The personal pronouns את AT, אך AK and אן AN

[Isaac Fried]

Jonathan says
Even if you are right about the ma prefix being somehow related to mah, mah is still a morpheme. More linguistics 101. All languages are made up of morphemes. Hebrew is no exception.
As to the yod prefix, not knowing its etymology or not having an alternative does nothing to support your claim.

Says I
I agree. Hebrew is indeed made up of elementary particles, but it is certainly, by far, not the "morphemes" conjured up in linguistics 101 (which should rather be named Englishtics 101.)

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

More.
אֲהַבְתִּיךָ=אהב-אתי-אכה, 'I have loved thee, m.', Isaiah 43:4
אֲהַבְתִּיךְ=אהב-אתי-אך, 'I love thee, f.', Judges 16:15
אֲהֵבוּךָ=אהב-הוּא-אכה, 'the virgins (they הוּא) love thee", Song 1:3
אֲהַבְתָּנִי=אהב-אתה-אני, 'lovest me', Judges 14:16
אֲהֵבוּם=אהב-הוּא-הם, 'they (הוּא) have loved', Jer. 8:2

And
שִׁלַּחְתּוֹ=שלח-אתה-הוּא, 'thou hast sent him away', Sam.2 3:24
שִׁלַּחְתִּיהָ=שלח-אתי-היא, 'I have sent her away', Isaiah 50:1
But:
וְשִׁלַּחְתַּנִי=ו-שלח-אתה-אני וְנִסְתַּרְתִּי=ו-אני-סתר-אתי, 'but let me go, that I may hide myself', Sam1 20:5

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

More שלח

שִׁלְּחָה=שלח-היא, 'stretched out, extended', Prov. 31:19, with the attached PP היא designating the woman performing the act שלח.
שִׁלְּחָם=שלח-הם, 'sent them away', Jos. 22:7, with the attached PP הם designating the beneficiaries of the act שלח.
שִׁלְּחוֹ=שלח-הוּא, 'he had sent him away', 2Sam. 3:22, with the attached PP הוּא designating the male beneficiary of the act שלח.
שִׁלְחוּ=שלח-הוּא, 'send', Gen. 42:16, with the attached PP הוּא designating the performers of the act שלח.
שִׁלְּחָהּ=שלח=היא, 'Her former husband, which sent her away', Deut. 24:4, with the attached PP היא designating the woman beneficiary of the act שלח.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jemoh66]

I don't doubt that some people practice a kind of Englishtics. To me that is not unlike the naive way you try to force meaning on particles. But particles don't have meaning by themselves. They only have meaning when they come together in words. And words themselves only have meaning as they are slotted according to syntax and discourse. This is a principle discovered by linguists studying languages from across the world, not English. This is most evident in the study of BH verbal constructs. The wayyiqtol form does not make its own meaning. But when the speaker/writer sets up a narrative and begins to introduce the first sequence of actions along the timelime, then he/she will front the sentence or phrase with a wayyiqtol, giving it a narrative tense meaning. The yods in the Hiph'il have no stand alone meaning, but when they are inserted into the root along with the causative hey they exert a causative meaning on the verbal root. And still the hiph'il verb might have several competing optional meanings which can only be determined by the speaker's usage.

The term "morpheme" has nothing to do with imposing an English linguistic worldview onto Hebrew or any other language. It is simply a word chosen to convey what scientists have observed in all human languages. All languages, BH included, contain phones, allophones, phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, and discourses. Take the sounds represented by the symbol ב. It represents two sounds in BH: /b/ and /bh/ (in IPA /β/). Both are phones. /bh/ is allophonic to /b/ because it doesn't change the meaning of a word. It is simply influenced phonologically by its environment. So we can determine that /b/ is the phoneme, while /β/ is only an allophone. If you partner the phoneme /b/ with the phone /ə/ you get the syllable /bə/ which the Tiberian tradition represents byּבְ. If you prefix the /b/ with the phone /a/, you get the syllable /aβ/. If you add the glottal stop you get the word [ʔaβ], which is represented by the following symbols:אב

Jonathan Mohler

[Isaac Fried]

I have looked it up, and see two definitions for "morpheme":
1. a meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further divided.
2. In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language. In other words, it is the smallest meaningful unit of a language.
which appear to me but conditional definitions in reverse. Take, says the teacher in Englishtics 101, a compound "unit" of language, break it up into ever smaller parts until you reach the "smallest grammatical unit", still "meaningful" to you, and there, left in the palm of your hand, is a litter of cute little morphemes. OK, says I to the instructor, show us, go and do what you preach to וישלחכם.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

