{"title":"Sound of Quantitative Metres in Medieval Hebrew Poetry","authors":"Boris Kleiner","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The conventional view of quantitative metres in medieval Hispano-Hebrew poetry confuses vowels and syllables. This is because it was syllable structure, rather than vowel typology, that produced the quantitative oppositions. Vocalic shewa was not a furtive but a regular short vowel; its syllable was light because it was not closed by a consonant. Heavy syllables were formed by closing consonants, replaceable by a long vowel, as in Arabic and other languages. Arabic metres could be used in Hebrew with no modification of their phonological basis. However, the quantitative prosody of Arabic poetry was the same as in Qurʾānic recitation, whereas its application to Hebrew contradicted the accentual prosody of the Bible. This appears to be the reason for the controversy surrounding the introduction of Arabic metrics into Hebrew poetry. Quantitative metres require only the focus on the articulatory structures to become audible. Musical durations and accents can corroborate the metre, but they can also be non-related without compromising metre perception.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42498146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A donation list from Elephantine: Judaean and Non-Judaean onomastic characteristics from the Persian period in Egypt","authors":"Mitka R. Golub","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study uses quantitative methods in the analysis and comparison of 195 names on a donation list from the Nile island of Elephantine, dated to 400 bce, with Judaean names from the end of the First Temple period. The goal is to shed more light on the origin of the individuals named on the list and their relationship, if any, to Judaeans. The onomastic analysis is based on the distributions of name types, theophoric elements and prefixed/suffixed theophoric elements, as well as on the most popular roots in names and the prevalence of names common to the donors and Judaeans. The results revealed several Judaean onomastic characteristics in Elephantine that help support the claim that the origin of these Elephantine donors is Judaean. At the same time, other onomastic characteristics which differ from those in Judah may be attributed to the influence of the surrounding multi-cultural society, as well as the time gap between the donors and Judaeans.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48555889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Furthering the Further Quest for Ugaritic","authors":"P. Daniels","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Emendations to a Festschrift contribution, suggested by the honouree, dealing with the decipherment of the Ugaritic script.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44714306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Body and Mind, Husband and Household, Collaborators and Communities: Centrifugal Spheres of Protection in an Aramaic Incantation Bowl (MC 77.233)","authors":"Alexander Marcus","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract MC 77.233, an incantation bowl in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic script held in the Magnes Collection, is here published for the first time. Written primarily for Ḥammādā daughter of Xwārōy, it deepens and nuances our understanding of apotropaic activities in late antique Babylonia and surrounding regions, with terminology and phrases that are, at turns, typical and unique. Notable, too, are its combinations of, and allusions to, motifs that are elaborated with greater detail on other specimens. My discussion focuses on the role of both client and scribe in the bowl’s production, highlighting connections to bowls of other clients, to several well-attested formula repertoires, and to other Sasanian literary sources like the Babylonian Talmud. Throughout, I emphasize the opportunities for comparative analysis that are now available due to the increasing volume of bowl publications and recent scholarship on religious life, material culture, and interactions between Jews and others in late antique Mesopotamia.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":"180 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135945644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"— Yiqtol as Evidential Strategy in Biblical Hebrew","authors":"Vladimir Olivero","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The goal of this study is to argue that the — yiqtol construction has an evidential meaning when employed with reference to the past. The yiqtol functions in these situations as an evidential strategy and is used to express the source of information. For instance, Exod. 15:1, which famously begins with , should be understood as ‘then (as reported / as they say) Moses sang’. The words added between brackets refer to the source of information. In most biblical passages where this rare and puzzling construction is attested the evidential yiqtol appears with deictic markers that tie the world of the narrative to that of the authors and of the audience. Interestingly, paratextual elements and redactional observations support the idea that we are dealing with evidential strategies. Finally, the Hebrew Bible seems to contain additional instances of the evidential yiqtol in a similar construction ( — yiqtol).","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60949306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Phantom Verb: Yuttan in Biblical Hebrew","authors":"Raanan Eichler","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad011","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The verb נתן ‘to give’ is pointed as hophal eight times in the Bible. The scholarly consensus is that these occurrences were originally intended as qal-passive, and that there was no hophal נתן in original Biblical Hebrew. It is argued here that there was neither hophal nor qal-passive נתן in original Biblical Hebrew: these occurrences were originally intended as qal, their subjects were indefinite, and they were intuitively revocalized as hophal when the third-person singular indefinite subject fell out of use in Hebrew.