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Notes on the Noun Patterns in the Yemenite Tradition 51 NOTES ON THE NOUN PATTERNS IN THE YEMENITE TRADITION 51 Matthew MORGENSTERN University of Haifa NOTES ON THE NOUN PATTERNS IN THE YEMENITE TRADITION OF JEWISH BABYLONIAN ARAMAIC* RÉSUMÉ La tradition yéménite de lecture du Talmud de Babylone a été perçue par certains savants (par exemple S. Morag), comme une source fiable pour la vocalisation du judéo-araméen de Babylonie. Cette étude confronte la vocalisation yéménite des formes nominales aux données que nous fournissent les manuscrits ainsi que d'autres matériaux et suggère que, dans plusieurs cas, la tradition yéménite ne con- serve pas les formes authentiques. La seconde partie de l'article consiste en un examen détaillé de cas d'alternance entre gentilices et nomina agentis dans les textes araméens de Babylonie. SUMMARY The Yemenite reading tradition of the Babylonian Talmud has been regarded by some authorities (e.g. S. Morag) as providing a reliable source for the vocalization of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. The present study considers the Yemenite vocaliza- tion of nominal forms in the light of manuscript evidence and comparative material and suggests that in many cases, the Yemenite tradition does not preserve the his- torical forms. The article cncludes with a detailed examination of interchanges be- tween the gentilic and nomen agentis forms in Babylonian Aramaic sources. Until recently, information on the noun patterns found in Jewish Babylo- nian Aramaic (JBA) could be gleaned from three published grammars. The first is the English edition of Levias’s A Grammar of the Aramaic Idiom Contained in the Babylonian Talmud, which lists numerous examples ac- companied by copious notes and comparisons. Levias appears to have been * This article is part of an ongoing research project into the grammar of Jewish Babylo- nian Aramaic according to manuscript sources. A wider account of this project and of its findings to date can be found in my forthcoming volume, Studies in Jewish Babylonian Ara- maic. I would like to thank Prof. Moshe Bar-Asher and Prof. Steven Fassberg for reading this article prior to its publication and for their helpful comments. Revue des études juives, 168 (1-2), janvier-juin 2009, pp. 51-83. doi: 10.2143/REJ.168.1.2035301 1888-08_REJ09/1-2_02 51 09-15-2009, 14:42 52 NOTES ON THE NOUN PATTERNS IN THE YEMENITE TRADITION the first scholar to undertake the difficult task of classifying the noun pat- terns of this dialect, and his work was thus groundbreaking in its time. His detailed discussions often contain interesting observations; he accurately notes, for example, the interchange between the qitl and q¢tal forms, citing However, it appears that in many cases he did not .1זמאנא and זימנא both fully appreciate the differing orthographies found in his various sources, fish’2. Since this‘ ַכּוּ ָאָרא and ַכּוְָרא , ְכּו ָָרא ,and hence vocalizes, for example word is derived from Akkadian kamaru, it seems most likely that the waw was consistently vocalized by a long vowel, an assumption that is supported found כורא by the findings in several manuscripts3. The defective spellings in the printed editions of the Talmud are a relatively late development in .4 ַכּוְָרא the textual tradition, and cannot be used as evidence for a reading Furthermore, many of his etymological reflections are questionable or at least require further consideration5. The comparative notes are mostly missing from the Hebrew edition of Levias’s Diqduq, which also contains shorter and better organized lists of nouns. Regrettably, when adding his proposed vocalization6, Levias altered all his spellings to scriptio defective, so it is not always possible to establish whether his vocalization is based upon the internal evidence of JBA (which he drew primarily from the printed editions of the Talmud) or upon com- parative grounds. Furthermore, the examples are cited without references7. An important step forward in the study JBA was the publication of Epstein’s 1961 Grammar, which to date remains the most up-to-date re- search tool on the dialect available to the scholarly community. As a major scholar of Talmudic and post-Talmudic Babylonian Aramaic literature, Epstein was able to draw upon a wider range of sources than his predeces- sors, in particular upon the Geniza fragments, many of which he himself had published or studied firsthand. Epstein’s Grammar also contains a brief 1. LEVIAS, Grammar, §788. I shall discuss this issue further below. .כוארא ,כוורא .Compare SOKOLOFF, DJBA, p. 557 s.v .2 3. Several examples are adduced by SOKOLOFF, ibid. Others may be found through search- ing the Talmud Text Databank of the Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmudic Research. I have made considerable use of this valuable research tool. 4. LEVIAS, Grammar, §795a. The example appears to have been removed from the He- brew edition. -with Arabic {Òd , as Levias sug ְדָּרָרא For example, it is not possible to connect Aramaic .5 gested in Grammar, §859. ,LXXVI ‘member§ ֶא ְבָרא This vocalization primarily reflects Tiberian phonology; e.g .6 pinion’. See below. 