the pilel in hebrew

7/29/2019 The Pilel in Hebrew

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The Pi'W1 in Hebrew.-By Louts B. WOLFENSON, Johns Hop-kins University, Baltimore, Md.IN the Semitic languages the great majority of words are

derived from triconsonantal roots. There are a number ofpluriconsonantal roots,' e. q.,O (impf., Qal with suffix Ps.80, 14), ' eat off,' .Mt 'frog'; Arab. 5 qam'al ' sprout;be chief'; Syr. *osh. 'hasten'; Eth. OMMflanbasa (YES'anbas from ues) ' lion,' etc.; but these are in nearly all casesderived from triconsonantal roots in various ways.' Accordingto some authorities all triconsonantal roots are in their turnderived from biconsonantal roots.' The biconsonantal roots,however, they regard as altogether prehistoric, and all words inthe historic stages of the languages are looked upon as derivedfrom triconsonantal stems. The shorter biconsonantal form ofthe verbs I"I'3 and p7"V are thus considered to be the resultof elision and contraction of triconsonantal ones.

'The number of pluriconsonantal roots in Hebrew is small; in Syriacthe number is larger, while in Arabic and especially in Ethiopic they arerelatively numerous.2 For the ways in which these formations are developed cf. Gesenius-Kautzsch27, ? 30, p. q.; Dillmann, Aeth. Grain.2. Leipzig, 1899, g? 71-73,77, 78; N6ldeke, Syr. Gram.2, Leipzig, 1898, ? 180; and the special treat-ises of F. G. Schwartzlose, De Linguae Arabicae VerborumPlurilittero-rum Derivatione, Berolini, 1854; Stade, Ueber den Ursprung der Mehr-lautigen Thatw6rter der Ge'ezsprache, Leipzig, 1871; Martin Hartmann,Die Pluriliteralbildung in Semitischen Sprachen, Halle, 1875 [only theErster Theil; Bildungen durch wiederholung des letzten Radicales amSchluss und des ersten nach dem zweiten has appeared]; SiegmundFraenkel, Beitrage zur Erklarung der Mehrlautigen Bildungen im Ara-bischen. Leiden, 1878.3 Cf. Ed. K6nig, Lehrgebaude der Ilebr. Sprache, Leipzig, 1881, 1895,IL', ? 119, 3 b), c) (p. 370 ff.); and contrast Gesenius-Kautzsch27, p. 99, n. 1.It is most likely that originally all roots were not biconsonantal, but thatthere were also triconsonantal ones; cf. Delitzsch, Studien ilber Indo-germanisch-Semitische Wurzelverwandtschaft, Leipzig, 1873,p. 70.4 Verbs tj8r is used as a convenient symbol meaning verbs mediae u,mediae i, following K6nig, who uses also tl"O similarly.

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304 L. B. Tfolfenson, [1906.This view of these verbs is that of the national Arabic gram-

marians, and it is supported by the many secondarily regularforms in their language. In Hebrew, however, which is in somerespects more primitive than Arabic,' the conditions are differ-ent, and the earliest Hebrew grammarians and lexicographers ofthe Middle Ages did not hold this view. They believed that inHebrew there are biconsonantal2 and even uniconsonantal rootsin the case of certain weak roots like n etc. The explana-tion that the shorter forms of the verbs 11"37and V7";7are con-tractions, is based on the Arabic view, and was first introducedin Hebrew by the grammarian and lexicographer Ha -yy j4 liv-ing at Cordova, Spain, in the latter half of the 10th century andearly part of the 11th, who spoke and wrote Arabic, and appliedto Hebrew the principles of the Arabic language and the meth-ods of the Arabic grammarians. His view of these verbs pre-vailed until the last century, and is held even at the presenttime by such a prominent grammarian as Ed. Konig,5 as well asby others of less note.

