Fucus: A Semitic/Afrasian Gathering in Remembrance of Albert Ehrman

547 Pages·1988·40.97 MB·English

by  Yoël L. Arbeitman (Ed.)

FUCUS
A SEMITIC/AFRASIAN GATHERING IN REMEMBRANCE OF
ALBERT EHRMAN
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E.F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY
Advisory Editorial Board
Henning Andersen (Buffalo, N.Y.); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles)
Thomas V. Gamkrelidze (Tbilisi); Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin)
J. Peter Maher (Chicago); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
E.Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Tokyo)
Volume 58
Yoël L. Arbeitman (ed.)
FUCUS
A Semitic/Afrasian Gathering in Remembrance of Albert Ehrman
FUCUS
A SEMITIC/AFRASIAN GATHERING
IN REMEMBRANCE OF ALBERT EHRMAN
Edited by
YOËL L. ARBEITMAN
Institute of Semitic Studies, Princeton, NJ
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1988
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fucus : a Semitic/Afrasian gathering in remebrance of Albert Ehrman / edited by Yoël L.
Arbeitman.
p. cm. — (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science.
Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763; v. 58)
Papers chiefly in English; 2 in French and 3 in German.
Bibliography: p.
1. Semitic languages. 2. Ehrman, Albert. I. Ehrman, Albert. II. Arbeitman, Yoël L. III.
Series.
PJ3002.Z5E374 1988
492 -- dc 19 87-34477
ISBN 90 272 3552 X (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1988 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
DR. ALBERT EHRMAN
(1933-1981)

PREFACE
After approximately four and a half years of intense labor on a work
undertaken for love, labor the intensity of which is not diminished in
that it perforce has been discontinuous, there is little one can say
to adequately express the extreme sense of satisfaction and exultation
which fills one, little other than the words of the benediction:
Who hath kept us living, filled us
with endurance, and brought us to
this season [of our goal].
Such a benediction, regardless of theological perspective of the re­
citer, is a natural expression of the overwhelming joy. Another ex­
pression that comes as an obvious and spontaneous occurrence to the
lips of the laborer is the pleasure of specifying his gratitude to all
colleagues who have contributed to the enterprise, those without whose
efforts such a work as the present one could never come to fruition.
My thankfulness to all the authors in this volume is profound; as so
too is my thankfulness to the publishers, Claire and John Benjamins for
their confidence in this project. It would be most remiss of me not
to make note of the cooperation received during this long period from
the general editor or this series (CILT), Prof. Konrad Koerner.
My general gratitudes to all of these persons is in no way to be
seen as diminished by the expression of especial debts I am beholden
for to several particular individuals whose participation offered as­
sistance beyond the required or expected and, thus, sustained me in
times of being overwhelmed. In one way or another, Prof. Gary A. Rends­
burg was responsible for my initial introduction to a number of the
scholars whose work is represented in this volume. The early major ef­
forts made by my friends, Professors Chaim Rabin and Aron Dolgopolsky,
viii PREFACE
let me first see flesh develop on the bare bones of the idea of the
book, which until then was only mental, an idea rather than a real or
material book. Equally, the early efforts of my friend, Prof. Saul
Levin, not only gave flesh to the idea which was but bones, but his
continuing friendship — most especially in times of great personal
loss — is a testimony to the fine being which he is. Near the end
of the work on this book, Dr. Michael P. O'Connor proofed my own rather
large article in this volume and pointed out a number of poorly writ­
ten paragraphs and other errors. In almost all cases of substance I
have adopted his criticisms; only in the plethora of his dislike of
my punctuation did I ignore his suggestions, and this not because he
was wrong, but because adopting the suggestions would have resulted in
too much waste of time and labor. I am very grateful to him for his
time and keen eye and the profit to my article from the same. The ap­
pearance of some of the articles has profited much from the gift of
four typing elements produced by Camwil which Prof. Giorgio Buccellati
made to me. And finally I cannot leave unsaid that my very abilities
to cope, however inadequately, with producing the camera-ready copy
are owed to years of learning from Allan R. Bomhard who, amongst many
other fields of mastery, is the world's most skillful camera-ready
typer, as the quality of the Kerns GS, of which he produced 9/10 of
the camera-ready copy, well attests.
W It would be an extreme dereliction of my duty if I did not give
way to my delectation in acknowledging the good-sensical judgment com­
bined with the integrity of character of Dr. Alfred Wiener who con­
vinced me at various times to accept his expertise without which very
little of the work would have come to fruition.
X —
Y ---
Ζ At the conclusion with "Z", let me express simply to Donald &
Judith Zwyer that they were always there when it counted and to say
more than these few words would only risk embarrassing them!
DEDICATION
A Gedenkschrift, a memorial volume, a is obviously a mark
of respect for a deceased colleague. But the "memorial" of the "memo­
rial volume" does not thereby have to denote "mourning" albeit the Eng.
word "mourning" and the Latin-based "memorial" are indeed syrrhizoid,
IE (s)mer- "gedenken" (Pokorny, s. .). A Gedenkschrift is far rather
an opportunity of joyous recall of our collegue, the fine life he was
able to live, an expression of our ongoing pleasure in and profit from
that work which his personal path and uniqueness granted him to con­
ceive, create, synthesize, and execute and, thus, to leave for us as
one of his bequests to us and to those after us.
Dr. Albert Ehrman was a scholar who worked on Judaic-Semitic
lexicography and etymology conceived fundamentally in terms of philo­
logical contextuality and only then adducing the sister languages for
evidentiary witnesses. He pursued this work driven by both love and
that certain lack of choice that inspired individuals are forced to
submit to, however non-existing any standard reward — by the measure­
ments of this world: monetary, promotion in one's position, fame, and
the like — may be.
His work is an exemplar of an alternate understanding of the "aca­
demic" (in contradistinction here to the "scholarly") dictum: PUBLISH
OR PERISH. not by lack of tenure, etc., but by a certain kind of brim­
ming over consequent on not releasing the richnesses of thought-and-
inspiration which the innards cannot contain any longer. And this I
say not because he lacked the formal training — he had all the right
credentials of BA, MA, BRE, and PhD; nevertheless his employment, that
by which he earned his living as a high school teacher of history, did
not require his executing the articles he gave us, as a condition of