Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>]

dear henry,
we're using privative features, and as you might guess, that allows
the logical possibility of the completely underspecified vowel, in
this case, represented as schwa.
so we argue that the tiberian system is phonemic after all, as might
otherwise be expected. this addresses some of goerwitz's major
theoretical beefs, btw.
using the standard electronic transcription: I,",E,A,F,O,U,:

                front   0       back
hi      ATR     I               U
hi      0       "               O
0       0       E       :       F
0       RTR             A

what's interesting here is the descriptive power of having <:>, the
schwa, as a wildcard. very nice. also gives you very surfacy
phonology, very OTish.

so wanted to doublecheck: it's doctor henry, now?

cheers
V
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Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/
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The mind takes to a new idea the way the body takes to microbe:
It rejects it.  --P.D. Medawar