1 Cf. Gesenius-Kautzsch21, ? 1, n.2 This is shown by the arrangement of their lexicons. Thus, e. g., inthe lexicon of Menahem ben Saruk we find the root Xty treated underthe biconsonantal heading By; fl?ea and ?nW both under ft; frt,Add, and ro: under ro; showing that the ultimate root of many so-called weak roots was considered biconsonantal. See the edition ofMenahem's Lexicon by Herschell Filipowsky, Antiquissirnum LinguaeHebraicae et Chaldaicae Lexicon . . . A Menahem ben Saruk. . .Londini et Edinburgi MDCCCLIV, pp. [1681a, [t7h]b, [14418, and cf. J.Filrst, Zur Geschichteder lebrdischenLexicographie, the Introductionto his Iebrdisches u. Chald. Handworterbuch, Leipzig, 1863 (2d'ed.),p. xx.3 Cf. the Lexicon of Menahem, p. [103]b, under 1 for ; cf. also p.[123]3, and [1271bfor other examples of uniconsonantal roots root ofkajDroot ofND)

4 His views on this subject are expounded in the two treatises calledthe Kitdb al-'Af atdawdt Ijurff al-Lin, and the Kitab al-'Af dl dawdtal-Mithlain; see the edition by Morris Jastrow, Jr., published under thetitle "IThe Weak and Geminate Verbs in Hebrew, by.... .ayyuj,"Leide, 1897, Preface, p. xi, and cf. FArst, 1. c., p. xxiv.5 See his Lehrgebdude, I, ? 34 (p. 320 ff.), where the verbs 1?";7 aretreated under the heading of Contracted Verbs. Cf. also Vorrede VII,and pp. 479-81 with pp. 451-53. Of course the question of the ultimateorigin of these shorter verbs is not affected by this opinion. Thus both



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Vol. Xxvii.] The Pi'let in, Hebrew. 305However, beginning with J. FTirst' and Ewald,2 there has been

a constantly growing number of scholars who have regarded theverbs tlop and r"r not as contractions of triconsonantal forms,but as developments of biconsonantal roots which were notexpanded to the triconsonantal forms as in other cases. ThusN61deke,3 Buttcher,4 A. Miffler,' Stade,6 deLagarde,7 FriederichDelitzsch,8 Zimmern,9 Kautzsch,'0 Wellhausen," and others haveK6nig (cf. p. 303, n. 3), and Mayer Lambert, who believes that the verbs

T and pep are contractions of triconsonantal forms (cf. his article" La Trilitteralite des Racines VIT et IV"J," in Revue des Etudes Juives[REJ], Tome xxxv, 1897, p. 203ff.), consider that these verbs MIT andAh'IVas well as all other triconsonantal verbs are derived from originalbiconsonantal roots. Cf. Mayer Lambert's paper in Semitic Studiesin Honor of Alex. Kohut, Berlin, 1897, p. 354-62, but contrast Gesenius-Kautzsch27,p. 99, n. 1.

1 Cf. Lehrgebdudeder aramdischen Idiome, Leipzig, 1835,?? 91 (p. 81),153(p. 158). As far as I can find, no credit has been given Fiurst forpostulating the theory that the verbs t"r and p7p are biconsonan-tals, as his name is omitted in everything on this subject which I haveseen, Ewald and Bottcher being the first scholars mentioned as holdingthis view.

2 Cf. Lehrbuchder Hebrdischen Sprache8, G6ttingen, 1870,?? 112, 113.3 In a review of Olshausen's grammar in Benfey's Orient u. Occident,I, 1862,p. 760ff.; cf. Manddische Gram., Halle, 1875,? 87, and Beitrdgezu semit. Sprachwissenschaft [BzsS.], Strassburg, 1904,p. 46.4 Lehrbuch, 1866-68, ?? 1116f.; 1127 .5 In ZDMG. 33, 1879,pp. 698-700.6 Hebr. Gram., 1879, pp. 109ff., 138ff.7 Cf. Orientalia, II., Gdttingen, 1880, p. 6; Ubersicht, Gdttingen, 1889,

pp. 26, 27.8 Assyrian Gram., Berlin, 1889,? 61, 1); ? 115.Vergl. Gram. d. semit. Sprachen, Berlin, 1898, ? 50 b, c.; ? 51 b, c.10Gesenius-Kautzsch, Hebr. Gram.27, ?? 67, 72.11Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, VI, Berlin, 1899, p. 250-255. This articleWellhausen says he wrote to explain especially the impf 's. of the so-called verbs ~"37, e. g. D j De Lagarde, however, had pre-

viously stated that these verbs were biconsonantal just as the verbscalled l'p. In 1880 in his Orientalia, II., p. 6, he says: " die wurzeln3 und By halte ich garnicht fur dreiconsonantig, sondern-seit jarenhabe ich dies 6ffentlich gelehrt-fur zweiconsonantig," and in his Uber-sicht, p. 26, 27: "Ich glaube, dass es zweikonsonantige Wurzeln miturspritnglich langem Vokale gibt: AU-mit ai [....]. Ich filge jetzthinzu,-dass ich mit parallel setze, etc." Apparently no noticehas been taken of these statements. Wellhausen does not refer to

VOL. XXVII. 21



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306 L,. B. Wolfenson, [1906.considered these verbs as biconsonantal. It is A. Mifller, Stade,and Wellhausen especially, who have most consistently carriedout the biconsonantal explanation.