7. This deficiency is less serious nowadays, when advanced computer searches are possi- ble, than it was when the book was originally published. A more comprehensive survey of Levias’s contribution to the study of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic is found in Chapter One of my Studies in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. 1888-08_REJ09/1-2_02 52 09-15-2009, 14:42 NOTES ON THE NOUN PATTERNS IN THE YEMENITE TRADITION 53 outline of the noun patterns, with appropriate references and plene orthog- raphy8. Particularly rewarding was Epstein’s decision to include compara- tive material from Mandaic, which is absent from Levias’s works9. Never- theless, the section on the noun patterns is relatively short, and it would appear that not all the noun patterns are represented in Epstein’s lists; for .qoqilla?10 קוקילא qe††ela? or קיטילא example, we do not find examples of The work is also marred by several printing errors, which contradict the author’s (correct) analysis11. A fourth source of information is Y. Ben-David’s unpublished 1979 He- brew University MA dissertation, The Noun Patterns in the Aramaic of the Bavli, written under the direction of the late Professor Morag. The work, which covers the letters ’alef to Ìet, is primarily based upon the printed edi- tions, but also draws upon a wide range of secondary sources, including some manuscripts and the mediaeval dictionary, He-‘Arukh. Ben-David carefully correlated this evidence with the evidence of the cognate dialects of Mandaic and Syriac to produce a work that is generally convincing and reliable12. It is regrettable that the work was never expanded to a full-length study13. The most recent study of this topic is S. Morag’s and Y. Kara’s Babylo- nian Aramaic in Yemenite Tradition: The Noun. This Hebrew volume, which was in an advanced state of preparation at the time of Morag’s pass- ing, represents the collaborative work of two outstanding experts on the Yemenite tradition of Babylonian Aramaic. Morag was also one of the pioneers of the linguistic study of Babylonian Aramaic according to Eastern manuscripts14, and in addition, his expertise in the Yemenite linguistic tra- ditions of Hebrew and Aramaic was unparalleled15. Kara, Morag’s student, has similarly focused on the Yemenite traditions, both written and oral, and 8. EPSTEIN, Grammar, pp. 105–121. 9. Levias’s comparative material is drawn primarily from Arabic, with occasional refer- ences to Akkadian, Hebrew, and Ethiopic (several dialects). .לוליבא and הילילא See below regarding the forms .10 tongue, language’ and‘ ִל ָיש$נָא For example, the dagesh sign is missing in the entries .11 red’ (p. 111), even though these appear in the paragraph entitled ‘Nouns of which‘ ָסוּמָקא .(שמות שהאות האמצעית שלהם מודגשת) ’middle letter (sic) is geminated 12. I have found a few contradictions between the manuscript findings and Ben-David’s spark’ with a shewa after‘ ְבּוּט ָטא proposed vocalization. For example, he vocalizes the form .See below .בוטאטי the first †et, while some important witnesses contain the plene spelling Similarly, it is not always certain on what grounds he distinguishes between the /u/ and /o/ vowels. 13. It is also unfortunate that in its present state as a typescript, it is very difficult to read. 14. Morag’s articles on these early manuscripts, ‘Phonology’ and ‘Geniza’, are amongst the seminal studies in this field. 15. This is evidenced in his two major monographs, BAYT and HLYJ. 1888-08_REJ09/1-2_02 53 09-15-2009, 14:42 54 NOTES ON THE NOUN PATTERNS IN THE YEMENITE TRADITION his study of the Yemenite manuscripts of the Talmud is one of the primary reference tools for the phonology and verbal morphology of this dialect16. Their volume is the most comprehensive discussion of the noun patterns of JBA currently available. An assessment of its method and conclusions is thus essential to the continued research in this field. In a detailed review, Breuer has drawn attention to many of the book’s strengths, while addressing many of the methodological issues it raises17. While praising its scope, Breuer has also noted the problematic arrange- ment of the book, wherein nouns are organized by morphological patterns rather than stem-patterns, hence nouns of the pattern CaCC¢Ca are listed together whether they are based upon quadriliteral roots or trilateral roots with the mem prefix (maqt¢la). In the latter part of this article, Breuer has selected a single topic, the noun pattern qu†la, and weighed up the evidence from the Yemenite reading tradition against the findings in manuscripts. Breuer’s conclusions are summarised in the following statement, which specifically addresses the results of his investigation into the qu†la pattern, but may equally serve as an accurate assessment of the entire work: It may be clearly discerned here how the strength of the Yemenite tradition is able to overcome the orthography and agree with the original form preserved in manuscripts.
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