Talk:Modern Hebrew grammar/Archive 3

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Tense vs. aspect in verbs

As a newcomer I am puzzled by the treatment of verbs, where present, past and future tenses are listed. Other sources say that Hebrew verbs are marked for aspect but not for tense. This needs explaining. EEye 20:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This article is about the grammar of Modern Hebrew. My understanding is that Ancient Hebrew had a two-way aspectual distinction between perfect and non-perfect, but that Ancient Hebrew's perfect aspect became Modern Hebrew's past tense, Ancient Hebrew's non-perfect aspect became Modern Hebrew's future tense, and Ancient Hebrew's active participles became Modern Hebrew's present tense (while still being used as active participles as well). Is this not the case? —Ruakh_TALK 04:09, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. In the absence of an article on biblical Hebrew grammar, perhaps major differences like this should be mentioned in the present article. (The Biblical Hebrew language article does not have a grammar section.) EEye 01:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Binyan hif'il

I have removed the following: "..or intransitive and unaccusative, as in [ha-haʁtsa'a ʃelo hit'χil] (his lecture has started)."

This is incorrect, as one would say הרצאתו החלה [haʁtsa'ato he'χela] ("his lecture began") and not as stated above. In fact, [hit'χil] is doubly incorrect since the verb's gender does not agree with that of the noun (which in this case is feminine, so should be התחילה [hit'χila]). RCSB 17:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right about the gender thing, but I don't see what's wrong with הרצאתו התחילה. —Ruakh_TALK 15:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

הרצאתו התחילה is OK, except that it's less literary or elegant than הרצאתו החלה. But since this article mainly doesen't differentiate between literary and spoken styles, then if it had to be written twice, הרצאתו התחילה is also great and will suffice. RCSB 16:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you just compare the writing of this article to the end of the world? :-) —Ruakh_TALK 21:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Kol HaKavod! :-) And I must thank you - and whoever else made significant contributions - for writing this article. I've learned a lot. I'm also ashamed to say this article has no parallel in my native Hebrew Wikipedia. I might take up translating it - though a daunting task for a non-expert! (Maybe if I just begin others will join...) RCSB 22:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It may not be correct to say that hivtiakh (to promise) is not a causative of btkh (to be sure, to be certain). You could say that to promise is to cause someone to be sure and certain. Das Baz, aka Erudil 19:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Binyan pu'al

I have removed the following: ..."(from [un'jan], the passive of [in'jen], to interest)". To the best of my knowledge [un'jan] is [*un'jan], i.e. doesen't exist. RCSB 12:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Sentences with verbs

Please explain why "You start!" exemplifies postponing the subject. Isn't "You" the subject? Or is there a different implicit subject in the phrase? If so, this isn't obvious and possibly needs to be explained. RCSB 08:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of the examples have exact transliterations followed by grammatically correct translations into English. Why is there only the former in the above example? RCSB 09:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it has only the latter — the grammatically correct translation into English. If you really think that readers won't be able to understand what the literal translation is, then I guess you can add that as well; but it seems like overkill to me. —Ruakh_TALK 13:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course I meant the latter. RCSB 13:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Adverbs

I have revised the following examples:

[bə'ofen məaf'jen] (in a characteristic fashion, i.e. characteristically) - such an adverb does not exist; instead, one would say בצורה אופיינית [bətsu'ʁa of'janit] (in characteristic form, i.e. characteristically).

[bətsu'ʁa ele'gantit] (in an elegant form, i.e. elegantly) - usually one would simply say באלגנטיות [be'elegantiut]. RCSB 13:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Sentences with verbs

I have changed one of the examples so that it be better expressed in Hebrew. RCSB 06:54, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Past participles, or passive participles?

"Binyan pa'al is the only binyan whose verbs have past participles."