According to their explanation, these verbs are derived fromoriginal biconsonantal roots with a short characteristic vowelbetween the two radicals, corresponding to the characteristicvowel between the 2d and 3d radicals of triconsonantal verbs.Under the influence of the prevailing triconsonantal types, thebiconsonantal forms of the verbs 1"r and 17"? were usuallyamplified: the former, by lengthening the short characteristicvowel between the two radicals,' e. g., in MI the A is from,Lagarde, nor does N6ldeke in the reprint of his paper Die Verba by imHelbrdischen in BzsS., p. 34 ff., although Lagarde refers (Uebers., p. 26below) to N8ldeke's article (first published ZDMG. 37, 1883, p. 525 ff.),and N81deke accepts the explanation of Wellhausen (BzsS., p. 46).Lagarde's explanation, however, is based on the assumption that theverbs tl"Y had an originally long vowel between the two radicals (cf.above). This same view is held by Ewald, Delitzsch, and Zimmern (cf.11. cc.). Wellhausen, on the contrary, correctly explains these verbs asderived from biconsonantal roots with an originally short characteristicvowel, so that the i in DOWNs lengthened (under the influence of thelonger, predominant triconsonantal forms) from i, just as the A in pis from fi, and the 6 for d in NIf from d.' This lengthening takes place usually in forms in which the charac-teristic vowel stood originally in an open syllable, e. g., Arabic IA ,eLS, ?>Al~i, etc., from original qania, qdmdt, qdmfi; Syriac Ecu,Da0 i , etc. But in Hebrew this lengthening did not take place inthe corresponding forms of the Qal perf., trpn,, VZ), etc.,being for qdm, qdmd (met, bs), with tone-long vowels, and so really=qam(a), qdmd (mnat,biks), etc., with heightening (not lengthening) in thetone. The forms of the Qal act. part. are the same as those of the 3dmasc. sing. perf., hence qam, met, b6s, although the vowels areunchangeable. Cf. F. R. Blake in JAOS. vol. xxii, 1901, p. 51, n. 3;Wellhausen, Skizzen u. Vorarb. VI., p. 252; and contrast Gesenius-Kautzsch2, ? 72 g.Inboth Hebrew and Arabic an originally short characteristic vowel wasretained without lengthening when it occurred in a closed syllable.Thus in the jussive and apocopated forms the original short vowel was notlengthened because in a form expressing a command or the like it wasdesirable to have as short a form as possible, e. g., C? =0qom withlater tone-long 6 from jaqu'm, p1= uaiiaqm in which the original it

I1 q



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Vol. xxvii.] The Pi'lWl in Hebrew. 307an original A, in t,: the i is from an original i, and in Rllr theo is for 4 from 4; the latter by doubling (not repeating) thesecond radical, e. g., DID from an original sdbdt, etc., thedoubling being secondarily omitted in Hebrew in forms in whichthe final vowels are dropped, e. g., :I for sabb, cf. Arabic? farra, etc.appears as 6, ,:z=1ag.l with tone-long e from pagl, etc.; Arabic JiaqMl, A,) asir, Oazdl,etc. Also in forms having an afformativebeginning with a consonant, the characteristic vowel, occurring in aclosed syllable with a second consonant immediately following thefinal radical, was not lengthened, no doubt on account of the firmnessresulting from the juxtaposition of two consonants without interveningvowel, e. g., Arabic ; qflmta, n binta; Hebrew FVj, JaZ:(with 6 heightened from U' in the tone): impf. .yJa iaqu'lta, Jiasirna, Ad tazdlna; Hebrew MnXjll with 6 heightened (notlengthened) from ui (if it were lengthened it would become A as infrom iaq~m), :. with 6 from I, and n with 6 (not 6 as isT T ~~ T Tstated, Ges.-Kautzsch2, ? 72 k) obscured from a which was lengthenedfrom an original 6 on account of the quiescing of the 8 in an originaltaba'na. [In the rarer J (cf. Ges.-Kautzscheq, ? 76 g) the isalso o for a; but here the d-as well as the A in 1-711nl and the X inT *

