Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Henry Churchyard <churchyh AT ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>]

> From: Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
>> From: alfred.silberman AT lmco.com (Al Silberman)
>>> From: Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>

>>> qametz qatan is an innovation, indeed a fiction.

The distinction between qamets qat.an (qamets h.at.uph) and ordinary
(long) qamets may or may not have been part of the Tiberian system
itself, and this can be debated at length, but there's no doubt at all
that there is a real distinction between two separate vowel sounds in
some pronunciation traditions (where qamets qat.an corresponds to
Proto-Semitic *u and long qamets corresponds to Proto-Semitic *a, for
one thing); so the minute you write one of these traditions with the
Tiberian vowel-diacritic orthography, then a distinction between
qamets qat.an and long qamets automatically emerges -- and this means
that the distinction is _not_ "fictional" in the sense of being
phoney, or created out of nothing.

And it's not so clear that such a distinction has nothing to do with
the Tiberian tradition either; for one thing, a when you have a
pre-main-stress qametz qat.an followed by a guttural consonant +
h.at.eph vowel, the h.at.eph vowel is h.at.eph-qamets, following the
general tendency for h.at.eph vowels to harmonize with a preceding
short vowel across a guttural consonant.  But if you have a
pre-main-stress long qametz followed by a guttural consonant +
h.at.eph vowel, the h.at.eph vowel is h.at.eph-pathah., as generally
occurs after long vowels (there is no harmonization of h.at.eph vowels
with a long vowel of preceding syllable across a guttural consonant).

Compare the h.at.eph vowels of the second syllables of these words:

 paa`aluu        "They made"           Psalm 119:3
 po`oloo         "His work"            Psalm 111:3
 poo`aloo        "His work"            Jeremiah 22:13

(The third form is the same as the second form, but with a lengthening
of the vowel in the first syllable which causes a lack of
harmonization with the h.at.eph vowel across the `ayin.)

>>> sources with bibliography to follow this up: Geoffrey Kahn, "Vowel
>>> Length and Syllable Structure in the Tiberian Tradition of
>>> Biblical Hebrew" Journal of Semitic Studies 1987; Richard
>>> Goerwitz, "Tiberian Hebrew Pausal Forms" U Chicago diss, 1993;
>>> Johnson and Goerwitz, "A Simple Practical System for
>>> Transliterating Tiberian Hebrew Vowels" Hebrew Studies 1995

Khan's Qara'ite manuscripts are interesting, but it's not clear that
he succeeds in closely tying them in to exactly the same time, place,
and social group as the Tiberian Massoretes, and the Arabic
orthography kind of obscures the details of the overall vowel system
which is being transcribed (though not certain critical details
discussed by Khan, it is true), and this makes it difficult to relate
it to other more precisely attested pronunciation traditions.

>> I have not seen anyone seriously address the various pronunciation
>> traditions in Judaism and THEN come up with a theory.

> everyone attests to the consistent and accurate reading of qametz as
> open o in the Tiberian tradition.

Not necessarily.  For a discussion of the qamets qat.an vs. long
qamets distinction which relies on both internal evidence of Tiberian
phonology (such as paa`aluu/po`oloo/poo`aloo mentioned above), and the
historical evolution from the Proto-Semitic vowel system to the vowel
systems of the attested pronunciation traditions, and which is some
degree a reply to Johnson and Goerwitz 1995 (or rather to earlier
e-mail discussions between myself and Richard Goerwitz on the
subject), you can look at a preliminary excerpt from one of my
dissertation chapters, in compressed .PDF format, at this location:

          http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~churchyh/chp1xcpt.zip

(Versions of the Adobe Acrobat reader, necessary to read this file
after you've un-ZIPped it, are available from the Adobe.com web-site.)

--
         --Henry Churchyard     churchyh AT ccwf.cc.utexas.edu