I think it would be correct to call them *passive* participles. The confusion comes from the fact that in English and some other Western languages the past participle is used as a passive.Michael N. Koplow (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

hitpa'el as a non-reflexive, non-intransitive verb

I think it should be noted that not all hitpa'el verbs are reflexive like the article suggests. Hishtamesh (to use) isn't reflexive or intransitive, even though it cannot use את. Another example would be hitpolel (to pray). I won't change the article, because maybe there are weird etymologies to those words that I don't know, like hitpolel might have meant, "to converse with a god" at one point or something like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.246.38 (talk) 17:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Rules for writing without niqqud

The series of articles on Hebrew are masterful - a great achievement for all who took part. I have one comment: All the examples in Hebrew which were written without niqqud, should conform to the Rules for writing without niqqud of the Academy of the Hebrew Language (כללי הכתיב חסר הניקוד). A simplified version of these is available on the Academy's website, at the following link. RCSB 20:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

(See ktiv male) Mo-Al (talk) 05:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Phonemic conversion

Hello everyone, since this article is not about phonology, but about the structure of Hebrew, and is not about one dialect or era of Hebrew, but of the same language for generations, I would suggest using a conversion method that isn't a transcription nor a transliteration, but a system that delivers the structure of the Hebrew word, and that any pronunciation or reading style of Hebrew from any time can automatically be derived from it. I suggest using ISO259-3 or at least something based on it. This way the words and terms in the article would be correct for any dialect, and any reading style of Hebrew, including that of today, and would deliver the English-speaker reader all the information he would otherwise find by reading the words in the Hebrew script. Ha-Śapa Ha-ʕibrit.Ly362 (talk) 04:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I strongly oppose. All the Hebrew term used in these articles about the Hebrew language have standarised English renditions. They may vary in minor details, but a "shva" and a "sheva" is what we know them as. ISO standarisation we use in the first line of an article, inside brackets, and with the warning "pronounced", to clarify pronounciation only. Debresser (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

This subject was at wp:ani#Rendition of Hebrew by Special:Contributions/Yaron_Livne, where other editors have likewise expressed their amazement at this unfamiliar rendition of Hebrew words. Debresser (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, ok, you're here, let me explain what I mean this time (in the sense of mean this time, not explain this time). I don't mean we should change (at least yet) the terms here this time, let them be what they are, I'm talking about the very specific representation of the structures themselves that are discussed here. The Hebrew verbs and nouns and what not. Here there is supposedly no problem, the words themselves are given in Hebrew script, and next to them there is a phonetic transcription in IPA. But this is in fact twice not useful. As both Hebrew-script reading and IPA comprehension are not a requirement for reading these English Wikipedia articles, the average reader here would not bother to try and understand the Hebrew grammar if he or she don't have time to learn the Hebrew letters, and if they do bother to understand the phonetic transcription, that one would not teach them Hebrew grammar anyway, but only the pronunciation of those Hebrew structures in modern Israeli Hebrew. Since we try to deliver here the structures of a language which is the same language for many generations, and there are for example letters that are different from each other in Hebrew script even if today they are pronounced the same in Israel, we should somehow deliver the same information that is delivered in Hebrew script, to the Latin-script reader, basically the English-speaking reader in this case. I suggest ISO259-3 because it is a good system that as a "side effect" also delivers already much more than even the Hebrew script, and is aimed to be a common ground for all Hebrew variations throughout the generations. I will risk loosing a pretty page, and mention to you that you did not undo my changes in "Hebrew verb conjugation", if you looked at the way the article was before I changed it, it included all kinds of semi phonemic representations of the verbs, with some letters being represented by their unique Latin letters, and the germinations were written as well from the beginning. I am guessing that someone there tried to deliver what I'm talking about, and did it in some partial way. I gave the extra push. It didn't comfort to any spelling convention before, and it also wouldn't have made sense if it only did so, since there is no point in trying to teach Hebrew by not giving the essential information, just because you write in a script different than the original of the particular language.Ly362 (talk) 23:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I also strongly disagree. As the line at the top states, this article is clearly on the grammar of Modern Hebrew. As such, doing things such as not marking spirantization (which is now phonemic) or marking emphatic consonants (other than perhaps the pharyngeals which a minority actually still pronouunce) would be useless. However, maybe a seperate article should be created for Classical Hebrew grammar, since the title of this article is a bit misleading. Note that the stucture of Hebrew has most certainly changed over generations. Mo-Al (talk) 05:22, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it may be said that the suggestion is more fit for an audience of professionals, but not for the layman. And it is by all means the uninitiated for whom this encyclopedia is written. Therefore we should stick to well known spellings, using only "normal" symbols which are the letters of our Latin alphabet. Again, with the exeption of the first line of the article, where we always give the phonetical rendition of words, if at all needed. Debresser (talk) 06:09, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Now, it is standard Wikipedia practice to use IPA for languages in many circumstances. For instance, see the article Central Morocco Tamazight. I think Hebrew script and IPA are the right choice for this article, especially since there is very little agreement on how to romanize Hebrew. Mo-Al (talk) 22:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

