The Direct Object Marker /t-/ in Bar-Kosiba Hebrew: A Manifestation of Widespread Vowel Prosthesis in Post-Biblical Hebrew

What it is about

The full text is not in the library; this card rests on the abstract on the publisher's page, and its ideas are provisional. In the Bar-Kosiba (Bar Kokhba) letters of about 134–135 CE the object marker אֵת appears as a reduced t- written onto the next word, not only onto the article (ת־ה… > תה…) but also onto the interrogative מִי and other words. The usual account says t- came from אֵת fused with the article and then spread by analogy. Bunis argues instead from a sound change: post-Biblical Hebrew widely added a prosthetic vowel before initial consonant clusters, especially after the prepositions b- and l-, which made "et + CV-" sound just like "t- + prosthetic vowel + CV-"; speakers reanalysed the marker as a prefix t- on that model.

Ideas

I1. In the comparison chapter, add the Bar-Kosiba t- as a dated step in the history of אֵת between Biblical את/־אֶת and Mishnaic Hebrew, with the two competing explanations and no verdict.
I2. For any future tokenizer of non-Biblical Hebrew (letters, Mishnah manuscripts), a word-initial ת before ה or a noun should be tried as a split candidate (object marker + word), the way MACULA already splits prefixes; record it as a known variant, not a rule for the Torah.

For Mova

I1 is text for languages/hbo/12-biblical-mishnaic-modern.md and 11-mishnaic.md (pronouns and particles), and a cross-reference from 05-pronouns-particles.md (the object marker). I2 is a note for chapter 13's gaps (tokenizing texts outside MACULA). Nothing here changes the Torah trees.

Institutions

🎓University of HaifaHaifa ·

Israel21 works · 427 citations

Topics Hebrew & Aramaic Semitic languages

Cite

Cite as Ivri J. Bunis. 2025. The Direct Object Marker /t-/ in Bar-Kosiba Hebrew: A Manifestation of Widespread Vowel Prosthesis in Post-Biblical Hebrew. Journal of Semitic Studies.

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.1093/jss/fgaf008

@article{bunis2025direct,
  title = {{The Direct Object Marker /t-/ in Bar-Kosiba Hebrew: A Manifestation of Widespread Vowel Prosthesis in Post-Biblical Hebrew}},
  author = {Ivri J. Bunis},
  journal = {Journal of Semitic Studies},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1093/jss/fgaf008},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgaf008}
}

This page in Markdown → https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/bunis-2025-direct-object-marker-t-bar/

📄 The Direct Object Marker /t-/ in Bar-Kosiba Hebrew: A Manifestation of Widespread Vowel Prosthesis in Post-Biblical Hebrew