Talk:History of Hebrew grammar

Conditional mood?

The introductory section about verbs claim that Hebrew words have a conditional mood. I have never heard of a Hebrew conditional mood and the article on verb conjugation doesn't mention it, either. I'm however not sure enough about this to delete it. Could someone with better knowledge in Hebrew eiter correct this bit or add a section about hebrew conditionals to the verb conjugation article?

I don't think Modern Hebrew has a conditional mood. Biblical Hebrew had a jussive in some words (e.g. tagid vs. taged) but even this isn't present in Modern Hebrew. Mo-Al (talk) 16:28, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Does this count as conditional: "אם היה לי זמן, הייתי הולך."

im	hayá	li	zman,	hayiti	holéx.
if	was	me	time,	I-was	go.
If	I had		the time,	I would	go.

Dan ☺ 20:18, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Or: "אם מישהו היה טורח לספר לי, הייתי יודע."

im	míshehu	hayá toréax	lesapér	li,	hayíti	yodéa.
if	someone	was bother	to-tell	me,	I-was	know.
If	someone	had bothered	to tell	me,	I'd	have known.

Dan ☺ 20:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you're quite right. Modern Hebrew has an analytic conditional~past-habitual mood expressed with the auxiliary haya. Mo-Al (talk) 21:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, yes: "פעם הייתי הולך המון לקולנוע."

páam	hayíti	holéx	hamón	lakolnóa.
once	I-was	go	a-lot	to-the-cinema.
I used to		go	a lot	to the cinema.

Dan ☺ 11:06, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Duplicate Article Topics

This article opens by saying this is about Modern Hebrew Grammar, however, there is already an article called Modern Hebrew Grammar. Looking at the history of the Talk page for this article, it looks like the both the article and the talk were moved to Modern Hebrew Grammar and this article made into a disambig page (thus the talk's history begins in May of this year). However, looking at this article's history, it goes back to 2001, so there is something confusing going on. Looking at the Modern page, it's history begins in May of this year, but it's talk page goes back to 2005. Both articles are nearly identical — there are some minor changes between the two.
    I can only guess that it was decided that this article's name was bad considering the various stages of Hebrew had differing grammars (particularly comparing Modern with all the rest) and thus moved it. However, I'm guessing someone else wasn't happy with that and restored this article's contents, although the contents for the new article remained. The Talk pages were not restored by the second person. Thus, the two articles began evolving on their own paths since this past May.
    Considering there is now a Modern Hebrew Grammar article independent of this one which is a better article title, might I suggest that this article be turned into a disambiguation page, or some relation to that, directing people to the appropriate Hebrew grammar article (Biblical Hebrew grammar, Samaritan Hebrew grammar — both currently a sub-section of Biblical Hebrew — Modern Hebrew grammar, as well as Mishnaic). There is no need for two nearly identical articles on the same topic, and I feel the title of this one loses out to the stronger title of the other. — al-Shimoni (talk) 06:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. This page could be a summary of some of the important phenomena in Hebrew grammar in general, just like how the Greek language page gives a general summary of all the Greek varieties which have their own articles (e.g. Modern Greek, Koine Greek). Mo-Al (talk) 21:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That sounds good. There's plenty to add to such a page: shared grammar, important differences between varieties, changes that occurred as it went from PS to early Hebrew (Canaanite vowel shift, for example), early differences in the archaic phase (such as the possible differences between Israelian and Judean Hebrew), etc. — al-Shimoni (talk) 10:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'll move the contents of this article to Modern Hebrew grammar (since this one is more up-to-date) and change this page as suggested. Mo-Al (talk) 16:31, 22 July 2011 (UTC)