If in one and the same article divergent spellings are used for one and the same words, that of course should be fixed. Preferrably by choosing the most well-known spelling. Even Google might give a fair indication here. But indeed two different words might have inconsistent spelling. In this article, for one reason of the other, they have chosen to render all words according to one and the same IPA standard, even when more familiar spellings are available (e.g. "niqqud"="nikud"). The main thing is to be consistent though. Debresser (talk) 06:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia policy is to use well-established names for things even if it breaks the mold, see Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Hebrew). It states that "If there is a standard Anglicized name for a topic (Moses, Haifa, Gaza, bris, Torah, rabbi, rebbe, Netanyahu, Jerusalem, etc.), then that name should be used in the title and in in-line text, no matter how unlike the modern Hebrew that name is." Mo-Al (talk) 22:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

But here I am not talking about names and terms, I am talking about the very words, the conjugated nouns and verbs and other parts of speech that are being described as the very content of articles about languages themselves, they are not names of places of people with well established spellings, they are examples, in this case, given in Hebrew-script sometimes with full niqqud, and next to them in Latin-script since this is an English article.Ly362 (talk) 00:17, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

That's fine. I was just responding to the 'niqqud' vs. 'nikud' thing. Mo-Al (talk) 01:22, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah ok, it is about the modern. But then why give the Hebrew script at all? The question is what is the purpose of this article, to show the purely phonetic realizations of the verbs and nouns in Hebrew? Or to give more information? Some of the letters in Modern Israeli Hebrew are now morphophonemic, you can see that the word תפוז and the word תפוח are in the same stem, and that is important of course in explaining Hebrew grammar, but one is pronounced /ta'puz/ and the other is /ta'puʔax/. Well, you could explain the reasons to all those differences with the appropriate rules of course, but it doesn't seem to be the guideline of this article, and again, why give the Hebrew script then, and without niqqud! Do we want to give one kind of information to the Hebrew-script readers and another kind to those who don't read it? That's why I'm suggesting what I'm suggesting because if everyone here talked honestly, it doesn't seem as if there is a well defined plan for these articles here.Ly362 (talk) 23:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

OH! And the point is, of course even if we talk here in this particular article about "modern Hebrew", it isn't in a void. I guess I in fact suggest doing the same changes in all articles about Hebrew. Because, imagine that we were to talk about another language that is written normally in Latin script. If we talked about English here, you wouldn't say, "because we are talking about Modern English in this specific article, we should decide to do our own spelling reform that would represent only the Modern English.", and that spelling would be different from any article about other times and dialects of English. If a reader surfed between the different articles about Hebrew and saw a different Latin-script spelling in each one but the same Hebrew-script spelling in all of them, that would be confusing. In this article there isn't any Latin-script spelling, there is only a phonetic representation with IPA, but I'm talking in general about any article that might be, or any changes that might happen in the future in this article too. It would be beneficial if there was a spelling that aims to give in Latin letters the same (or more, but at least the same) information given in Hebrew letters.Ly362 (talk) 00:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

That's why we use the Hebrew script! Just like how English has an established orthography which we don't have the authority to change for our purposes, the Hebrew script must be used for authenticity. However, while I really do think that this article should be split, we're dealing with Modern Hebrew. There isn't even wide dialectual variation between spoken Hebrew the way there is in English. What you propose is only useful for liturgical and Classical Hebrew, and is only legible to those with prior knowledge of the diachronic history of Hebrew phonology. Also, as I stated before, it ignores phonemic distinctions in Modern Hebrew. Mo-Al (talk) 01:15, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Yaron, I suggest you create the Biblical Hebrew grammar or Mishnaic Hebrew grammar article. It seems clear to me that they are different enough from Modern Hebrew to merit seperate articles. Mo-Al (talk) 01:20, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll start from the beginning, step by step, since otherwise I explain in such a way that you all miss the point in my view. In articles that discuss the very structure of a language, in this case modern Hebrew, what system of Latin-script spelling do we use to describe the words/examples? How do we transcribe the /χ/ sound? How do we transcribe the /ʃ/ sound? In this specific article there's only IPA next to the Hebrew letters, but in the other articles around it there's more, they try to give some system of Hebrew representation in Latin letters. As for what I propose, I am guessing that you don't really know all about it, but to some degree you are right, that's why I suggested something based on it, or at least the point is the point, and not the precise thing I suggested. But anyway what are the rules right now for transcribing the words?Ly362 (talk) 02:20, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Latin transliteration should be used in this article, since other high-quality language articles don't seem to use non-standard orthographies for languages. IPA is preferable because it is standardized and cross-linguistically neutral. I'm not entirely happy with the IPA in this article, as it's inconsistent with transcribing sounds in Oriental Hebrew (e.g. /ʕ/), but why should transliteration be used? Mo-Al (talk) 08:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Archiving

