Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Verb Charts again

I noticed that some of the columns were cut off on the verb charts that were handed out in class.
Here are new copies, hopefully corrected.

Hebrew Verb Chart.xls
Hebrew Verb Chart.pdf

Hebrew Verb Chart without translations.xls
Hebrew Verb Chart without translations.pdf

Worksheet for final

Here is a blank worksheet I created with the text of Genesis 1:14-28 in Hebrew with the words broken out underneath the verse for parsing and translating. Let me know if you spot any errors.

Genesis 1_14-28.pdf

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Coming to terms

I'm working on putting together a sheet with Genesis 1:14-31 typed out with each word listed underneath the verse.
My hospital stay has put me a little behind, but with God's grace I should have it done by next week.

A student asked for definitions of some terminology.
This is my email response, with a little editing, which I thought might help others.
Most of what I know about these terms comes from listening to Jim Davison, arguably one of the best language teachers on the planet.

These definitions are from my own head so do more reading and checking. This should get you started.

Imperative - This is telling someone else to be or act in a particular way. "You (or You all) wash the car." It is going to be either a 2nd person singular or a 2nd person plural because the subject is directing the "command" or "imperative" to someone else who is listening.

Infinitive - a verbal noun such as "to play" or "to run" or "to walk" etc. Usually you can use "to" in front of the verb to express it in English.

Participle - a verbal adjective. All the features of an adjective can apply. Sometimes adjectives (and participles) act like nouns - the good, the dead, the holy.

Notice that when they are used like nouns there is a definite article just in front of the adjective. This is what we call the "attributive position." When an adjective or a participle is in the attributive position, we apply or "attribute" the "substance of a noun" to it so it is sometimes referred to as "substantive."

This means we could say "The good man," or "The good woman," or "The good thing." Which gender we use is determined by the form of the adjective or participle. If it has a masculine form, we would say, "The good man." If it is a feminine form we would say, "The good woman."

Sometimes we don't specify in our translation. We might say Jesus is risen from the dead. Someone might ask, "The dead what? Dead men, Dead women, Dead ones?" In this case the substantive is just understood.


Sometimes adjectives are not following a definite article. We call those predicate position or predicate adjectives. The man is good. The woman is good. The thing is good. Notice that we supply the verb, "is".

All of this applies to participles which have verbal qualities and adjectival qualities. We have tense, voice and mood (or mode) like verbs, as well as case number and gender, like nouns or adjectives.

Sometimes we can just add "ing" to the verb to translate a participle - "living men, running girl, walking people."


Sometimes it is better to use a relative clause. "the men who were living," "the girl who was running," "the people who were walking."


Sometimes (usually in the predicate position) a temporal (having to do with time) sense is conveyed. "when the men lived," "as the girl ran," "after the people walked." Here the timing is defined by the timing of the main verb in the clause or sentence.


So, again, a participle is a verbal adjective.

Translating participles could be a class all by itself, but this gives you a quick overview.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Genesis 1:17

וַיִּתֵּן אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם לְהָאִיר עַל־הָאָרֶץ׃

וַיִּתֵּן Qal imperfect 3ms from נָתַן(he gave)"he will give" with a vav conversive making it "and he gave"

אֹתָם pronoun masculine plural "them"

אֱלֹהִים masculine plural noun "God"

בִּרְקִיעַ preposition with fs noun in construct "in the expanse of"

הַשָּׁמָיִם definite article with masculine dual noun "the heavens"

לְהָאִיר preposition with Hiphil infinitive (Hiphil infinitive construct) "to cause light"

עַל־הָאָרֶץ preposition with definite article and fs noun "upon the earth"

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Hebrew Verb Chart

I am posting two verb charts which I have created in Excel format.

Please let me know if you spot any errors.

