkal that preserved _ŭ_ that I'm aware of, is פעולה p'3ulla, with precisely gemination of the lamed.



Again, the cholam chaser _is_ a u-vowel. There are three types of vowels: a-vowels, i-vowels, and u-vowels. The other mishqalim I was talking about are qōṭel/qoṭl- (and its geminate root version qōl/qull-) and its feminine equivalent qoṭlā/quṭlā (and qullā), and qāṭōl/q'ṭull-. Also, I forgot to mention the qal imperfect.



hadronic said:


> What are the examples of short _u_ merging with _i_-vowels?



Arabic/Aramaic rummān, Hebrew rimmōn; Aramaic šum, Hebrew šēm; the 2nd person plural suffixes.


----------



## hadronic

Drink said:


> It seems to me that the short u-vowel was retained only in a small set of mishqalim, passive verbs...



Oh, I thought you meant the actual short u. Didn't understand you meant the u-vowel family there too.

What is the clear grammatical function of mishkal qótel/qotla/qutla ?


----------



## hadronic

Drink said:


> Arabic/Aramaic rummān, Hebrew rimmōn; Aramaic šum, Hebrew šēm; the 2nd person plural suffixes.



Maybe also Arabic thumma, Hebrew šemma? Weirdly, all these examples happen in front of a _m_. Is it a coincidence or wouldn't it just be a labial dissimilation in Hebrew or a labial assimilation in Arabic?


----------



## Drink

hadronic said:


> Maybe also Arabic thumma, Hebrew šemma? Weirdly, all these examples happen in front of a _m_. Is it a coincidence or wouldn't it just be a labial dissimilation in Hebrew or a labial assimilation in Arabic?



For Aramaic šum, that's a possibility (we can't compare with Arabic here, because the vowel was dropped entirely: ism). The 2nd person plural (and also 3rd person plural, which I forgot about before) siffixes are reconstructed with a u vowel in the masculine in Proto-Semitic (and i vowel in the feminine). As for rummān, there are more similar examples without labials: Arabic sulṭān, Aramaic šulṭān, Hebrew šilṭōn; Arabic ḥusbān, Aramaic ḥušbān, Hebrew ḥešbōn (although Arabic has an alternative form ḥisbān); essentially the whole qiṭlōn mishqal usually corresponds to quṭlān in Aramaic and Arabic.



hadronic said:


> What is the clear grammatical function of mishkal qótel/qotla/qutla ?



Abstract nouns formed from adjectives like the -ness suffix in English: חום is hotness, גודל is bigness, אושר is happiness, etc. There are some like אוכל and אומר that describe the objects of corresponding verbs. There are more meanings, but I'm not sure exactly how to define them. The point is that there is much more of a pattern than there is with qeṭel or qēṭel.


----------



## Drink

By the way, for a list of Arabic noun patterns, see §62 and §63 (pages 37-39) in Fischer's _A Grammar of Classical Arabic_. Among them are both triliteral and quadriliteral patterns with geminated final root consonants:
Triliteral: fi3all, fi3ill, fu3ull, fa3āll
Quadriliteral: fi3lill, fu3lull, fi3lall


----------