This talk page is getting really long. Is there any opposition to setting up MiszaBot? Mo-Al (talk) 22:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll do so. Mo-Al (talk) 08:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

No merger!

I strongly object to User:Lhynard's suggestion to merge this article into Revival of the Hebrew language. This clearly violates the standard set by sets of articles related to other languages, and seems unmotivated. Mo-Al (talk) 04:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I also strongly oppose. Frankly, I find this a proposal ill conceived. See Category:Grammars of specific languages that "grammar of language" articles are commonplace. The story of the revival of the language (as a language spoken in day-to-day life, not as a language per se, since Hebrew has been in use throughout the ages) is a different story. Debresser (talk) 07:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I have copied these two commentaries into Talk:Revival_of_the_Hebrew_language#Merger where the discussion takes place. I propose to continue there. Debresser (talk) 07:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Over-looked

Under "Verbs", the "three- or four- consonant root" is mentioned. In the article entitled "Semitic Languages", the phrase "(2- and 4- consonant roots also exist)" appears. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.105.6 (talk) 09:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's controversial whether biliteral roots exist. Mo-Al (talk) 00:07, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, some roots are considered to be either 3-consonant roots in which 1 consonant is a Mater lectionis or 2-consonant roots, in which case the Mater lectionis consonant is not counted, as in "brother": א—ח or א—ח—ו Dan ☺ 02:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The whole subject has been discussed in an intelligent manner since about

1880. There is no reason to suppose that allegedly contracted verbs were ever contracted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.178.16 (talk) 09:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Linking verb?

When the main article mentions "linking" verbs, does it mean "copulative" verb, as in Latin? Or is it a verb with a separable prefix, like in German?

Also, I have grown up thinking of verbs that are either transitive or intransitive. Do these distinctions exist in Hebrew? What about reflexive verbs? Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 04:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Transcription

However, since the phonemes /ħ, ʕ/ are pronounced by some speakers, while others collapse them into the phonemes /χ, ʔ/[1], they will be indicated here for maximum coverage.

Nice idea, except that it hasn't been realized in the parts I've read so far. Also, if the idea is to accommodate such speakers, one should consistently use phonemic /r/ instead of [ʁ], as many of them would have an alveolar trill [r] and not the uvular fricative [ʁ] (and BTW, I think a uvular trill [R] is at least as common as a uvular fricative in Israeli Hebrew).--91.148.159.4 (talk) 00:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect examples and notes

This article contains a number of notes example sentences that are not correct in Modern Hebrew (MH):

"in talking about a car that drove itself, one would say מכונית שנוהגת עצמה [meχoˈnit ʃe-noˈheɡet at͡sˈma] (a car that drives itself, using nahag)"

- No. לנהוג is intransitive and could not be used in this sense. The verb לנהוג does mean "to drive" but cannot be used transitively as in English. Colloquially, one would say "מכונית שנוהגת על עצמה," but this is very convoluted.

אני שכחתי מהבחירות [ani ʃaˈχaħti me-ha-bħiˈrot] (I forgot about the election)

- The pronoun אני would be omitted here.

We spoke to David (dibarnu le-David) = דברנו לדוד We spoke to him (dibarnu lo) = דברנו לו

- The verb דיבר ("spoke") takes the preposition עם for the neutral sense of "having a conversation."

There are also some grammatical notes that are not correct.

