Differentiate between Hebrew verb stems in the Bible Word Study charts

Perry Webb · 2024-12-16T02:03:37+00:00

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The meanings of Hebrew verbs change considerably for the different stems

(פָּעַל
Qal
פִּעֵל
Piʿēl
הִפְעִיל
Hip̄ʿîl
נִפְעַל
Nip̄ʿal
פֻּעַל
Puʿal
הָפְעַל
Hop̄ʿal
הִתְפַּעֵל
HiṯpaʿēlVan der Merwe, C. H. J., Naudé, J. A., & Kroeze, J. H. (2017). A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (Second Edition, p. 73). Bloomsbury; Bloomsbury T&T Clark: An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.).

It is desirable to have an uncomplicated way to have the charts graph only the usage with the Hebrew verb stem in use when charting the Hebrew verb word study because the senses of h other stems are usually irrelevant to meaning in the word generating the word study.

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Perry Webb

Here is an example of the problem without this capability:

Can man bless God!? Psalm 115:18 - Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange

The hithpael (reflexive) of the root meaning praise הלל

has the meaning boast (praise oneself). 'Thus, it is misleading in this chart because it does not reflect the stems.

See Jer. 9:23-24 (MT vs22-23),

MJ. Smith

You have me confused as to your vocabulary - if the meaning is different, you either mean (a) different lemmas OR (b) different senses within the lemma. A stem in morphology simply means the form of the lemma to which affixes are applied.

Perry Webb

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1349647#Comment_1349647

"In Hebrew there are seven basic verb stems: qal, niphal, piel, pual, hithpael, hiphil, and hophal." (Kutz, K. V., & Josberger, R. L. (2018). Learning Biblical Hebrew: Reading for Comprehension: An Introductory Grammar (p. 149). Lexham Press.) This reference has a table that explains the verb stems, which gives a general idea of how the verb stems alter the meanings of the lemma. However, the Hebrew lexicons separately include the meanings the verb stems for the lemmas based on how they are used in the Tanakh. When a chart in the Bible Word Study mixes the senses of all the verb stems into one chart, it can be confusing, especially to users with minimum understanding of Hebrew. Another example besides the ones previously listed is the lemma אמן . The chart of the senses in the Bible Word Study gives the sense of all the verb stems, but those senses can be split into the different verb stems and (except for the Qal) don't have a simple connection to the meaning of the lemma. The chart doesn't identify the verb stems related to the senses. This can confuse users.

Perry Webb

"The Qal stem formation is the simplest, requiring only the verb stem for its various forms / conjugations. The other stem formations are morphological extensions of this stem. These extended forms may express various semantic associations with the Qal such as passive, causative, etc. This semantic relationship with the Qal must not, however, be taken for granted. Each stem formation should rather be regarded as an independent form, the meaning of which must be learned separately."

Van der Merwe, C., Naudé, J., Kroeze, J., Van der Merwe, C., Naudé, J., & Kroeze, J. (1999). A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (electronic ed., p. 73). Sheffield Academic Press.

MJ. Smith

Okay, I understand now. The terms are used differently than I was taught for linguistics. I'm not sure I like the terminology in terms of the best description of the phenomena.

Matthew Anstey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1349858#Comment_1349858

I love this grammar (in fact, you can read my endorsement on the back cover of the printed copy!), but on this point, I disagree with the authors. I would argue that Biblical Hebrew conjugations on the whole exhibit derivational morphology rather than inflectional morphology, yet they say it is effectively all inflectional.

One also must be careful not to be misled by senses that seem quite different in English in different stems. Take halak for instance "to go/walk", which is hitpael is "to go/walk about" - you might think, Oh, I need to learn this, it is not predicted/derived from the qal. But it is - in linguistic typology, verbs of motion used with reflexive morphology typically mean to travel around/about/back and forth. So you find this in Tagalog for example and many other languages. This is just one reason why I think BH binyanim are more derivational than inflectional.

That said, I still agree with your feature request - we must be able to select which stems we want to show. Ideally, it would also cluster together tautosemantic stems (e.g. pilpel is piel and so should be included with piel etc).

Perry Webb

Is there a straightforward (without loading and screening data in a spreadsheet) way of doing this:

Apparently, Morphology in Logos Bible Software (LBS) is contained in the books. BHS has 21 verb stems in its morphology because it includes Aramaic as well as Hebrew. NA28 has no stems in its morphology because it is Greek. So, the challenge is how to get Bible Word Study (BWS) charts for BHS to allow charting only one verb stem.

Perry Webb

נחם

is another verb showing the need. This chart isn't perfect but an example of the complexity of the issue.

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