Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jean Balcaen <jbalcaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>]

Hi,

First, my apologies for taking so long to reply - my computer, never the
best of machines, is suffering from a host of maladies.

Thanks to Emanuel Fishman for the suggestion on where to find search tools
- once I get a computer that can handle real internet (Nov. 3rd, I'm
told), that will be one of the first stops.

Henry Churchyard - I agree that the long vowels in qo.sht. and ne.rd are
due to tonic lengthening, as there doesn't appear to be any other
mechanism that could lengthen them.  However, the /e/ and /o/ type
geminate monosyllables like _h.e.s._ and _h.o.q_ aren't
sensitive to main stress at all.  They have long vowels in construct OR
with maqqef (again, sometimes short due to other factors), unlike forms
like _?et_ which have short vowels with maqqef, long otherwise, or
non-geminate constructs which follow the syntax.  Since the presence or
absence of main stress ('abstract' or otherwise) doesn't seem to have any
effect on vowel length with geminate monosyl's, it seems reasonable to
look for another explanation.  As this language is positively rife with
compensatory lengthening, why not that? instead of introducing massive
complications into the already overly-complex problem of tonic
lengthening.

In any case, even if we agree to disagree on the precise mechanism of
vowel lengthening in these forms, I still have to come up with a reason
why the vowels of [a] type forms pattern so differently.  

I get the feeling this is a nastier problem than I first thought.

Thanks,

JB