Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> Subject: Position of accent in Aramaic
> From: Pere Casanellas <pere.casanellas AT retemail.es>
> Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 14:24:25 +0200
 
> According to the literature I have at hand, accent was usually on
> the last syllable in ancient, official and middle Aramaic (including
> Palestinian and Galilean Aramaic), but it was usually on the
> penultimate syllable in late Aramaic (Samaritan, Syriac, Babylonian
> Aramaic) as it is in modern Aramaic (at least in the dialect of
> Ma'lula).  I would appreciate any comment on this.

All I know about is Biblical Aramaic (as transcribed in Tiberian), but
there the situation is more complex than "always penultimate" or
"always ultimate".  The Biblical Aramaic stress system is somewhat
like that of Biblical Hebrew (as transcribed in Tiberian), with a few
differences.

Biblical Hebrew stress can be described by saying that it descends
from a simple second millennium BCE stress system in which stress was
always on the syllable which was penultimate at that historical stage
of the language.  But the general deletion of word-final short vowels
which happened in the late second millennium BCE meant that many
former penultimate syllables now became word-final.  So after
word-final short vowel loss, a new generalization sprung up that words
which were consonant-final were stressed on their last syllable, while
words that ended in a long vowel stressed on their penultimate
syllable (since the vast majority of forms had ended in a vowel before
word-final short vowel loss, the new stress pattern based on a word's
consonant-final vs. vowel-final status meant that most forms were
still stressed on the same syllable as they had been during the
earlier penultimate-stress-with-short-final-vowels period).

In attested Tiberian Biblical Hebrew, stress placement is generally on
the same syllables as it was during the early 1st. millennium BCE (when
the "stress penultimate if vowel-final" generalization applied) --
i.e. on the syllable which was penultimate in the early 1st. millennium
BCE if the word was vowel-final in the early 1st. millennium BCE,
otherwise on the syllable which was word-final in the early
1st. millennium BCE.  However, a number of changes had come to affect
the vowel-final vs. consonant final status of words (thus there were
changes of word-final vowel+semivowel sequences to simple long vowels
in lamedh-he forms and certain endings, such as the masc.pl. construct
state ending, as well as the change of feminine -at endings to -aa in
"absolute" positions), while other changes affected the ultimate vs.
penultimate status of syllables (such as malk -> melekh segholate
epenthesis); and there also occurred stress shifts affecting words in
non-pausal environments (such as qaatAluu -> qaatLUU in the 3rd.
plur. perfect of the "strong" verb, etc.).  All of these changes
together mean that attested Tiberian Biblical Hebrew stress placement
is more complicated than the "if vowel final, then penultimate stress,
otherwise word-final" generalization of the early 1st. millennium BCE --
but the early 1st. millennium BCE rule can still be seen as determining
Biblical Hebrew stress at some level (especially if one recognizes the
distinction between synchronic "underlying" vs. "surface" forms
proposed in generative phonological theory).  All this is discussed in
my dissertation.

Biblical Aramaic stress is much like Biblical Hebrew, with the
differences that stress-shift of the qaatAluu -> qaatLUU type does not
occur in Aramaic, and segholate epenthesis is more restricted in
Aramaic than Hebrew, and often takes on a different form (when
epenthesis does occur in an originally word-final CVCC sequence in
Aramaic, the result is more likely to be C@CVC with schwa vowel in the
first syllable and stressed vowel in the second syllable, rather than
the CVCvC with stressed vowel in the first syllable which is the
common outcome in Hebrew).  Also, the "emphatic" (or definite article)
suffix acts as if it were historically or underlyingly consonant-final
(I have no idea what its ultimate etymology is).

So most of the time you can predict Biblical Aramaic stress by taking
into account the vowels of certain suffixes and morphological
formations which attract stress when word-final; and elsewhere, in the
forms where such special vowels do not occur (or are not in word-final
position if they do occur), applying the general early 1st. millennium
BCE "if word is vowel-final, then penultimate stress, otherwise
word-final stress" rule.

> So I suppose that the following Aramaic words which appear in the
> New Testament should be pronounced with the accent on the last
> syllable: abba (Mar 14:36; Gal 4:6; in spite of the pronounciation
> in modern Hebrew), raqa/reqa (Mat 5:22), talitha (Mar 5:40), effatha
> (Mar 7:34), rabbi (Joh 1:38), rabbuni (Joh 20:16)... But that the
> following words should be pronounced with the accent on the
> penultimate syllable: sabakhtani (Mar 15:34), Marana (1Cor 16:22).

Yes, the 1st.sg. possessive -ii ending is one of the special vowels
that takes stress when word-final, so that 1st.sg. possessed forms
would generally be stressed word-finally (though for some reason
'Abhii with penultimate stress occurs in most manuscripts of Daniel
5:13); while the -nii in shabhaqtanii does not have one of those
special stress-attracting vowels, so that shabhaqtanii would be
stressed on the penultimate syllable (and the same with "Marana").
"Abba" is apparently originally a children's hypocoristic, and such
words are often phonologically exceptional in languages, and I'm not
sure what the etymological origin of the final vowel in this form is,
so I decline to predict how "Abba" would be stressed according to the
Biblical Aramaic rules.  With the other forms, I don't know what their
exact original spelling and morphological status was...

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