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  • From: "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
  • To: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
  • Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 10:14:58 +0100


From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth AT gmail.com>:


1. Arnaud katav

[...]



4. Glottalized emphatics: lost

This assumes that the Ethiopic languages are preserving the
original sound and are not areal features borrowed from Cushitic.
of course, even with 'retracted-tongue-root' "emphatics" one
still has to deal with Tet and Qof assimilating to tav and kaf.
Also, Sa(de) with samex (but see #8 below).

***
Hebrew itself very clearly indicates that emphatics must have been
glottalized in Ancient Hebrew, as vowels are not at all colored in any way
by emphatics.
Conclusive.
A.

Actually, the vowels were distinctly colored by fricative (non-stops)
consonants Het and `ayin. It is true that Tet and Qof did not emically affect
vowels, but this was when recorded at a period (9th-10CE) when we are
fairly certain that they were using 'retracted-tongue-root' co-articulation as
in Arabic. Yet the vowels did not change with Tet and Qof. But vowels did
change subphonemically with Het and `ayin, like with the 'a'
helping vowels that were added to final Het and `ayin.

***
Yes,
but what you are saying actually confirms that neither Tet nor Qof had the same articulatory feature as Het and (ayin, which are pharyngeal.
Hence we are back to the conclusion that Tet and Qof were glottalized (nor pharyngealized, or even less likely uvularized or else).
You did not mention tsade, I suppose it belongs to this latter group as well.
A.
***


[...]


7. Laterals fricatives: lost

This was already lost in some dialects by the time Ahiram and Shlomo
were talking to each other (10 BCE), as evidenced by the Phoenician
alphabet.

How do you explain Greek ba-ls-am < baSam "perfume" then?
When do you think this word was borrowed into Greek?
A.

I don't know when it was borrowed, but the Phoenician alphabet didn't
have a symbol for a lateral fricative, nor Ugaritic. So either it was
very early,
second millenium, or some north-coastal dialects were preserving archaic
features that apparently were part of the prestige dialect in the south
(Jerusalem).
***
I very much disagree here.

I've carefully studied the meager remains of Hurrian written in Ugaritic and there are clearly signals that the situation is different.

Conventional transliteration:

ˀa b g X d h w z H t.­ s y k $ l m D n ­$z s ( p tz q r S G ˀi ˀu (s2)

The following letters are used in Hurrian

ˀa b g X d - w z - -­ s y k $ l m D n - s - p - - r S G ˀi ˀu -

Generally speaking, it can be noted that the emphatic (and pharyngeal) letters are not used.

What is more intriguing is that two letters, namely $ and S are used to write cuneiform <s^> and they are not used at random.
It happens that the allomorphy of the Hurrian plural absolutive marker -lla / -s^ in cuneiform is nearly always rendered as l / $, suggesting that there was something special about this morpheme that made it different from S, which is used most of time. Two other words are written with $ instead of S: e$e "earth" and Ala$iya "Cyprus".
I tend to think that $ is really a lateral fricative both in Hurrian and in Ugaritic.
Logically -ll- in Hurrian cuneiform should be a voiceless lateral something, and that something precisely alternates with $. Strange no?
I can't believe this is a chance coincidence that Ugaritic sin is used for a voiceless lateral something.

In my opinion, the conventional transliteration for Ugaritic is:
z real value [dz]
s real value [ts] tsamekh
$ real value [$L] voiceless lateral fricative sin
D real value [z]
$z real value [$L?] glottalized lateral fricative
tz real value [ts?] glottalized affricate tzade
S real value [s] shin

Now I let you explain why Ugaritic speakers distinguish $ and $z from tz, and $ from S.

And why Greek speakers heard ba$am to be like balsam.

A.
***


8. Affricates: lost (except Tsade)

Tsade emically preserves what may have been a pharyngealized sibilant.

It represents the fusion of a glottalized affricate and a glottalized
lateral stop.
A.

You are referring to the loss of a proto-Semitic sound that merged into
'pharygealized-d [=retrated tongue root co-articulation]' in Arabic,
retracted-tonue-root k in early Aramaic, and 'ts/retracted tongue root s
in Hebrew and Ugaritic. As far as we can tell, this sound was not part of
biblical Hebrew, so it wasn't lost. It hadn't been inherited.
***
yes
the sound was lost, but the words which contained it survived with tzade as replacement.
A.
***

[...]

***
This is like saying that English when read with French prosody and French
letter values is not a major blockage.
I consider this to be nonsense.
A.

Your nonsense is actually my experience.
I've read English to people while using approximate
Chaucerian phonological values and they are able to understand and
to follow, though they find it quite amusing. Especially when they find
out that English actually sounded like that. This is not too different
from using your 'French letter values'. However, in the English
case the vowels have moved into other phnemic areas and moved
the whole system around, while the Hebrew vowels tended to stay
in the same place in the mouth while they lost length and then re-fitted
themselves into syllable patterns CV and CVC.
***
I once had courses from a phonologist who had it a bit provocatively that you don't need to learn English vowels: just utter the consonants, add schwas, put stress in the right places and people will understand you.
Arnaud Fournet
***








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