מה בין שרפה לשריפה בלשון חכמים למסורותיה: עיון מחודש בשמות הפעולה של הבניין הקל

The verbal noun שְׂרִיפָה ('burning’) in Rabbinic Hebrew and its biblical counterpart שְׂרֵפָה (‘fire’) are in contrast to each other both in form and in function. This contrast is not, as has been suggested, a simple alternation between nominal patterns or between vowels, but rather part of a wide morphological change in Rabbinic Hebrew: the transition of the verbal nouns into a grammatical category, which can be seen in other forms and other nominal patterns as well. The inherited biblical forms that, like שְׂרֵפָה, did not fit the new alignment and were no longer considered appropriate verbal nouns, were kept in use, but for expressing the verbal noun they were often replaced by other patterns.