Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

dear matthew,
very good questions. see what i can do...

who were native BH speakers? wish i knew! all we can say is that the
tiberian circle preserved the most detailed, accurate and conservative
rendering as recognized by contemporaries. i assume that it would not
have been a native language for scribes ca. 1000 of this era, but i
believe for specialists, it may have been a fluent use of a second
language. who knows? pretty darn impressive accomplishment,
nontheless.

re derivations. i take a more parallel-processing approach, assuming
that phonology and syntax interact at an interface. on this view, the
syntactic representation would have to be a surface rep, to the extent
that means anything nowadays (the days of transformations are pretty
much over).

re derivations of pausal forms. i assume that the output of the
phonology is *pausal* phonology. i derive contextual forms by simple
rules from these. so a phonological derivation outputs, say, [kotovo]
(3fs past tense) from /kotob + ot/; a contextual rule of syncopation
gives the further [kotvo].

re mapping from syntax. very complicated if you don't have syntax and
prosodic theory under your belt. but let me explain in brief my
current project.

1. observation: pausal forms obtain systematically before particle ki
when *not* marking object of verbs of cognition (fail before ki with
"know" "hear" etc).
2. theory: ki as diagnostic of pausal environments.
3. study: look at forms before ki to describe pausal phenomenology
4. goal: theoretically characterize pausal phonology; establish nature
of pause/accent interaction
5. status: finishing database now (a whole lot of ki's!); draft paper
should be finished by month's end.
6. basic findings. two degrees of pause confirmed: major and minor.
two types of pausal alternations: stress-shifters, quality-shifters.
while stress-shifters show pause in both major and minor environments;
quality-shifters show pausal variant only in major pause.
7. twist. the pathah/qametz alternation in final syllable of verb
forms patterns with shifters, somewhat unexpectedly.

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