Verb Chart with translations.xls

Verb Chart without translations.xls - this is formatted a little nicer to fit on one page

Monday, November 14, 2011

Genesis 1:16

וַיַּעַשׂ אֱלֹהִים אֶת־שְׁנֵי הַמְּאֹרֹת הַגְּדֹלִים אֶת־הַמָּאֹור הַגָּדֹל לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת הַיֹּום וְאֶת־הַמָּאֹור הַקָּטֹן לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת הַלַּיְלָה וְאֵת הַכֹּוכָבִים׃

וַיַּעַשׂ Qal imperfect 3ms from עָשָה (he made, he did)"he will make" with a vav conversive making it "and he made"

אֱלֹהִים noun masculine plural "God"

אֶת־שְׁנֵי sign of direct object with adjective masculine plural in construct "two"

הַמְּאֹרֹת definite article with plural noun (the ending appears to be feminine plural, but I'm questioning this one)"light holders"

הַגְּדֹלִים definite article with adjective masculine plural "the great"

אֶת־הַמָּאֹור sign of direct object with noun "the light"

הַגָּדֹל definite article with adjective "the great"

לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת preposition with feminine noun in construct "for ruling of"

הַיֹּום definite article with noun masculine singular "the day"

וְאֶת־הַמָּאֹור conjunction with sign of direct object and definite article with noun "and the light holder"

הַקָּטֹן definite article with adjective masculine singular "the little, the small"

לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת preposition with feminine noun in construct "for ruling of"

הַלַּיְלָה definite article with noun masculine singular "the night"

וְאֵת conjunction with sign of direct object "and"

הַכֹּוכָבִים definite article with noun masculine plural "the stars"

Friday, November 11, 2011

Niphal Imperfect

3ms יִשָּׁמֵר he will be kept

3fs תִּשָּׁמֵר she will be kept

2ms תִּשָּׁמֵר you will be kept

2fs תִּשָּׁמְרִי you will be kept

1cs אֶשָּׁמֵר I will be kept

3mp יִשָּׁמְרוּ they will be kept

3fp תִּשָּׁמַרְנָה they will be kept

2mp תִּשָּׁמְרוּ you all will be kept

2fp תִּשָּׁמֵרְנָה you all will be kept

1cp נִשָּׁמֵר we will be kept

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Niphal Perfect

3ms נִשְׁמַר he was kept

3fs נִשְׁמְרָה she was kept

2ms נִשְׁמַרְתָּ you were kept

2fs נִשְׁמַרְתְּ you were kept

1cs נִשְׁמַרְתִּי I was kept

3cp נִשְׁמְרוּ they were kept

2mp נִשְׁמַרְתֶּם you all were kept

2fp נִשְׁמַרְתֶּן you all were kept

1cp נִשְׁמַרְנוּ we were kept

Monday, November 7, 2011

Genesis 1:1-13

Here is a pdf of Genesis 1:1-13 typed out in Hebrew with each word listed underneath the verse.
This may help some doing the midterm. If you print out the pdf you can fill in your parsing and translation without having to write out each verse.

Genesis 1_1-13.pdf

NOTE: I uploaded a new copy of this file at 1:20 P.M.
I discovered that I left out the vav conversive at the beginning of verse 10.
If you already downloaded it, just add a vav with a pathah under it.

Review of Perfect and Imperfect

This is basically a cut and paste from an earlier post.

Note:
The perfects indicate completed action and so would be translated normally as past action.

The imperfects indicate incomplete action and so would be translated normally as future action.

The vav conversive will essentially "flip" the past to future or the future to past in your translation.

The perfects follow the vowel patterns for the PAL nomenclature


Qal ("a" vowels)
Niphal ("i-a" vowel pattern)

Piel ("i-e" vowel pattern)
Pual ("u-a" vowel pattern)

Hiphil ("i-i" vowel pattern)
Hophal ("o-a" vowel pattern)

Hitpael (first syllable begins with ה and "i" vowel ands end with ת)

Imperfects have a prefix. Here are my observations:
1.)Prefix with a hireq is a Qal or a Niphal
(If the next vowel is an "a" vowel it's a Niphal anything else is Qal -note: the Hitpael also starts with hireq under the prefix, but it is pretty hard to mistake the "hit" or "yit" sound of the Hitpael)

2.)Prefix with a sheva is a Piel or a Pual
(It's pretty hard to miss the "u" vowel of the Pual or the "a" vowel of the Piel - both will double the middle radical as well)

3.)Prefix with a pathah is a Hiphil

4.)Prefix with a Qamets is a Hophal
(The next radical will have a sheva making it a closed syllable and thus a Qamets hatuph - "o" vowel)

5.)An aleph prefix is always 1cs
A nun prefix is always 1cp - note: this is in the imperfects
A yod prefix is always 3m ( with a וּ suffix it is plural)
The נה suffix is feminine plural (it could be 2nd or 3rd person)

Friday, November 4, 2011

More midterm

Just a couple more things to look for in the first three days of Genesis 1.