1) Nonnative speakers are sometimes taught that pi'el verbs are often "intensive" equivalents of pa'al/qal verbs. The classic example is "shiber" vs. "shavar." In fact, לשבר is not Modern Hebrew (to shatter would be "לשבור לרסיסים" or another verb altogether). A more important point about pi'el is that it is used for the great majority of new coinages in Modern Hebrew, including spontaneous ones - למלצר (to work as a waiter), לקנפג (to configure).

2) Pi'el/pu'al/hitpa'el can theoretically take roots with more than four letters - verbs such as לסנכרן (lesanxren, to synchronize, transitive) and the intransitive להסתנכרן are very much in use.

3) It is not true that most hitpa'el verbs have a reflexive sense. It's true that a number of common verbs such as להתרחץ and להתגלח do appear to be reflexive, but the most important and productive feature of hitpa'el is the way in which it acts as an intransitive equivalent of transitive pi'el verbs - a feature that also explains the reflexive sense of verbs like להתגלח (in English, this is a simple intransitive - to shave, not "to shave oneself").

4) Note also that להסתפר is not actually reflexive in sense; it does not mean "to cut one's own hair" which would be expressed as סיפר את עצמו - in fact, את עצמו is the only "true reflexive" in MH.

Some or all of this might be alleviated by splitting this article into Biblical Hebrew Grammar and Modern Hebrew Grammar, or rewriting the article to pertain to Modern Hebrew with clear notes about differences between it and Biblical Hebrew (or the other way around).

Pashoshington (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

We would have to find publications covering these topics. Dan ☺ 21:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your #1, but I think it's useful to mention the "intensive"-ness. It's important to mention that pi'el is the main way of forming new verbs (largely, I think, because new verbs tend to have quadriliteral roots), but we should also mention the ways that pi'el verbs tend to relate to pa'al verbs when both exist for the same root: pi'el is sometimes more intensive (shiber, shileakh, kipets — rare-to-nonexistent in MH, yes, but I think people understand them without difficulty), sometimes causative (limed, simeakh, sovev/sibev), sometimes more or less synonymous (pikhed), sometimes more or less unrelated (siper). Firstly, this is useful because we're explaining in general the relationships between the binyanim, so we should explicitly address the relationship between pa'al and pi'el — even if only to downplay it.

I completely agree with your #2. In general, this article is overly influenced by Biblical Hebrew.

I disagree with your #3 and #4. "Hitgaleakh" and "histaper" are indeed reflexive in sense. The fact that English uses "shave" ambitransitively, with intransitive=reflexive, is not relevant to Hebrew; and the fact that "histaper" is not exactly synonymous with "siper et atsmo" doesn't mean it's not reflexive. (Note that the English phrase "it solved itself" doesn't literally mean that it set about solving itself and then managed to do so. Reflexives are not a strict thing.)

[added later] To elaborate a bit: I'm not saying that hitpa'el is inherently reflexive. Its general sense seems to be as a middle or mediopassive voice, and even from that there are many exceptions. But I think that "reflexive" is more useful than "intransitive equivalent of transitive pi'el verbs", since there are many ways that a transitive verb could have an intransitive "equivalent". (Think of English "cook", which can be transitive — "I'm cooking dinner" — or intransitive in two different ways — "I'm cooking", "dinner is cooking". Only the latter is anything like hitpa'el.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Re: splitting the article: This article is supposed to be about Modern Hebrew. Any information that's not true of Modern Hebrew should be removed (and ideally moved to an article about grammar of older forms of the language). But that applies only statements that are really not true of Modern Hebrew. There are a lot of BH usages that are still possible in MH, even if highly marked, and such usages should be described accurately rather than ignored.

—Ruakh_TALK 23:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hebrew numbers

There is no mention of what the ordinal and cardinal numbers are in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.28.166.53 (talk) 19:19, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Hebrew Genitive?

Adjectival substitutes. In Hebrew the so-called construct state largely took the place of the adjective. In this construction two nouns stand together, and the second noun (as genitive) limits or qualifies the first one. Greek has a corresponding use of the genitive case of a noun in an adjectival sense. The two most characteristically Semitic idioms are (1) the genitive of an abstract noun in place of an adjective of quality, and (2) the use of "son" (huios) with a following genitive of origin or definition. The former idiom, sometimes called the "Hebrew genitive," is found for example in Philippians 3:21, where Paul describes "our lowly body" (literally "the body of our lowliness"), and "his glorious body" (literally "the body of his glory"). New Testament instances of huios and the genitive include Luke 10:6 "a peace-loving man" (literally "a son of peace"), 1 Thessalonians 5:5 "people who belong to the light" (literally "sons of light"), and Colossians 1:13 "his dear son" (literally "the son of his love").

