[b-hebrew] Hebrew grammar books
Isaac Fried
if at math.bu.edu
Sun Jul 6 22:34:08 EDT 2008
On page 82 Jouon and Muraoka say concerning the dagesh "dirimens"
that "The gemination, together with the resultant shewa, produces
something like a separation between the syllables". It is not clear
to me where they got this "gemination", or what "something like" is
supposed to mean, but isn't the dagesh in the N of (INBEY and in the
Q of (IQBEI just a punctuation hint?
On page 79 they have or us even "spontaneous gemination", supposedly
occurring frequently after the vowel A as in ADOM -> )ADUMM-AH, GAMAL
-> GMALL-IM, (AQRAB -> (AQRABB-IM, $APAN -> $PANN-IM, QATAN -> QTANN-
AH, QTANN-IM, HADAS -> HADASS-IM, ZMAN -> ZMANN-IM, )AGAM -> )AGAMM-
IM. But what is the purpose of this dagesh, to cue spontaneity?
On page 78 they have this mathematical gem: "From Biblical Aramaic,
in which there is virtual gemination as in Hebrew, it emerges that
this gemination was not null, but a semi-gemination, a length of
intermediate degree."
It is also not clear to me how a gemination can be REQUIRED by the
VERY NATURE of the [verbal] FORM.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
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