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  • From: "Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT usa.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Niqud & Cantillation
  • Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 13:40:18 -0600 (CST)


> 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/



  • Re: Niqud & Cantillation, Henry Churchyard, 02/19/2000

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