jltxp-arose through the lengthening of an original short vowel,6 (U, 1), under the influence of the prevailing triconsonantal type, sincethe root syllable is.no longer closed when intervenes before the affor-mative 71 .]In such forms as these, in which the characteristic vowel occurs in aclosed syllable, some (e. g., A. Miller, ZDMG. 33, p. 699) are inclined tothink that this vowel was first lengthened and then shortened again ina closed syllable, so that J.1 e. g., is shortened from *qdmta, whicharose from qdmta. This is apparently supported by Syriac ia, etc.,Ethiopic '1Yth qnmka, etc., with long vowel in a closed syllable. InEthiopic, however, the long vowel in the closed syllable is contrary torule. -Cf. Praetorius, Gram. Aethiopica, 1886, ? 15. The long vowelhere must be explained. In both Ethiopic and Syriac the long vowel isbest explained as due to the analogy of other forms in which the longvowel occurs regularly in an open syllable, e. g., Za.0 ia etc.;7iao qoma, ;FaPir qom6t, 4jOW qomft, etc. The Hebrew forms likeare then to be explained as preserving the originally short vowelunchanged, and are therefore more original.



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308 L. B. Wolfenson, [1906.This biconsonantal theory is the most natural explanation of

these classes of roots, and is the one most in accord with philo-logical principles. For if the prevailing triconsonantal type ofroot is in considerable part a development from a biconsonantalstate,' it is more than likely that remains of this former stateshould be preserved in the stages with which we are familar.In language a new order of things is a growth, the older exist-ing at least for a time beside the new, and it is not introducedby unanimous agreement, as it were, of those using it. In alllanguages in which a growth can be observed a certain numberof, older forms are preserved. These older forms appear irregu-lar in comparison with the prevailing types. To consider the

This conclusion is supported by the corresponding Arabic forms Ad *qgmta, .ix binta, etc., in which the vowels are also short. The short-ness is original. Their quality, however is secondary. One wouldexpect to find a in the root syllable, as in Hebrew. Wellhausen has cor-rectly explained the , and I as due to the characteristic vowels A and iin the impf. iaqam, iabin Of course in the case of intrans.verbs like JAlo be long' ( .Jlo tflta), Jo)cease' (. zilta), it shouldoccasion no surprise that the original intrans. characteristic vowels areretained. N61deke, however, has questioned (BzsS., p. 46, n. 2) in thisconnection: Why, if J zilta is the intrans. form, do we not findzAllanstead of zdla? By way of answer it will be recalled that suchintrans. forms are actually found dialectically; cf. Wright-deGoeje,Arabic Gram.3L, 1896,p. 83 D. In general, however, this formbecame the passive in the case of trans. verbs (cf. F. R. Blake's paper,The Internal Passive in Semitic, JAOS., vol. xxii, p. 51 ff.), and whenthis took place the act. form JA prevailed also in the case of intrans.verbs in forms in which the characteristic vowel occurs in an open syl-lable (mold qdmdt, { qdmA, etc,). In Hebrew also the trans. type,

prevailed in many verbs that must have been originallyintrans. Only lno,ei . Bi .and :5 occur as intrans. forms in theperf. The trans. form prevailed to such an extent that we find thetrans. vocalization in the case of forms of nl, having an afformativebeginning with a consonant, e. g., 1rrItDnd not ;

All the forms of the verbs tj"r May thus be satisfactorily explainedon the biconsonantal theory.l Cf. n. 8, p. 303.



