Noun/adjective derivation from verbs

[kwrandolph]

Has any legitimate researcher made a study of how nouns and adjectives are derived from verbs in Biblical Hebrew, and how those derivation patterns affect meaning?

Now to start out, not every noun or adjective has a verbal root. Let me repeat, not every noun or adjective has a verbal root. But of those that do, what patterns have been observed?

We can see the action in English, for example the verb create has the derived creating, creator, creature, creation and maybe one or two more derivations.

So far the patterns I’ve noticed are:

• Qal participle: with the meanings of actor and acting.
• Piel or Pual participle: a repeated or continuous action, a site where such a repeated action takes place.
• Shegolet noun: an object connected with the action.
• Feminine noun connected the the shegolet: feminine of a living creature; refers to a group or set of something; an abstract idea connected with the action.
• Feminine nouns ending with a waw tau which the Masoretes pronounced as -ooth: any guesses as to that form’s meaning?
• Feminine nouns ending with a tau. What complicates matters with this ending is that in the plural, it has the same form as the plural of final heh feminine nouns: what differences does this form have from those feminine nouns that end with a heh?
• any other patterns that people may have noticed?

The background for this question—as I read through Tanakh, I have noticed times where the context and syntax indicate that a word is a noun, or sometimes adjective, but dictionaries list it as a verb. So my question came up that I asked at the beginning.

Karl W. Randolph.

[kwrandolph]

While going through nouns, I noticed that I neglected to mention some other derivation patterns:

From אוה to desire, we get תאוה desire.
The following entry shows a whole gamut of derivations: ‎אנה to experience, in particular going through an unpleasant experience or occurrence that is not entirely by chance ⇒ (hit) to make oneself an unpleasant experience, i.e. to seek a pretext 2K 5:7 → אן woe Is 29:2 La 2:5, אני distress(ed), תאן distress Is 29:2 Ez 24:12 La 2:5, תאנה occasion for an unpleasant experience, not a chance occurrence Jd 14:4, Jr 2:24, תאניה ואניה phrase sort of like “toil and trouble” in English ?? Is 29:2, La 2:5
Another example, ‎בנה to build (up, upon), not only used referring to construct a physical structure, but also of a person Gn 2:22 or a family Gn 16:2 → בנה builder, בניה, בנין building, מבנה structure Ez 40:2 αλ, תבן straw, used in making adobe bricks, also to feed animals, תבנית model, used to plan a construction Ex 25:9, 40, Dt 4:16–8, 1C 28:11–2, 18–9

All languages have patterns by which they derive nouns and adjectives from verbs, but Hebrew seems to have been particularly rich in such patterns. Has anyone done a study of Biblical Hebrew derivation patterns and the meanings that the patterns impart to the derived nouns?

The reason I ask this is if we can recognize such patterns, it seems to me that we thereby would better be able to decipher difficult passages.

What do you all think?

Karl W. Randolph.

[porta]

Karl,

I have something to say to this post of yours (past November 18th) on Hebrew derivation patterns, etc.
But I was struck by the word "legitimate" that you put before 'researcher', in the first line of the post.
What is for you a 'legitimate' researcher? What do you exactly mean by this word?

Pere Porta

[kwrandolph]

Pere:

I have something to say to this post of yours (past November 18th) on Hebrew derivation patterns, etc.

You know of examples that will answer some of the questions?

But I was struck by the word "legitimate" that you put before 'researcher', in the first line of the post.
What is for you a 'legitimate' researcher? What do you exactly mean by this word?

There are at least two classes of researchers of Biblical Hebrew language that I notice—one group that comes to the language and tries to discern the patterns that are found in the language itself, and the second that starts out with their pet theory or theories and will twist the language to fit the same. The most common of the latter seem to be those who commit varieties of the etymological fallacy or others who go the opposite extreme and deny the etymologies that are there. I don’t consider the latter group to be legitimate because they start with theory and twist the language to fit theory whereas the former group starts with the language and tries to derive any theories from that study.

One thing that complicates matters is that tradition has handed us certain teachings where some, like the Masoretic points, go back more than 1000 years, which leads many people to be unwilling to question tradition. But I have come to question even tradition, because the observed patterns in Tanakh sometimes don’t follow tradition.

I hope this answers your question.

Karl W. Randolph.

[porta]

Karl,

I conceived, about ten-fifteen years ago, to build up a big "patternary" with the scope of having at sight a general broad view of how the Hebrew language behaves as regards not only derivation of words from other words but, in a general way, the play of prefixes, infixes and suffixes acting on a, so to say, basic word.
This resulted in a work I called -and call- 'OHAM' (Otsar HA-Mishqalym, Collection of patterns) which I put on the net some years ago.
But I don't speak about it because it is not fully operative... My hope is that it will be operative in the future.
The link is http://www.oham.net
Once you are inside, you click on the pattern type that is of your interest and the pages displayed have a lot of information...
Patterns are listed in an absolutely alphabetical order.
Of course, I do not know if the information Oham provides will constitute an answer to your questions.
Maybe it will do for some of them and it won't do for some other...
Remark, Karl, that my scenery was not biblical Hebrew only and exclusively but Hebrew language in general, as a whole... That's why I provide many patterns that have no correspondence, no sample in the Bible text. When no sample word is found in the Bible, this is showed by the sign [#].
Remark also that some (rather few) links are broken.
Remark also that patterns ending in 0 and 5 are duplicated because the idea was/is that for these one should pay. As this is not operative, a double page is shown (for the same pattern number): one that explains that reading on this pattern has a cost... and the second thas has the information (for which one should pay if the work were fully operative in its whole)

Take a look on it and see if it helps you in some way.
The same as you ask concerning your Biblical Hebrew Dictionary, I will be quite grateful and joyful for every remark and/or comment you will be so kind to send to me.
Finally, I hope I'll be deserving of the title of 'legitimate' researcher...

Pere Porta

[kwrandolph]

Pere:

I conceived, about ten-fifteen years ago, to build up a big "patternary" with the scope of having at sight a general broad view of how the Hebrew language behaves as regards not only derivation of words from other words but, in a general way, the play of prefixes, infixes and suffixes acting on a, so to say, basic word.
This resulted in a work I called -and call- 'OHAM' (Otsar HA-Mishqalym, Collection of patterns) which I put on the net some years ago. …
The link is http://www.oham.net

There are two main weaknesses I’ve noticed with it:

1) Basically it’s of medieval and later Hebrews—it has forms not found in Tanakh, and doesn’t have forms I noticed in Tanakh.

2) It doesn’t include how the forms affect the meanings. For example, when you append a feminine heh and its plural to a masculine noun, how does the meaning differ from the masculine use? Or as a recent question, what does the use of the masculine plural indicate when what is meant is other than a plurality of a masculine object? Does the same use exist for feminine plurals (I haven’t noticed it yet)?

I noticed something strange: when I looked at your introduction page, all the Hebrew words came out in a pre-Babylonian exile font that I made for my personal reading on my computer. No other page has done that. It surprised me to see that.

Take a look on it and see if it helps you in some way.
The same as you ask concerning your Biblical Hebrew Dictionary, I will be quite grateful and joyful for every remark and/or comment you will be so kind to send to me.
Finally, I hope I'll be deserving of the title of 'legitimate' researcher...

Pere Porta

I consider you a legitimate researcher. I sent you my latest update to my dictionary on the first of this month.

Karl W. Randolph.