Markedness in Canaanite and Hebrew verbs / / by Paul D. Korchin.

• Superior document: Harvard Semitic Museum publications
• Author: Korchin, Paul D.
• Place / Publishing House: Winona Lake, Ind. : : Eisenbrauns,, 2008.
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Language: English
• Series: Harvard Semitic Studies 58.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xv, 368 pages).
• Notes: Based on the author's Ph. D. thesis (Harvard University, 2001) entitled Markedness and Semitic morphology.

Semitic linguistics is arguably involved in its own version of a \'maximalist versus minimalist\' controversy with respect to verbal morphology. Dissent persists about whether and to what degree the Northwest Semitic verb paradigms underlying languages such as Biblical Hebrew and Amarna Canaanite (yaqtul, yaqtulu, yaqtula) are themselves determinative of tense-aspect-mood values, as opposed to extra-verbal structures ranging from syntax to discourse. To label a verb form as marked or unmarked for these values is to evoke a bountiful yet nebulous complex of theories about how language is built and employed. But Semitists have often unwittingly bleached markedness terms of their full historical and technical significance, reducing them to generic appellations that are invoked in sporadic and nearly random fashions. By applying markedness to Semitic morphology in a consistent and rigorous manner, this innovative book brings to bear a venerable linguistic construct on a persistent philological crux, in order to achieve deeper clarity in the structures and workings of Canaanite and Hebrew verbs. Korchin's arguments hold relevance for translating and interpreting nearly every sentence in ancient texts such as the Hebrew Bible and the Amarna letters.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Approaching a Century of Markedness -- Markedness in Semitic Morphology -- Formal and Functional Parameters for Markedness -- The Canaano-Akkadian Prefixed Verb System -- The Biblical Hebrew Prefixed Verb System -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index of Subjects -- Index of Verbs.