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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Dagesh - a different sound or aspiration?

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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: Petr Tomasek <tomasek AT etf.cuni.cz>
  • Cc: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "R. Lehmann" <lehmann AT uni-mainz.de>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dagesh - a different sound or aspiration?
  • Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:14:26 +0100

Hi,

Quoting Petr Tomasek <tomasek AT etf.cuni.cz>:

Whatever the consensus might be (and I do not agree with Kevin
Riley), there is still a general problem with dageshes and single
points in the middle of letters at all, i.e. including dagesh lene/
forte, Shureq and Mappiq:

Why do You think, they all present the same linguistic/textual phenomene?

I'd rather see the dagesh as remnant of the "diacritic point" (see
e.g. in syriac the oldest text had only those "diacritic points"
and all the punctuation developed from it).

Even in tiberian masoretic texts the dagesh clearly has several
distinct functions:
- dagesh lene
- dagesh forte
- mapiq
- discernive dagesh
- dehiq/ate merahiq (=conjuctive dagesh?)
- shuruq/ḥolem

In BP a dagesh is sometimes even used to distinguish between holy
and profane usage of the word EL ("god" versus "God"), i.e. it
hardly can be connected with any phonetic feature.


Now this has to be about the most sensible comment I've read all day. Rather than being an unambiguous aid to pronunciation here we are talking about an all purpose marker used to bring the reader's attention to something or to remind the copyist of how something should be understood. While the dagesh is really a spot it is perhaps better understood as the X that marks the spot than the spot that marks the X.

James Christian




Simply, a point in the middle of a consonant denotes forced,
amplified or accelerated pronounciation of that consonant. Depending
on A. kind of consonant, and B. phonemic environment, and maybe C.
syntactical environment, this amplification has different effects,
which we are familiar with by the wellknown dageshing rules, Shureq(-
u) pronounciation of Waw, or viceless laryngal of final He (which is
the rule at the beginning and middle of a word).

Thus, yes:
> - presumably, dagesh always means the same thing, whether a change of
> aspiration or a new sound (sibilant?)

but with different effects, depending on … (see above).

And this:
> - in some environments (yeshobhebh), the aspirated versions are nearly
> unpronounceable.

By no means it is. At least not for a German native speaker ;-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Reinhard G. Lehmann
Academic Director
Research Unit on Ancient Hebrew & Epigraphy
FB 01/ Faculty of Protestant Theology
Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz
D-55099 Mainz
Germany
lehmann AT uni-mainz.de
http://www.hebraistik.uni-mainz.de
http://www.ev.theologie.uni-mainz.de/297.php

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