When you see a vav - ו - in front of a verb look to see what vowel is underneath it.
If it is a pathah - וַ - and the verb is an imperfect verb (one with a prefix such as י, א, ת) it is a vav conversive and you will give a translation that is "past" instead of "future" because of the vav conversive. You still will add the conjunction "and" in your translation to account for the vav.
If this vav - וַ - is in front of a perfect verb it is just the conjunction "and" so the tense is not "converted."

If the vowel under the vav is a shevah - וְ - and the verb is a perfect (one with no prefix) it is a vav conversive and you will give a translation that indicates "future" instead of "past" because of the vav conversive. Again, you still will add the conjunction "and" in your translation to account for the vav. (note: look for this in verse 14 and 15)
If this vav - וְ - is in front of a perfect verb it is just the conjunction "and" so the tense is not "converted."

A prefixed lamed - ל - is usually the prepostion "to" or "for." (note: there is an infinitive construct in verse 18)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Midterm Information

I'm hoping this works. My FTP server is down temporarily so this is a link to Dr. Staats talking about the midterm in class:


Midterm Info

Let me know if there are problems.
If not, I'll post the audio of the whole class.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Study

A student asked me to put up some "study aids" for the upcoming Hebrew midterm.

Here are a few, "off the top of my head" thoughts about parsing and taking the test.

Dr. Staats has been so gracious to allow the use of two different color pens so that you can do part of the exam from memory and part with tools. My thinking is you cannot do yourself any harm by
trying to do what you can from memory first, and then filling in what you need tools for with another color pen. Just leave yourself room on the paper for what you think you will need to add. Do all you can from memory first. You can do more than you now think you can.

Simple things you could get:

וַיֹּאמֶר אֳלֹהִים

This is a Qal imperfect 3ms (note the י prefix after the ו) with a vav conversive from the root אָמַר (he said) so the imperfect "he will say" is turned over by the vav conversive making it "and he said" --- What follows then is the masculine plural noun which means "God," so a literal, wooden translation would be "And he said God" with God being the speaker. In English we put the noun first so a smooth English translation would be "And God said"

This appears multiple times. Put this parsing in your mind and you will get it right each time it comes up in the text.

וַיּ appears in front of other verbs also multiple times in the text for the exam.

Whenever you see it you know it is a Qal imperfect 3m with a vav conversive.
This form will appear with "he said," "he called," "he saw."

יְהִי this is a Qal imperfect/jussive 3ms from הָיָה (he/it was) "let there be"

I may add more if I can think of simple things, but working on your vowel patterns would be helpful. In the perfects you already know the vowel patterns as they are included in the name of the form (i/i for Hiphil, etc.) So just work on the imperfects.





Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Genesis 1:15

וְהָיוּ לִמְאֹורֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם לְהָאִיר עַל־הָאָרֶץ וַיְהִי־כֵן׃

וְהָיוּ Qal perfect 3rd masculine plural from הָיָה (he was) "they were" with a vav conversive making it "and they will be"

לִמְאֹורֹת preposition with noun feminine plural "for light holders"

בִּרְקִיעַ preposition with noun masculine singular in construct "in the expanse of"

הַשָּׁמַיִם definite article with noun masculine dual "the heavens"

לְהָאִיר Hiphil infinitive from אוֹר (it became light) "to cause to shine light"

עַל־הָאָרֶץ preposition with definite article and noun feminine singular "upon the earth"

וַיְהִי־כֵן Qal imperfect 3ms from הָיָה (he was) "it [he] will be" with a vav conversive making it "and it was" with the adverb "so"