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Vol. xxvii.] The Pi'lWl in Hebrew. 309shorter forms of the verbs IYT and '7' 1 as contractions ofregular ones is unphilological2-they are original biconsonantalforms preserved in the historical stages of the Semitic lan-guages.'3Accordingly, forms of these verbs with three distinct radicalsare a relatively later development. In fact, in case of the roots1'7 in Hebrew, verbal forms with consonantal' I and t are very

1 I retain the symbols t11' and pry as being customary and conven-ient, although they are, of course, inaccurate since there was properlyno radical in these verbs corresponding to V in b;7.1In the case of the verbs *18'yit is even impossible. For in the verbsthat actually have I as 2d radical we find the I preserved as a radicalconsonant which does not suffer contraction, and that too in just thosesituations in which the advocates of the triconsonantal explanation ofthe verbs t'y, say that t and I were elided or underwent contractione. g., nJJ I Sam. I6. 23, beside forms like as inverbs 1 Anne,beside forms like t0 ?, etc., etc. Of verbs with) as 2d radical thereoccur (not including verbs n"5) in Hebrew P1 f, , ,7 r , lu, Mmand ;71P. Cf. below, n. 4. Accordingly thereis no reason why a contraction should have taken place in verbs J";7 ifI had been present originally 'as2d radical any more than in the aboveverbs. We must therefore conclude that no I was present. These verbs(i. e., the so-called verbs *5";7)were originally biconsoxiantal.

3 As N6ldeke pointed out as early as 1862,saying (Orient u. Oceid. I,p. 760): " Wir betrachten eben Wurzeln wie q4m, sab als werthvolleUberresteeinerZeit in welche die Dreikonsonatigkeit noch nicht bestand."Accordingly these roots have only two radicals. In his more recentstatement (BzsS., p. 46 below, 47), however, viz., "Alle historischensemitischen Sprachen behandeln hier doch die Vokalbuchstaben I und tals Radicale," there is not a little inconsistency. According to thisremark, there are practically three radicals. This is open to graveobjections in fact, as N6ldeke himself must needs grant, since he admitsthat the Arabic forms cited by him in support of his statement may beconsidered secondary.4 Of course, forms of triconsonantal roots with l as second radical areformed regularly, and in these I appears as a consonant throughout,

e. go M, 7; MlY,IM Is. 42, 11; etc., cf. n. 2. The gutturalsT: - ~~IT:in these roots have nothing whatever to do with the retention of the I asa consonant, as Kdnig (Lehrgeb. I, p. 453) followed by Mayer Lambert(REJ., xxxv, 1897, p. 211) supposes, since we find a large number ofroots 1"3


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310 L. B. Wolfenson, [1906.few, being limited to Pi'els occurring only in the latest litera-ture, so that they are really Aramaic forms and not Hebrew,e. g., 88p Ps. IIg, 61; Amp Est. 9, -21, 29, 31; IM-lp Esth. 9,27, 31; -n-IM Dan. I, 10. In case of the verbs 7'T the tri-consonantal form with repeated second radical appears regularlyin Hebrew in the 3d sing. mas. and fem., and 3d plu. of theQal perf. as the trans. form, while the more original biconso-

nantal form is used as the form with intrans. meaning,' e. g.,1TI 'make narrow,' but :9 'be narrow.' Also a considerablenumber of regular Pi'Vl forms from the amplified triconso-nantal stem-which, as we saw, are practically of non-occurrencein verbs V"V-are formed from roots V"Y, e. g., AI-T,n. 1:D ApA, etc.It is clear from the foregoing that originally no Pi'6l intensivestem could be formed in the case of the biconsonantal verbsIV"37nd 3"p. since the Pi'e1 requires three radicals for itsformation. It is not until these roots have been fully assimi-lated to the triconsonantal form that the Pi'dl can be made.In actual fact the Pi'el of verbs 11"r, as was stated above, doesnot properly occur in Hebrew. We find in its stead the Pi'lel.Also in the verbs mediae gerninatae the Pi'lll occurs as theintensive stem, although some regular Pi'els are found, e. g.,

etc.With regard to the origin of the Pi'ldl there have been a

number of different explanations. In general, opinions as to itsorigin may be divided into two main currents according as it issupposed to have arisen independently in the verbs l"r andp7V ,2 the agreement in final form being then accidental, or itpresent,e. g,, .37fit,11j (two gutturals ),etc., proving hatif I was second radical the presence of a guttural in the root did notprevent contraction as is supposed. Roots like r ( can, there-fore, be explained only as a separate class distinct from the roots lypWe cannot otherwise account for the difference in meaning between tworoots, otherwise identical, like bl3, ('!lu7 Is. 26, 10) 'act unjustly,corruptly,' and blr (part. plu. fem. jllt) 'suckle '-the former is tri-consonantal with I as middle radical, the latter biconsonantal.ICf. Ges.-Kautzsch27, 67a, ? 2; K6nig, Lehrgeb., 1, pp. 320, 321.

