About "Speaking" that Is not "Saying": A Survey of Verbs of Speech Production in Mishnaic Hebrew

The verb class of saying in Mishnaic Hebrew contains numerous verbs covering varied areas of meanings. This paper will discuss one type of verbs of saying-verbs of speech production that denote a basic act of saying-the production of verbal content by a person. Part One will define the terms "saying" and "speaking" and clarify the place of verb class of speech production within the larger group of verbs of saying. Part Two will discuss the use of the six verbs of speech production in Mishnaic Hebrew: [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="01i" /]. An examination of the deployment of these verbs shows that of the six verbs in the group, three occur less frequently and that the verbs are used in halakhic rather than narrative contexts. The stock of verbs in the group is very scanty in comparison to the parallel biblical group: no new verbs of speech production beyond those found in the Bible can be found in Mishnaic Hebrew, which lacks about half of the verbs of speech production that appear in the Bible. Part Three will discuss the syntactic frame of the verbs of speech production, which has been found to be different from the general syntactic frame of verbs of saying, with regard to both complements and adverbials.