Biblical Hebrew Forum

[decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)]

hi henry,

how are things? haven't heard from you in a while: hoping all is well.

i'm interested in all *ai. regarding the so-called segholates, you will
remember that i argue that the form was *bayat: but in any case, we're
agreed those are not the interesting ones.

but maybe you can help me work through the logic of a specific case...

e.g., &DH "field", also &DY. the distribution of the forms suggests ca
600-500, the form is &DY; but persian hebrew is &DH, with the loss of the
consonant. assuming the dating/distribution is correct, we'd have a case
here for watching the diphthong > monophthong.

so maybe with enough worked examples we could build a cumulative case for
the diphthong in early hebrew. hmmm. have to sit down with the
epigraphical material again.....

it just seems to me the real problem is the orthographic usefulness of
retaining a yod that has phonetically fallen silent. and maybe there is
the problem also of phonemic spelling. too complicated, and i'm too doped
up on cold remedies....  ;-)

can you think of other contrasts like &DY/&DH...?  (&RY/&RH maybe?)

sholom
V -- 
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Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/
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Love work. Hate authority.  --Shemaiah, from Avot