Neuhebraische Grammatik auf Grund der altesten Handschriften und Inschriften.

• Author: Malone, Joseph L.

While this reference grammar has the virtues of indicating the exact textual source for almost all examples (geared to the listing of texts and abbreviations on pp. 1-24) and frequently provides phrase- or clause-length illustrations, it is unfortunately marred by a number of infelicities. I list these here under four headings, with the hope that future editions may benefit and render a useful handbook even more useful.

Linguistically questionable assumptions and designations

"Nasalierung" as a possible explanation for the interchange between m and n, e.g., the masculine plural [Hebrew Text Omitted] and [Hebrew Text Omitted] (p. xiii) is meaningless since both m and n are nasal to begin with (though note 15 suggests that Ridzewski may simply be transmitting an idea of Z. Ben-Hayyim).

[Hebrew Text Omitted] in the sense of 'someone, man, on' functions, not as an "unbestimmter Artikel," but as an "unbestimmtes Pronomen" (p. xiv); similarly for [Hebrew Text Omitted] (p. 104).

Hebrew-Aramaic hybrid verbs are first implied to be impossible (p. xv) but later assumed to be attested (p. xvii, n. 39).

The bald assumption that "y kann im Wortanlaut zu l werden" (p. 36) in the foreign name [Hebrew Text Omitted] is misleading at best, since we are here probably witnessing a sporadic lexical reduplication-like assimilation, as later recognized by Ridzewski herself (p. 40); similarly [Hebrew Text Omitted] missing in [Hebrew Text Omitted] (p. 45) should be qualified as to its frequency.

What is the evidence that [Hebrew Text Omitted] in [Hebrew Text Omitted] (Gen. 1:31) is a noun rather than an adjective (p. 62, n.3)? To judge by the examples listed later under [section]5.2, the absence of the article on [Hebrew Text Omitted] would seem to reflect a subregularity of the ordinal adjective construction (p. 107).

Problems with phonetic interpretation

[Hebrew Text Omitted] as initial [w] (p. 31) is problematic because interchange with [Hebrew Text Omitted] (p. 28f., 31, n. 31) suggests that such [w] had already consonantized to [v] (or [[Beta]]).

Apart from the question of whether long a was rounded [??] (as in Tiberian) or flat [a] (as Ridzewski transcribes), the diphthong in the complex suffix 'his (plural)' was almost certainly short-nucleic [??] (as Tiberian) or [aw], not [aw] (pp. 31, 51; cf. my Tiberian Hebrew Phonology [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993], 77).

Short a appears for what are reduced vowels (schwa, hataph pathah) in Tiberian: ani and...