Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT usa.net>]

> Subject: Niqud & Cantillation
> From: <gs02wmr AT panther.Gsu.EDU>
> Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 22:24:48 -0500 (EST)
 
> can someone provide a clear, layman explanation as to how accents
> like 'Teamey Hamiqra' and Niqud points can alter the entire meaning
> of a word, esp. when dealing with Biblical hebrew and it's
> interpretation...???

The role of vowel points, dagesh, etc. (segmental pointing) is
extremely obvious here.  The actual "accents" (i.e. conjunctives and
disjunctives) can provide a larger syntactic context to words within
the verse (cf. _bamidbar_ in Isaiah 40:3), and can disambiguate some
forms that are otherwise identical except for stress positioning (e.g
_qamA_ feminine singular participle vs. _qAma_ 3rd. person feminine
singular perfect finite verb).  In none of these cases does the
pointing directly "alter the meaning" of a word; rather, the pointing
provides additional phonological information about what is denoted by
an orthographic entity, so that there is much less ambiguity about the
exact phonological form denoted by the orthography.

--
Henry Churchyard   churchh AT usa.net   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/