Biblical Hebrew Lesson 4

1. Biblical Hebrew Lesson 4 The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum א Textbook: Cook & Holmstedt’sBiblical Hebrew: A Student Grammar (2009) Found here online: http://individual.utoronto.ca/holmstedt/Textbook.html

2. Review חֲזָרָה The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

3. חֲזָרָה • What are the three “inseparable prepositions” and what do they mean? • Translate the following words or phrases into Hebrew:- The king. -There is no king in land.-The slave. -There is no slave in the house.-The way. -There is no way to Israel.-The house. -The king came out (יָצָא) from the house..-The slave. -The slave is the same as the king. • The main issues in lesson 3 dealt with the definite article, the three inseparable prepositions and the preposition מִן and how each is pointed (vocalized) when they come into contact with a noun. • This will all get much clearer as you get experience reading text. The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

4. Nouns in Hebrew שְׁמוֹת עֶ֫צֶם The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

5. שמות עצם In English, we say that a noun is a person, place, thing or idea. Thus, “friend” is a noun, since it is a person; “school” is a noun, since it is a place; “pencil” is a noun, since it is a thing; and, “attention” is a noun, since it is an idea. Generally, nouns in English are made plural by adding –s or –es to the end of the word. Thus, we have dog-dogs, boy-boys, friend-friends and lady-ladies. There are irregular plurals in English, such as woman-women and child-children. Possession is shown regularly by adding ’s to singular nouns (my friend’s house) and just ’ to plural nouns (my friends’ house). Possessives are always placed before the head of noun phrases in English. The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

6. שמות עצם In Hebrew, by comparison, nouns are again representative of persons, places, things and ideas. מֶ֫לֶךְ (king) is a noun. שָׁמַ֫יִם (heaven) is a noun. שִׁיר (song/poem) is a noun. And, אַהֲבָה (love) is a noun. All nouns in Hebrew are either masculine or feminine in gender. Even nouns that don’t have gender in English do in Hebrew. For example, “table,” “throne” and “day” are masculine, while “land,” “ground” and “commandment” are feminine. There’s no real reason behind how the language decides what is masculine and feminine, but there are signs in the words themselves to indicate whether they are masculine or feminine (most of the time). The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

7. שמות עצם Hebrew grammar books generally say that masculine nouns are unmarked in the singular (they have no ending – just the root letters) and are marked with ִים in the plural, while feminine nouns end in either ה or ת and are marked with וֹת in the plural. Examples of this are: מֶ֫לֶךְ – מְלָכִים כֶּ֫לֶב – כְּלָבִים יֶ֫לֶד – יְלָדִים king dog (m.) boy מַלְכָּה – מְלָכוֹת כַּלְבָּה – כְּלָבוֹת יַלְדָּה – יְלָדוֹת queen dog (f.) girl מַלְכוּת – מַלְכֻיּוֹת סוּסָה – סוּסוֹת דָּבָר – דְּבָרִים kingship mare word, message The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

8. שמות עצם The fact is, though, that “exceptions” make up about 30% of the cases. So, really, a masculine noun can have a feminine-looking plural (אָב-אָבוֹת – father). All of these words are masculine. Notice the “feminine” ending. חֲלוֹם – חֲלוֹמוֹת חָלוֹן – חֲלוֹנוֹת כִּסֵּא – כִּסְּאוֹת dream window chair, throne אָב – אָבוֹת שֻׁלְחָן – שֻׁלְחָנוֹת father table These nouns are feminine with “masculine” endings: מִלָּה – מִלִּים שָׁנָה – שָׁנִים עִיר – עָרִים word year city The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

9. שמות עצם Body parts are generally unmarked but are feminine. יָד עַ֫יִן רֶ֫גֶל פָּנִים אֹ֫זֶן כַּף יָד hand eye leg face earhand A few exceptions to this are: זְרֹעַ שֵׂעָר אַף upper arm hair nose This should cover everything that we need to know about Hebrew nouns at this point. Notice that we have not yet mentioned anything about possession in Hebrew. This is being saved for later, since it will take some explanation of its own.  The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

10. Comments on Verbs הֶעָרוֹת עַל־פְּעָלִים The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

11. הערות על פעלים • Verbs – Definitions • Hebrew verbs (just like nouns) are regularly built on three-letter (“triliteral” or “triconsonantal”) roots. This is called the shoresh. • The root מ-ל-ך can be arranged in many different ways: The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

12. הערות על פעלים • Verbs (cont.) • So, the root of a word refers to the three letters that make up the underlying idea behind it. With our previous example, the root mem-lamed-kaf (מ-ל-ך) is associated with kingliness or royalty. The root shin-kuf-resh (שׁ-ק-ר), however, is associated with deception and falsehood. We have שֶׁ֫קֶר (“lie, falsehood”) and שִׁקֵּר (“he lied”) associated with it. • The binyan (Hebrew, בִּנְיָן “structure” from the root ב-נ-ה associated with building) of a verb is the pattern that it falls into. There are seven regular binyanim that we will learn as well as some offshoots of them. For example, מָלַךְ “he reigned” is in the binyankal (the “simple” binyan – since it is based on the root letters without any additions) while הִמְלִיךְ “he caused X to reign” is in the binyanhiphil (which is causative). In the meantime, we’re learning only the binyankal. The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

13. הערות על פעלים • Verbs (cont.) • Tense generally refers to time reference, either past, present or future. English has all three tenses in various forms. Biblical Hebrew (as opposed to modern Hebrew) does not have any tenses. When we speak of verb forms in biblical Hebrew, we need to speak of aspect rather than tense. • There are two aspects of the verb in Hebrew – perfect and imperfect. • The perfect is generally associated with the past tense when it stands alone. From this aspect, we see the action as a whole event. We look at it from outside as if it’s complete (“perfect”). • Alternatively, the imperfect is generally associated with the future tense. From this aspect, we see the events unfolding around us, as incomplete. The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

14. הערות על פעלים • Verbs (cont.) • Hebrew also has what has come to refer to the “present tense” in modern thinking. It is far less frequent than either of the two finite verb paradigms. We tend to call it an “active participle” and translate it either with the present tense or with –ing . • For the moment, we are going to look only at part of the perfect. Specifically, we’re going to learn the singular forms. • Number is either singular or plural. It matches the subject of the sentence. • Gender in verbs can be masculine, feminine or common (either for men or women). • Person can be either first (the one speaking), second (the one spoken to) or third (the one spoken about). The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

15. Verb Examples דֻּגְמָאוֹת שֶׁל פְעָלִים The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

16. דגמאות של פעלים The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

17. דגמאות של פעלים The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

18. דגמאות של פעלים The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

19. Goals of Lesson 4 מַטְּרוֹת הַשִּׁעוּר הָרְבִיעִי The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

20. מַטְּרוֹת הַשִּׁעוּר הָרְבִיעִי • The fourth lesson’s goals are basically as follows: • Basic noun concepts:There are masculine and feminine nouns.Masculines are generally unmarked in the singular and -im in the plural.Feminines end in heh or tav and have -ot in the plural. • Basic verb concepts:Person = 1, 2 or 3.Gender = m or f.Number = s, p or c.Binyan = structure (for now, kal is all we’re learning)Aspect = perfect or imperfect. • How to conjugate a verb in binyankal in the singular. The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum

21. Biblical Hebrew Lesson 4 The Hebrew Café thehebrewcafe.com/forum א Textbook: Cook & Holmstedt’sBiblical Hebrew: A Student Grammar (2009) Found here online: http://individual.utoronto.ca/holmstedt/Textbook.html