[b-hebrew] Any meaning to the Dagesh?
Brak
Brak at neo.rr.com
Fri Feb 20 14:54:01 EST 2009
Yitzhak,
You said that another way of asking my question is "is gemination phonemic?"
I don't know if you are right, as even after looking up these words do I
understand what this phrase means. lol
So lets just keep my question as I asked it:
Does the presence/absence of a dagesh (any type of dagesh - this even
includes the mapiq) alone effect a change of any kind (excluding the
obvious change in pronunciation)?
The words in the example that you gave via link does not apply to my
question, - as there are differences in the words in addition to the
presence/absence of the dagesh:
<MIL.FH> and <MIYLFH> - one has a YOD while the other doesn't.
<MIN.IY> and <MIYNIY> - one has a YOD while the other doesn't.
<(UL.F.H.> and <(W.LFH.> - one has a qibbuts while the other has a shureq.
The example of <)AL:P"Y> and <)AL:P."Y> isn't helpful as the word
<)AL:P."Y> doesn't exist in the Bible.
So does the dagesh alone effect any kind of non-pronunciation change to
a word?
B"H
John Steven
Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 12:00 AM, John Steven wrote:
>
>> I was wondering, does the presence/absence of the dagesh alone change
>> the meaning of the word in any way?
>> Now I understand that sometimes when words changed form that a dagesh
>> may be added/removed - but as far as I know it is always accompanied
>> with vowel changes as well.
>> So I am wondering if there is ever a case where you have the exact same
>> letters and vowels, but different Dagesh configuration which will have
>> different meanings?
>>
>> To give an example of what I mean:
>> B.:R")$IYT
>> B:R")$IYT
>> Different Dagesh configuration - same meaning.
>>
>
> What you're asking in linguistic terms is: is gemination phonemic?
> You even go so far so as to describe a minimal pair -- two words that
> have different meanings but differ on only one phonetic difference,
> indicating that phonetic difference has implications for meanings of
> words.
>
> The question should be considered separately for the dagesh forte (the
> doubling/gemination) and dagesh plene (the one in bgdkpt, which is what
> you have in your example). You also have to realize that the question
> deals with the Tiberian Hebrew vocalization, where you find the dagesh.
> A similar question can be asked for the vocalization of ancient Hebrew
> but for that you have to deal with reconstructing words and their
> pronunciation. For the dagesh forte, see the minimal pairs here:
> http://books.google.com/books?id=s1MSQuK_gi0C&pg=PA70
> (I think the minimal pairs are hypothetical though, in the sense that
> in each pair, one word may not be present in the Bible in that exact
> inflection. However, we realize that in the Biblical language, this is
> how the word would be vocalized, had the Biblical author used that
> inflection).
>
> For dagesh plene (the spirantization issue), there is an example of alpe
> ("two thousand of") vs alfe ("thousands of"). But see the following
> comment in the same book:
> http://books.google.com/books?id=s1MSQuK_gi0C&pg=PA494
> In the article mentioned in the footnote he argues that it is questionable
> whether the dual would have been used in the construct state, in such
> a situation. That is, it is not clear that there really could have been a
> word "alpe."
>
> A different more simpler question may be: Can I read the Bible without
> having to force my pronunciation? The answer is yes. The differences
> are subtle, and many modern Israelis when reading the Bible are not
> directly aware of them (they assume that Biblical Hebrew is close to
> modern Hebrew and in modern Hebrew, gemination does not exist).
> However, you will miss out on the subtle differences, and on important
> clues that will allow you to tell various forms one from another.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
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