# תָעִֽיתִי in Psalm 119:110



## Isidore Demsky

In Psalm 119:110, is תָעִֽיתִי׃ a masculine, first person, singular verb?

And is it past or present tense?

(Or are the tenses called "complete" and "incomplete" in biblical Hebrew?)


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## airelibre

As you mentioned, in Biblical Hebrew the verbs are not inflected for tense, but for aspect, with imperfect (incomplete) and perfect (complete) forms of verbs. The tense can be inferred from the context (for example adding consecutive vav to an imperfect form of a verb usually indicates the past, as in ויקרא אל משה - So he spoke to Moses - in modern Hebrew this would be only "and he _will _call to Moses/Moshe"). In the sentence you indicated (Psalms 119:110) one can easily translate תעיתי to English using the past tense: "The wicked set traps for me, but I did not wander from your precepts."

In Modern Hebrew, which has tenses but not aspects, the form above is first person singular past tense "I wandered". There is no distinction between masculine and femenine in the past 1st person (singular or plural).


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## Drink

airelibre said:


> As you mentioned, in Biblical Hebrew the verbs are not inflected for tense, but for aspect, with imperfect (incomplete) and perfect (complete) forms of verbs.



Actually, it's not so simple. The aspect theory was taken directly from Quranic Arabic, where the verbs are in fact inflected for aspect. But in Biblical Hebrew, they have a much stronger correlation with tense. However, certain moods and certain conjunctions may require specific forms of the verb. For example "אז ישיר משה" (Exodus 15:1) requires the prefix conjugation (a.k.a. future tense, a.k.a. imperfect(ive) aspect) because of the conjunction "אז". Keep in mind also that in _pre_-Biblical Hebrew the situation may have been different and the prefix conjugation was probably used as a simple past, thus the name ישמעאל probably means "G-d heard" rather than "G-d will hear".

But to answer the original question, *תעיתי is the first-person singular of either gender, of the suffix conjugation* (a.k.a. past tense, a.k.a. perfect(ive) aspective)


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## origumi

Drink said:


> Keep in mind also that in _pre_-Biblical Hebrew the situation may have been different and the prefix conjugation was probably used as a simple past, thus the name ישמעאל probably means "G-d heard" rather than "G-d will hear".


Can you elaborate on this point please?


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## Drink

origumi said:


> Can you elaborate on this point please?



Which part of it? Names generally preserve older stages of a language. And Semiticists claim that the original meaning of the prefix conjugation was the simple past, based on evidence from Semitic languages such as Akkadian, and some other Afro-Asiatic languages.


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## origumi

But this is practically the opposite of verb conjugation in Biblical and Modern Hebrew. Usually the prefixed conjugation like ישמור, ישמר, יגדיל are future (imperfect), suffixed conjugations like שמרתי, שימרתי, הגדלתי are past (perfect). I find it hard to understand how tenses / aspects switch their role.


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## Drink

origumi said:


> But this is practically the opposite of verb conjugation in Biblical and Modern Hebrew. Usually the prefixed conjugation like ישמור, ישמר, יגדיל are future (imperfect), suffixed conjugations like שמרתי, שימרתי, הגדלתי are past (perfect). I find it hard to understand how tenses / aspects switch their role.



You're right, it is strange. But don't forget that we regularly witness tenses/aspects switching their roles in the form of the vav-consecutive. The vav-consecutive (at least the prefix-conjugation one) is probably a remnant of this older meaning.

Also, the original simple past prefix conjugation probably had no short vowel prefix, while the future/imperfect prefix conjugation probably originated as short vowel suffix which was probably -u like in Arabic, which was then lost in Hebrew with other final short vowels. This left behind the distinction between יַבְדִּיל / וַיַּבְדֵּל, יָקוּם / וַיָּקָם, יִבְנֶה / וַיִּבֶן, יַשְׁקֶה, וַיַּשְׁקְ, etc. In Arabic the vowel-less form survived as the jussive: يَكْتُبُ (yaktu*bu*) = he writes or he will write, but لَمْ يَكْتُبْ (lam yaktu*b*) = he did not write; يَقُومُ (yaq*ūmu*) = he stands up or he will stand up, but لَمْ يَقُمْ (lam yaq*um*) = he did not stand up.


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## origumi

Waw consecutive works in both directions (past <-> future), so using one of its directions and leaving the other direction unexplained - doesn't enlighten things.