- The Semitic Style of the New Testament by Michael D. Marlowe

Anybody has any insight on this? Komitsuki (talk) 10:51, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

See Status constructus.Dan ☺ 21:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The word for "son" in Hebrew is ben(בֵּן), which is the Hebrew root word of the forms "son of me"(בְּנִי), "son of him"(בְּנוֹ), "son of her"(בְּנָהּ), and "sons"(בָּנִים), among others. While there is little doubt that he is familiar with Greek, he quotes mostly the New Testament, which was originally written in Greek and Aramaic, not Hebrew. It was not until recent years that a Hebrew translation of the New Testament was formed. The New Testament is not even a part of the Tanakh(Hebrew Bible), however there is a Jewish account of Yeshua, the actual name of the one so often mistakenly called Jesus, but it differs greatly from the Christian account.AurumSpiral1235813 (talk) 20:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Suggest section: Gender and number in Hebrew nouns and adjectives

I would like to suggest that sections of the article are ordered as follows:

3 Verbs

4 Adverbs

5 Gender and number in Hebrew nouns and adjectives

6 Nouns

7 Adjectives

I have recently made changes to the text of Tel Aviv with content: "Residents of Tel Aviv are referred to as Tel Avivim or by the singulars: Tel Avivi (for males) and Tel Avivit (for females)". In, perhaps rare, cases like this I think that it would be helpful to have a reference to link to. I also think that it would be advantageous to add reference to suffix pronunciations towards -eem, -ee and -eet or -^eem, -^ee and -^eet. Would -o^ht be relevant? Anyway this is just an idea.

Greg Kaye 09:20, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Spelling convention?

I noticed that someone recently changed some (but not all) of the spelling in this article from ktiv male to ktiv haser. Is there any convention about which should be used for Modern Hebrew on English Wikipedia? 50.43.33.227 (talk) 05:28, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Not sure about Wikipedia per se, but in general in Modern Hebrew the usual convention is to use ktiv haser when the text has nikkud, and ktiv male when it does not. ArrTchoke (talk) 14:03, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Word formation

Hi all. Would it be appropriate to add a section about word formation? In particular, I think talking about compounding might be interesting. I've noticed that Modern Hebrew borrows many words (like biologia, teologia, and so forth) which are originally compound words, while compound words from native roots are relatively rare. (The native equivalents are generally phrases rather than single words. For example, most of the -ology words are translated as torat ha whatever) There are some exceptions, like xaydak, xayzar, but they aren't as common. I think it would be interesting to discuss this asymmetry. Also, it would be interesting if we could find reference that discuss whether there are any patterns in which native roots can be compounded, and how those compounds work. It seems seems to me that short roots are used the most in such compounds, especially if the result is two syllables long and looks like a regular word (as if it came from an actual root). If this information sounds like something that would be appropriate in the article, I can try to find actual sources to verify. :) Also, it seems that Hebrew has created novel forms for some of these loan roots: biologia is pretty straightforward, biology plus the native Hebrew -a ending. But biologist becomes just "biolog" when it's used in Hebrew. As far I know, that pattern isn't taken from the loaning languages, (I may be wrong about that, if so I'd love to know where it comes from!) but it's very regular. Teologia, kosmologia, sociologist become teolog, kosmolog, sociolog, and so forth. It also seems like there are a few prefixes, like tlat- rab-, ben-. They seem to mostly be formed as reduced versions of regular words (shalosh, arbe, bein). Full words aren't often used as proper prefixes. It would be interesting to cover what words have such reduced words, the productivity of such constructions, and their relationship to their phrasal equivalents. By the way, I transcribed the Hebrew words, but I can add the Hebrew spelling if that would be useful. Thanks for reading!

JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 21:05, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

"To, toward"

In the Modern Hebrew grammar#Inflected prepositions section, in the last table, there are two rows for ל. The second one has it stand for "to, toward". Shouldn't it be אל instead of ל?? Largoplazo (talk) 23:07, 20 November 2021 (UTC)