[b-hebrew] dot in shin sin

Vadim Cherny him at vadimcherny.org
Thu May 8 05:59:27 EDT 2008


Dear all,

As some of you might remember from the previous discussions on this 
list, I advocate the theory that dagesh (both kal and hazak) is a stop. 
Specifically, dagesh hazak is a post-tonic geminative stop, and dagesh 
kal is interconsonantal stop meant to force syllabification. Both 
dageshes are designed to prevent jamming: hazak prevents jamming of the 
post-tonic vowel (mitlAb'sh - mitlA.bbesh) and kal prevents jamming of 
first consonant in the cluster (ni-zcar - ni-'car, but niz.car).

With that in mind, I'd venture an explanation for shin-sin difference 
which I haven't seen before. Dot in shin-sin functions like soft-hard 
signs in Russian. A {she} syllable, for example, would be pronounced 
with the soft sign like sh[ee].  The point is, shin and sin is the same 
letter, the difference being purely environmental.
Sameh, then, is [s] while sin is softened [sh]. It is possible that in 
some words with harsh meaning sameh evolved into sin due to hard 
pronunciation (e.g., savah with sameh - svah, bars, with sin).

I'd like to welcome your opinions.

Vadim Cherny


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