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  • From: Henry Churchyard <churchyh AT ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: 8 tiberian vowels
  • Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 20:19:48 -0500 (CDT)


> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 15:50:33 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>

> 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.

That's a reasonable featural analysis of the 7-basic-quality or
abstract "Ashkenazi" type vowel system (though you might just as well
call privative [back] as privative [round] instead, and this analysis
doesn't show a tense/lax distinction between s.ere and s@ghol, or
between h.olem and qames., which is where the tenseness, or tongue
root, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it contrast came into play in
traditional analyses of such seven-vowel-quality systems). However,
this doesn't really answer the question of which vowel system or
pronunciation tradition leads to the most insightful analysis of
Tiberian Hebrew phonology as a whole. I present my own conclusions in
section 1.4 of my dissertation. The lack of featural specification of
sh@wa agrees with the idea of Tiberian surface sh@wa being the
realization of relic featureless vowels of earlier stages of the
synchronic phonological derivation which do not happen to have
received a specific features by any subsequent phonological process.
Malone has a slightly different variation of a similar idea.


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

I assume so, though they sent the diploma to my mother, and she hasn't
forwarded it to me, so I haven't cast eyes on the actual sheepskin ;-)

--%!PS
10 10 scale/M{rmoveto}def/R{rlineto}def 12 45 moveto 0 5 R 4 -1 M 5.5 0 R
currentpoint 3 sub 3 90 0 arcn 0 -6 R 7.54 10.28 M 2.7067 -9.28 R -5.6333
2 setlinewidth 0 R 9.8867 8 M 7 0 R 0 -9 R -6 4 M 0 -4 R stroke showpage
% Henry Churchyard http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/




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