Change of the vowel between 2nd and 3rd root's consonants as in ויבדל / יבדיל keeps the י (yod) prefix in both forms, doesn't change the suffix, and also doesn't look related to the -u suffix - so no help in understanding how the tenses switched. Also, this vowel change can be caused by word lengthening (when prefixing the waw), lengthening that may have also included change of stress in a certain time period, which could contribute to the vowel change.


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## Drink

origumi said:


> Waw consecutive works in both directions (past <-> future), so using one of its directions and leaving the other direction unexplained - doesn't enlighten things.



You can explain past => future as originally just mimicking future => past. Or there might be more details I don't know about.



origumi said:


> Change of the vowel between 2nd and 3rd root's consonants as in ויבדל / יבדיל keeps the י (yod) prefix in both forms, doesn't change the suffix, and also doesn't look related to the -u suffix - so no help in understanding how the tenses switched. Also, this vowel change can be caused by word lengthening (when prefixing the waw), lengthening that may have also included change of stress in a certain time period, which could contribute to the vowel change.



I'm saying that what used to be a difference in suffix ended up being a difference in the final vowel. Prefixes in Hebrew never affect vowels that come later in the word, so the change in vowels is not caused by the va- prefix. The change in stress may actually be a direct result of the -u suffix (see the third example below). The evolution of the vowels from Proto-Hebrew:

Past: *yakt*ub* > *yakt*ub* > *yakt*ōb* > *yakt*ōb* > (modern) vayikht*ov*
Fut.: *yakt*ubu* > *yakt*ubu* > *yakt*ōbu* > *yakt*ōb* > (modern) yikht*ov*

Past: *yabd*īl* > *yabd*il* > *yabd*ēl* > *yabd*ēl* > (modern) vayavd*el*
Fut.: *yabd*īlu* > *yabd*īlu* > *yabd*īlu* > *yabd*īl* > (modern) yavd*il*

Past: *yaq*ūm* > *yaq*um* > *yāq*om* > *yāq*om* > (modern) vayák*om*
Fut.: *yaq*ūmu* > *yaq*ūmu* > *yāq*ūmu* > *yāq*ūm* > (modern) yak*úm
*
In most cases, the final -u didn't make a difference, but as in the second two examples and in the examples I gave in my previous post, it did make a difference.


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## origumi

Thanks for the detailed response.

I cannot disagree with anything specific, and yet the issue seems to me a little far-fetched, at least with the information we have in this thread.
It worth a deeper investigation (or just finding a good article/research).


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## Drink

Here are two articles I have read (and by no means the only ones) that helped shape my understanding of this:

Andrew Kingsbury Simpson (University of California, Berkeley), 2009
_The Origin and Development of Nonconcatenative Morphology_
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/dissertations/Simpson_dissertation_2009.pdf

Jan Joosten (University of Strasbourg), 2002
_Do the Finite Verbal Forms in Biblical Hebrew Express Aspect?_
https://www.jtsa.edu/Documents/pagedocs/JANES/2002 29/Joosten29.pdf


The point about אז ישיר, I got from ibn Ezra (sometimes you have to look back at the classics):
אבן עזרא, שמות טו,א:
*אז ישיר משה* -
משפט לשון הקדש לומר לשון עתיד תחת עבר עם מלת *אז*.
*אז יבנה שלמה*,
*אז ידבר יהושע*.
*אז יבדיל משה*.
וככה בלשון ישמעאל.


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## Isidore Demsky

Drink said:


> Actually, it's not so simple. The aspect theory was taken directly from Quranic Arabic, where the verbs are in fact inflected for aspect. But in Biblical Hebrew, they have a much stronger correlation with tense. However, certain moods and certain conjunctions may require specific forms of the verb. For example "אז ישיר משה" (Exodus 15:1) requires the prefix conjugation (a.k.a. future tense, a.k.a. imperfect(ive) aspect) because of the conjunction "אז". Keep in mind also that in _pre_-Biblical Hebrew the situation may have been different and the prefix conjugation was probably used as a simple past, thus the name ישמעאל probably means "G-d heard" rather than "G-d will hear".
> 
> But to answer the original question, *תעיתי is the first-person singular of either gender, of the suffix conjugation* (a.k.a. past tense, a.k.a. perfect(ive) aspective)



Thank you.


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