2 Thus Bottcher, Lehrgebdude, ? 1016, ? 1030,2; Olshausen, ? 251 b,252, 254; K6nig, Lehrgeb. I, pp. 451 and 349.



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Vol. Xxvii.] The Pi'lMl in Hebrew. 311arose in the one class and was transferred to the other by anal-ogy. The latter view, that the Pi'lMl arose in one class andwas transferred to the other, is undoubtedly correct whateverexplanation is otherwise adopted. It is the view followed byEwald,' Hartmann,2 Stade,3 and Barth,4 Ewald and Hartmannbelieving that the Pi'lMl arose in the verbs P"P, while Stadeand Barth, although differing in other respects in their explan-ations of the form, believing that it arose in the verbs 1"r-

Stade's explanation, that the Pi'ld arose from the Qal stemqama by reduplicating the final radical in order to indicate theintensive stem, producing qa4rnma, qdmrim, qomem, is unten-able especially because the Qal stem is not qama, but qdma.The long a becoming 6 in qomem is thus unaccounted for.

Barth's explanation, which is based on the triconsonantaltheory of verbs l"Y, has been accepted by Kautzsch (Gesenius-Kautzsch, Hebrew Gram.27, ? 72 m), although he follows thebiconsonantal explanation of the verbs T'? (and r"r, ? 67).There are, however, certain difficulties in Barth's exposition,apart from the fact that it is based on the triconsonantal explan-ation, which render it impossible to accept his theory. Hisexplanation is briefly as follows.

A weighty indication that the Pi'lWl (P6o'll) did not arise inthe verbs P"7 is the fact- that they can and do form a regularPi'el, e. g., , etc., in Hebrew as in the other languages.In the verbs V'T, Pi'el forms do not properly occur because ofthe difficulty of pronouncing an intervocalic [my italics] sharp-ened waw [as if a doubled I could be anything but intervo-calic!]; only the Pi'lWl with reduplicated final consonant, as in

is found. The reduplication of this final consonantin this stem of roots T'. is supported by a similar reduplica-tion in certain nominal forms in Arabic andcHebrew. In Arabicno verbal form with this reduplication is made in verbs I"p,-only nominal forms occur. These nouns, in which no intensive

5, no _meaning is present, are the peculiar inf 's. like Ad. ' go away 'I Lehrbuch8,?? 121a, 125a.2 Op. cit., p. 2, 3.3 Hebrew Gram., ? 155c, d.4 Die Poll-Conjugation und die P6lal-Participien in Semitic Studiesin Honor of Alexander Kohut, Berlin, 1897, p. 83-93, especially p. 84.



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312 L. B. Wolfeiison, [1906.

(i Ned. ), 'be' LS med. u), etc.; the two infs.c) ' rule', G 'be pregnant'; and the broken pluralsios 'Cpregnant'and I.ye 'barren for a long time (eamels),'all from roots med. waw and med. yod. In the case of rootsmed. geminatae no corresponding formations occur. In Hebrewthe nouns mans pleasure', (V n) TVVs 'spark' (Arabic c)ts'emit fire') from roots l-VWave this same reduplication. Onlyr,

'spark'from rm sparkle' is from a root V"P. Thismay be formed on the analogy of its synonym ni'y. Except

for this single instance, formations in Semitic corresponding tothe Pi'ldl are always from roots 11"7.

The same result is, according to Barth, arrived at from a con-sideration of the Hebrew participles :1')e utr, with whichhe says DOntl and the uncertain Chid are connected as regardsformation. On '~Je he lays little stress, since its meaning, andhence its root, is obscure. These participles are not intensivein meaning, but are simply Qal. Trans. in force, althoughhaving an apparently pass. or intrans. vowel - in the secondsyllable, they are really qattd forms represented in Hebrew by:zs nor etc., in strong roots; by 1fI, All in roots med. i.Accordingly from roots med. u of which no qattdl form occursthe original form of these participles was qawwdm. A " shar-pened " w being avoided in Hebrew more than a " sharpened "j [?], the doubled w was given up, being replaced by the redu-plication of the following radical, so that qawwdmn becameqawmdm, qdmdm, the change of aw to 6 being similar to thatin 1111 from IVry

