[Mesorah] Feminine plural imperative

Tue Jan 24 15:37:34 PST 2017

To add to Rabbi Mandel's point, if I understand it correctly, keep in mind
that the subject of the perfect verbs *hamiten* or *asiten * is the second
person feminine plural not only because of the "n" at the end of the word,
but because of its entire suffix, which is  "תן". Just like שמרתן or ראיתן
or the like. Hamiten looks similar to the imperative, because it begins
with a ה, but the imperative would have the "na" suffix, just like the
imperfect verb does.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 1:10 PM, Mandel, Seth via Mesorah <
mesorah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

> Joshua is absolutely correct that in the pasuq, v'hamitten functions as an
> imperative.  But it is actually a jussive form with the vav hahippukh which
> continues the tense of the verb at the beginning of the phrase, here
> "ur'iten."  It is just like "watt'chayyena" in 1;18, which continues the
> tense of " ‘asiten."
>
> But this is all irrelevant to my point.  Even were it to be an imperative,
> the ending would be -n/-na, as opposed to a perfect form like "‘asiten."
> The point is that these endings come from completely different sources in
> older Semitic. The form -na is an alternative of the form -n, just as lakh
> and l'kha are alternatvie forms.  This is also why the form l'kha or
> 'ahavta is usually written without a "he" in the Torah, since the qamatz at
> the end was a dialectal variant. Some places had it , some did not, the
> k'tiv usually does not have a "he" because different communities would read
> it differently, and it did not change the meaning.
>
> Whereas the -n at the end of " ‘asiten" does change the meaning, and its
> source is not in a vowel that sometimes appears and sometimes does not.
>
>
> Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Joshua Meisner <jmeisner at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 24, 2017 12:16 PM
> *To:* Mandel, Seth
> *Cc:* Zev Sero; elazar teitz; mesorah at aishdas.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Mesorah] Feminine plural imperative
>
> R' Mandel,
>
> I concede my lack of understanding, even after using the web to attempt to
> comb over my ignorance of grammar, of the difference between the perfect
> and imperfect forms that you describe.  "Hamiten" appears to be an
> imperative and "tichtovna" appears be an indicative, while it sounds like
> the distinction between perfect and imperfect would be one between "katav"
> and "haya koteiv", and I can't even quite imagine what an imperfect
> imperative would look like.
>
> Be that as it may, how would we explain the difference between "kir'en lo
> v'yochal lachem" and "k'rena li Mara", where the words seem to fill the
> same grammatical function?  The suggestion of R' Teitz appears to fit this
> distinction well.
>
> Joshua Meisner
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 10:11 AM, Mandel, Seth via Mesorah <
> mesorah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:
>
>> The perfect and imperfect forms have nothing to do with each other.
>>  hamitten is perfect, the fm. of hamittem.  Compare Aramaic k'tavtun (masc)
>> vs k'tavtin (fm).
>>
>> In contrast, in the imperfect, the Hebrew would have in 3rd person
>> yikht'vu (m) vs. tikhtovna (f), whereas Aramaic would have yikht'vun (m)
>> vs. yikht'van (fm).
>>
>> Normal rules from ProtoSemitic to Hebrew vs. Aramaic would predict that
>> in the imperfect forms in Hebrew would have no -n at that end in masculine,
>> and would have either -n or -na in the feminine.  Cf. lakh (to you) in
>> Aramaic corresponds to Hebrew l'kha or lakh (pausal).
>>
>>
>> Seth Mandel
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Mesorah <mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org> on behalf of elazar
>> teitz via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 24, 2017 4:03 AM
>> *To:* Zev Sero
>> *Cc:* mesorah at aishdas.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [Mesorah] Feminine plural imperative
>>
>>      Could it be that the nun suffix is for a command, while the "na" is
>> for a request (as in "ts'ena urena" and "leichna shovna" (i.e., as though
>> it were written "ts'en na")?
>>
>> EMT
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 10:49 PM, Zev Sero via Mesorah <
>> mesorah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:
>>
>>> What is the standard Biblical suffix for the feminine plural
>>> imperative?  -n, or -na?   I had always thought it was -na, as in "ts'ena
>>> ur'ena", and that "kiren lo" in last week's parsha is an exception.  But
>>> someone pointed out to me that there's also "vahamiten" in the same parsha,
>>> and claimed that in the language of the Chumash this is the standard form,
>>> but it had changed by the time Shir Hashirim was written.  Can anyone shed
>>> light on this?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
>>> zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Mesorah mailing list
>>> Mesorah at lists.aishdas.org
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>>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Lori Linzer
Instructor of Biblical Hebrew
Yeshiva College
Furst Hall 024.11
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