Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dexter Garnier" <dgarnier AT sohncom.org>]

posted recently:

> I dont see how you can get an "a" sound out of a segholate noun.  I dont
> think Aramaic is different than Hebrew in this respect.  But perhaps this
> discussion really belongs on b-aramaic.
>

The "a" sound is the Aramaic form for a noun with the definite article
suffixed (aleph and sometime heh), called the emphatic/determinative state
vs BH where the article is prefixed.

Syriac also has the emphatic state which has the "a" sound (with Syriac alaf
suffixed) but it had by that time weakened so that whether the noun is
determinative  or not is ambiguous (p. 40, Muroaka, _Classical Syriac for
Hebraists_). Though in Joosten, _Syriac Language of Peshitta and Old Syriac
Versions of Matthew_, the use of pronouns can help to distinguish a
determinative noun.

Dexter Garnier
San Francisco, CA