Like these participles the Pi'lel is to be explained. FromDlj1 the qittel must originally have been qawwam with 4 for Xin the first syllable. The intervocalic sharpened w was avoidedby substituting the reduplication of the final radical so thatfrom qawwmrn, qawmam becoming q6nzma arose.In this explanation there is little that is convincing. Thatthe nominal forms like x etc., have in Arabic a redupli-cated final consonant like the Pi'lVl proves nothing for this ver-bal stem in Hebrew since the origin of these forms is obscure



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Vol. xxvii.] The Pi'lll in Hebrews. 313and a matter of dispute. Barth's explanation of them is nobetter than that of the grammarians which he rejects. He says'that R * e. g., arose from beside which it occurs,because the phonetic sequence -upi was unpleasant. This wasobviated by inserting a consonant identical with the last oneafter the i so that we get 1inilnru. In the first syllable of thisform, A was changed to a, and thus b1ingnat arose. The changesthat Barth assumes here are all unsupported by similar phenom-ena elsewhere, and are therefore entirely gratuitous. It maybe that the forms like arose from an analogical com-bination of the two regular infs. like and ? If thisbe true there is no organic reduplication in these forms. Atany rate there is nothing in forms like X about the originof which nothing is really known, that is like the Pi'lll, exceptthe reduplicated final radical. Similarly the isolated forms,iaJo2 F Ajax prove nothing.

In Hebrew the nominal forms inns nine. riser are entirelytoo few to base any conclusions upon. Since iSj is from aroot 7"P and there are only two other examples of this forma-tion, it is just as possible to conclude that the formation origi-nated in roots Y37'3 and were transferred to those med. u,especially since the root of 8TVT' which occurs only in Job.41, 11, does not occur as a verb in Hebrew.

Likewise the few forms l l, '2' jVt- and '2'2U proveT T T Tnothing. Barth himself attaches no importance to Chits; Itis most likely derived from a root in" D is usuallyexplained as having the adverbial ending D-T cf. Ges.-Kautzsch",? 100 g; Gesenius-Buhl"4, s. v.2 There is no compelling reasonfor regarding DC~Vets anything but an adverb in the three pas-sages that it occurs. In DtOt fOlHab. 2, 19 we must connectDtOVl with what follows, according to the suggestion made inthe latest (14th) edition of Gesenius' Dictionarv. In Lam. 3'26 it is difficult to see how not to make DOV-1 an adverb. AN.

1 Die Nominalbildung in den Semitischen Sprachen, Leipzig, 1889,1891, pp. 211, 212.2 In the 13th ed. Barth's explanation was given.



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314 L. B. Wolfenson, [1906.translates, " It is good that a man should both hope and waitquietly (D?!T), etc." In Is. 47, 5, DtIOl is clearly an adverb.Moreover the change of I to .l in DC1nJT hich Barth assumes isunexplained. This leaves only the two forms nitt and 93J21upon which to base any conclusions. This would be precariouseven if Barth had correctly explained them.- But grantingthat they were originally qattdl formations as he says, there isno support for the supposition that the " intervocalic sharpenedw," which must originally have been present, -e. g., qatowdm,in verbs " med. w," was any more unpleasant to the ear or dif-ficult to pronounce in Hebrew in case of forms. " med. w"than in forms " med.j," e. g., AlT . We find a consider-able number of forms with doubled l, e. g., '2Tb' 1p -etc., and in verbs 3'0 the first radical l is regularly doubled inthe NViph. mp/, imv., and inf., e. g., po7d, etc. In the case offorms like AVp, 1VIy etc., Barth tries to obviate this difficultyby the remark' " Wurzeln mit durchweg cons. behandelten w,gehbren nicht hierher." There is, however, no reasonwhy "die Wurzeln mit . . . cons. . . . w gehbren nicht hier-her." There can be no difference between original w in qaw-wdm, if such there was (which the biconsonantal theory denies;cons. I that appears in roots l".V is secondary), and that in2Wp,pW I5M, etc., where I appears everywhere as a conso-nant, cf. Konig, Lehrgebadude I, p..453. The case of the Xiph's.like V37-1 Barth does not consider. Moreover even though a-T-doubled w were objectionable in Hebrew, as the precedingshows it was not, there is no parallel for reduplicating a radicalin compensation for the lack of doubling in another. Theapproved method of compensation for the omission of doublingis to heighten the short vowel preceding the doubled consonant,as is done in countless instances in the case of the article, theNiph. impf., imv., and inf. of verbs primae gutt., e. g., T 71,

etc. Accordingly it is impossible to assume that anoriginal qawwdrn became qawmem.Similarly the Pi'lel stem cannot be explained as coming from

an original qdwwem (qiwwum) becoming qomem. In fact it is' Die P6ll-Conjugation, p. 90, u. 3.



