Re: Epphatha Qs

On May 19, 2004, at 5:15 AM, Emily Zilch wrote:
>{ Doug Dee } "7:34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto
>him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened."
>so, which cunning linguist can identify the aramaic original form of
>this?
>no, really. i want to know.
>em'ly
Steg replied:
"It looks like a reflexive |itpe`al| form, from the root |PTHh|, with
assimilation of the |-t-| to the first root consonant... something like
[?ipp@taX\] (i hope /X\/ is the proper way to write voiceless
pharyngeal fricative), probably.  Unfortunately i can't find an Aramaic
grammar around here to check for sure."

Steg's right.  It's an ethpaal (tD).  In Late Aramaic (in this case,
Christian Palestinian) the reflexive forms with t- are on their way out, and
the marker has assimilated in most cases.  In Aramaic as in Hebrew, roots
with an initial sibilant undergo metathesis (Mod. Mandaic eStabyon, "they
were baptized") and these are the only ones that survive.  Otherwise, the
reflexive is eventually replaced with the indicative form of the verb + some
word that means "oneself," usually some variation on nafsh- (Mod. Mandaic
"an navshe qagaatelni!" "I'll kill myself!").

I've looked in my Jastrow, and I see that Babylonian Talmudic preserves both
forms (with and without prefixed t-; vowels: hireq, patah, patah; dageshes
in the peh and the tav).  Interestingly, Jastrow says of this form that it
generally means "to be restored to sight," at least in the BT.

cheers

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