I am not sure about BH, but spoken Hebrew does make use now of a hard בּ B and a soft ב V to differentiate between, say, הִתְחַבֵּר, 'connected', and הִתְחַבֵר, 'associated, made friends חברים'.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

I am sorry, but I am afraid I have unwittingly introduced a particle of discord into the discussion by using the term "elementary particles" in the sense of physics rather than linguistics.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

You say: "The yods in the Hiph'il have no stand alone meaning, but when they are inserted into the root along with the causative hey they exert a causative meaning on the verbal root. And still the hiph'il verb might have several competing optional meanings which can only be determined by the speaker's usage."

I agree, except that the opening הי HI of היפעיל Hiph'il is actually the personal pronoun היא. It indeed "exerts a causative meaning" in the sense that this PP is used to refer to the performer of the act. The second, internal, אִי, is a second היא standing for the beneficiary of the act, or even still the actor. This is as I see it, this is as I hear it, and this is as I understand it.
In spoken Hebrew היא turns easily into the stand alone אִי, say, אי אמרה לי, 'she told me'; and הוּא turns easily into the stand alone אוּ, say, אוּ אמר לי, 'he told me' (you may count me among the transgressors.)

Since the initial היא is the same in this construction for all "persons" a qualifier PP is added at the end, thus, הִשְׁלִים=היא-של-היא-ם, 'he completed, he made peace', but הִשְׁלַמְתִּי-היא-שלם-אתי, I completed', הִשְׁלַמְתֶּם-היא-שלם-אתם, 'you m. p. completed'.

Inasmuch as the different verbal forms, בנינים, are equivalent, being but historical end products of confluent grammatical developments of the Hebrew language, they are advantageously used to slightly modify the meaning of the act to enrich the language. Thus, whereas the hifil הִשְׁלִים is 'completed, accepted', the piel שִׁלַּם=ש-היא-לם is 'paid', with the internal היא, 'he', designating the performer of the act. A qualifier is needed, also here, for the other "persons", thus, שִׁלַּמְתָּ=ש-היא-לם-אתה, 'you paid', etc..
Similarly, the hifil הִשְׁתִּיק is 'silenced', but the piel שִׁתֵּק is 'paralyzed'. I see no evidence for piel describing any "strong" cation.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

Whereas the הפעיל hiph'il verbal form opens with the genderless היא designating the performer of the act, The הוּפעל huph'al verbal form opens with the genderless הוּא designating the beneficiary of the act. Gen. 42:28
וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל אֶחָיו הוּשַׁב כַּסְפִּי וְגַם הִנֵּה בְאַמְתַּחְתִּי
KJV: "And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack"
where הוּשַׁב=הוּא-שׁב, and with הוּא referring to the money. However, the huph'al form appears to tacitly assume that the act was initiated by an external agent, for example (made up), נָפַלְתִּי(=נפל-אתי) אך קמתי, 'I stumbled (accidentally), but I stood up', as opposed to הֻפַּלְתִּי(הוּא-פל-אתי) אך קמתי, 'I was thrown down, but I stood up.'

Consider also Jer. 22:28
מַדּוּעַ הוּטְלוּ הוּא וְזַרְעוֹ וְהֻשְׁלְכוּ עַל-הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָדָעוּ
KJV: "wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?"
where הוּטְלוּ=הוּא-טל-הוּא, וְהֻשְׁלְכוּ=ו-הוּא-שלך-הוּא, and with all הוּא referring to Coniah and his seed.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

There is in Hebrew, as we know, another Huph'al system in which the qualifying PP come first not last. For instance, for the root קם QM, rise', the reconstructed system is:
אוּקַם=אני-הוּא-קם, 'I'
תּוּקַם=אתה-הוּא-קם, 'you' m.
תּוּקְמִי=את-הוּא-קם-היא, 'you' f.
יוּקַם=היא-הוּא-קם, 'he'
תּוּקַם-את-הוּא-קם, 'she'
נוּקַם=אנוּ-קם, 'we'
תּוּקְמוּ=את-הוּא-קם-הוּא, 'you' m. p.
תּוּקַמְנָה=את-הוּא-קם-הן-היא, 'you' f. p.
יוּקְמוּ=היא-הוּא-קם-הוּא, 'they' m.
תּוּקַמְנָה=את-הוּא-קם-הן-היא, 'they' f.

Isaac Fried, Boston University