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44376175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dioscorides and Galen in the Syriac Tradition: A Reconsideration of Three Passages About Herbs in an Anonymous Syriac Pharmacological Book","authors":"Lijuan Lin","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article centres on three passages about herbs and herb remedies (§91, §92 and §97) selected from the anonymous Syriac pharmacological book which Philippe Gignoux recently edited. It argues that all three passages have parallels in Galen’s On Simple Drugs, while the last section of §91 finds a parallel in Dioscorides’ De materia medica 1.107. The parallels not only help us to decipher several terms which remain unresolved in earlier research, but also facilitate a better understanding of some passages which are occasionally misleading due to the highly abbreviated character of the Syriac text. Furthermore, a comparison between the anonymous Syriac pharmacological text and earlier Syriac translations of Galen shows that our text is a multiple-layered pharmacopoeia which combines both earlier elements from Sergius of Rēš ͑ainā in the sixth century and new terminologies from Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq in the ʿAbbāsid translation movement.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135337633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Negation with the Bipartite Constructions ʿĒB-(V/V:)Š and MĀ-(V/V:)Š in Šrūgi Arabic","authors":"Q. Hassan","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The split of the gǝlǝt dialects into Šrūgi and non-Šrūgi types was first introduced by the author in three studies. Here a correlation was observed between the geographic distribution of the gǝlǝt dialects and the sectarian affiliation of their speakers (Hassan 2020: 167, 2021a: 52, 2021b: 195 n. 1). The term Šrūgi refers to all gǝlǝt dialects over-whelmingly spoken by the Shīʿa population in southern Iraq and the Middle Euphrates Area, whereas the term non-Šrūgi denotes the gǝlǝt dialects of the Sunna population in the northern and western parts of the country. Accordingly, the term Šrūgi appears to be broader in scope than the traditional ‘southern Iraq’, which refers to only the southern part of the Šrūgi area. Research on negation in Šrūgi Arabic in general and on the bipartite negative constructions ʿēb-(v/v:)š and mā-(v/v:)š in particular, has thus far been very scant. In the published literature, only the single negative particles ʿēb and mā- and the split morpheme mā-(v/v:)š have been discussed, but no mention has been made of the bipartite construction ʿēb-(v/v:)š. What is more, the single negator ʿēb and the bipartite construction mā-(v/v:)š have usually been considered, although in passing, exclusive marshland features, a view that has unnecessarily been adopted in subsequent related contributions on negation in Šrūgi Arabic. However, recent research conducted by the author has shown the wide distribution of these constructions, mā-(v/v:)š in particular, in the Šrūgi area, in fact establishing an isogloss between the Šrūgi and the non-Šrūgi dialectal areas. The goal of this paper is to add new information to our knowledge of negation with the bipartite constructions ʿēb-(v/v:)š and mā-(v/v:)š in Šrūgi Arabic, showing at the same time that both constructions are not recent innovations, but their distribution has not been reported until now.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43833629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Non-Triliteral Theory of Verbal Morphology of the Karaite Joseph IBN NŪH","authors":"Joshua Dachman","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study examines the morphological theory of Joseph (Yūsuf) Ibn Nūḥ, a tenth-century Hebraist with a non-triliteral theory of Hebrew. Ibn Nūḥ’s approach is first outlined using the previously-developed framework for non-triliteral Hebrew verbal morphology. Ibn Nūḥ’s morphological model is then explored and it is determined that Ibn Nūḥ has an Item-and-Process model of morphology. With that insight it is suggested that Ibn Nūḥ recognizes roots only ‘abstractively’, with word-forms being constructed from ‘bases’ rather than ‘roots’. Example passages are presented to demonstrate the contrast between Ibn Nūḥ’s and Dunash Ibn Labraṭ’s respective models of morphology.","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135337478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contrastive Focus Reduplication in Kuwaiti Arabic","authors":"Yousuf B. AlBader","doi":"10.1093/jss/fgad006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgad006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines a case of total reduplication in Kuwaiti Arabic known as contrastive focus reduplication (i.e. complete copying of words or phrases). For example, tišrab čāy ḥalīb willa ČĀY–čāy? ‘Would you like to drink tea with milk, or TEA–tea’ [denoting black tea as opposed to karak chai]. The study explores the morpho-semantic properties of this construction in the dialect, shows the different meanings it allows and how it elucidates the permissible lexical units that can be reduplicated. The reduplication of a lexical item can be applied to a range of grammatical and lexical categories. Over 150 samples were collected by observing contrastive focus reduplication from participants’ (male and female native Kuwaiti speakers in their twenties and seventies) natural speech in everyday conversations. This study contributes to research on the prosody and grammar of the dialect and the theory of semantics, thereby enhancing understanding of reduplication and repetition in Semitic dialectology.1","PeriodicalId":17130,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semitic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42751827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}