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Vol. xxvii.] The Pi'ldl in Hebrew. 315absolutely impossible to assume such a verbal form as qawwamin roots ITT, as it was shown above that these roots had nomiddle radical. Consequently no form like qdwwem, etc., everexisted in Hebrew; the forms 813p,' j etc., with doubled Iandy, are not Hebrew.

We must, therefore, look for the origin of the Pi'lll else-where, and it is in the verbs 7"r that it is found, as Ewald andHartmann saw. It is not necessary to assume with Hartmannthat the Pi'lll represents the III form of the Arabic. Ewaldexplained the o in | e. g., as due to the obscuration of d4.This d arose from 4 in compensation for the difficult doublingof the second radical in N To this explanation Barth objectsthat it presupposes an 4 after the first radical of the root, whichdoes not occur in the Hebrew period, the form being alwayssibbab, although he assumes 4 for i in his own explanation ofq4wwam for qiwwarn. See above, p. 312, ?t 2.In the imperfect, howvever, as well as the forms agreeing withit in structure, viz., the imv. and inf., the regular forms are'=D', etc. Here the original 4 after the first radical is retainedthroughout. iesdbbabeaccordingly would become iesdb1b, with alengthened from 4 in compensation, as soon as the doubling ofthe second radical is given up. The d is then obscured to o, asfrequently in Hebrew, and hence the form D From theimpf. the 6 was then transferred to the perf., e. g., nn *2That there is a tendency to avoid the occurrence of threeidentical consonants in two successive syllables as in the Pi'alof verbs Z".V,not only in Hebrew but in other languages, is seenfrom the fact that in classical Arabic beside such forms as

.ir, I , Q5A etc., with doubled 2d radical identi-cal with the 3d, we find ma.>LJ e, ;5, etc., with the3d radical replaced by the diphthong 4W, on account of the

1 So also KEnig, Lehrgeb. I, p. 349, in the case of verbs Amp; Bickell,? 116; and Land ? 55 (two latter quoted by K6nig).2 In this explanation I have followed the principles established byProf. Haupt, viz., that the impf. is older than the perf. (cf. his articlein Jour. Royal Asiatic Soc., New.Series X, 1878,pp. 244-252),and thatthe origin of verbal forms is to be sought in the impf. as the moreoriginal form.



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316 Wolfenson, The Pi'ld in Hebrew. [1906."heaping up " of consonants. Cf. Fleischer, Kleinere Schrif tenI, p. 138; Wright-deGoeje, Aralbic Gram.3 I, p. 69 C. In mod-ern Arabic even the simple Qal forms like Kayo with repeatedconsonant are given up, and forms like ~x.Jo only are used.'In fact modern Arabic goes even farther in the case of suchforms, using the form of verbs tertiae ; instead of those

_ o~ _ _@ Gmediae geminatae,' e. g., vA for %zXio.The Pi'll is therefore formed on the basis of the Pi'l ofverbs 37'37; he doubling of the second radical is given up onaccount of the tendency to avoid a succession of three identicalconsonants in two successive syllables, and the preceding shortd is lengthened in compensation to 4, and this is further obscuredto o. The corresponding passive form, the Pi'lNl, has 4 in thesecond syllable, e. g., :N'J N)O. The indication of the dis-tinction between act. and pass. by i (a in Hebrew) and a,respectively, is regular in Arabic in the impf., not only of theintensive stems II, III, but also of the IV, VII, VIII, and X

,"",9

1 o _.,forms, e. g., II form act., J pass., etc.From the verbs V".r the Pi'ldl was transferred to the verbsIVP.1 Cf. Spitta, Gram. des arab. Vulgardialectes von Aegypten, Leipzig,1880,p. 216.

the pilel in hebrew

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