I understand that mem and nun alternate. But is nun a labial? How so?
"For an example of mem coming after a two letter root, he brings the case of Noach, whose name is explained in Bereshit 5:29...The name Noach נח is connected to the three letter root נחם ."
I don't understand. You introduce this as "an example of mem coming after a two letter root," but then you say (apparently correctly, according to the text) that this two-letter name comes from the deletion of mem from a three-letter root.
Mike - Good call on the labials. I quoted Klein, but I guess he made a mistake. Steinberg mentions that mem also interchanges with vav - ארגמן ארגון
As far as נח / נחם - I guess you could read it either way, an addition or a deletion of a letter. But according to Steinberg's approach, which deals with two letter roots, he will choose the former. In addition to נחם coming from נח, he also has נחת נוח and נחה.
>midaber - speak
Should'nt this puctuation be transalted spoken? See Unkelos and Rashi end of Nasso.
On several occasions you have mentioned the fact that the tri-literal Hebrew root can be considered as consisting of a two-literal root plus a supplement. For example according to this theory the root רכב may be considered as composed of the root רך plus an added ב. The root רך by itself is, of course, a short form of רכך. The logic behind this is not clear to me. Does this mean that the idea of רכב contains within it the idea of רך? And what about the added letter ב? Is it not, then, a uni-literal root all by itself? I have heard recently that some latter-day linguists claim that the tri-literal Hebrew root is actually universally composed of uni-literal roots, a claim that is truly beyond my grasp. I would appreciate if you could explain to us this murky issue.
Kobi
David G - I looked at Onkelos and Rashi and I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I was just trying to come up with an example of a present tense piel verb.
Kobi - The problem is that I didn't find any of the proponents of that theory (Steinberg and Jastrow, for example) suggest that רכב comes from רך. They don't say that every three-letter root comes from a two-letter one.
As I've written before, I'm not sure where I stand on the issue. First of all, I haven't read enough about the issue (remember - I'm not a professional linguist, and have never studied language academically). I do think that some of the examples brought seem a bit forced, but others - especially when every three-letter root beginning with the same two letter seems to mean the same thing - lead to think there's a lot of validity there.
It sounds to me that they are seeing it as Hitpael Kemo Mitdaber - Medaber beino levein atzmo umoshe shome'a me'eilav. It does not change your post I just thought the example was not the best.
Commenting by HaloScan
