Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Signs of the Hebrew Imperfect

The Imperfect Verb

My Beginning Hebrew Class is about to move on to the weak verbs, having completed the complete paradigm of the regular Hebrew verb. It's a good point in the course to review signs for recognizing the various forms of the imperfect verb in Hebrew. A former Hebrew student, Rosemary Beales composed this song to help students memorize signs of the Niphal, Piel, Hiphil, and other imperfects. It is to be sung to the tune of "Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" (8.6.8.6). To hear the tune through your windows media player, click here.


Signs of the Imperfect

The Niphal has a hireq and
a dagesh in C1.
Piel and Pual have a sh'wa
and middle dot, for fun.
The Hiphil has a patah and
a hireq and a yod.
The Hophal has a qamets and
that's all you need to know.
The Hithpael is easy, it's
the one with second "T."
The Qal seems like an old
friend now---
It's easy as can be!

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am sorry to say, by the way, that I haven't read many of your blog entries of late by the sole reason that all that was listed from them was the title. So many worthy biblical scholars, among others whose voices are important, ahve joined the blogosphere that I can barely keep up via RSS when RSS lists entire entries. Have you considered including full entries via RSS? I'm sad to be missing out on so much of oyur news and VTS's when I don't have time to look at more than post titles tlo assess whether it's something I should check out immediately.

And to imagine that all this is coming from someone who hasn't been able to update her own blog in ages! I beg your forgiveness even as I offer my blessing, for what it's worth.

Wed Nov 28, 10:33:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

tI am sorry to say, by the way, that I haven't read many of your blog entries of late by the sole reason that all that was listed from them was the title. So many worthy biblical scholars, among others whose voices are important, ahve joined the blogosphere that I can barely keep up via RSS when RSS lists entire entries. Have you considered including full entries via RSS? I'm sad to be missing out on so much of oyur news and VTS's when I don't have time to look at more than post titles tlo assess whether it's something I should check out immediately.

And to imagine that all this is coming from someone who hasn't been able to update her own blog in ages! I beg your forgiveness even as I offer my blessing, for what it's worth.

Wed Nov 28, 10:33:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Phil Sumpter said...

What a great song! I wonder if I can compose something for my students in German ... I doubt it.

Thu Nov 29, 02:52:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger S and C said...

Thanks to both of you for visiting! And, I know what you mean about the growth of interesting blogs. I'm afraid I've been just awful about visiting other blogs recently. I'll see if the "Blogger" dashboard allows me to adjust how the RSS works. I didn't realize I might have some options there. Thanks. ---S.

Fri Nov 30, 09:02:00 PM GMT-5  

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