Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jason Hare" <jason AT hareplay.com>]

> This is part of the reason that I don't think the Masoretes were all
> that concerned with vocal vs. silent shva. Why use only one mark, if
> there are two distinct sounds (or lack thereof) to represent?

The same could be said of the kametz and the kametz-chatuf. The fact is that
the long "a" and the short "o" are really two distinct sounds, but the
Massoretes didn't hear them differently. We generally use the Sefardic
pronunciation. Why not just agree with the normative Jewish pronunciations
(take your pick)? That would get us past this. If you want to maintain a
puritan position in this regard, does it matter that the rest of us will
still pronounce it the way were hear in synagogue or on the streets (those
who are in Israel [or New York])? What if the half-lengthening has really no
effect on the meaning of the word? Or are you only arguing that a separate
allophone-pardon me, I have only studied phonetics in Spanish, so this is my
variation of /alófono/. If "allophone" is an English word, I don't
know-should be used?

> Actually, it's from Jouon. Maybe he got some of the idea from Gesenius,
> but I'd hesitate to say that he just bought into someone else's idea.
> Jouon had his own ideas (not always rightly, IMO). Regardless of where
> it comes from, I think the argument stands that there ought to be some
> explanation for why the dagesh could drop out and leave a short vowel in
> an apparently open syllable. By comparison, the loss of consonantal alef
> at the end of a syllable produces the characteristic voweling of an open
> syllable.

An /apparenlty/ open syllable. That is like asking why the chet takes
implicit doubling and can keep the syllable before it "apparently" open. The
fact is... it's a functionally closed syllable. Perhaps pronouncing the
double consonant without a vowel following was a pain, and for euphonic
reasons it was dropped (even as stated earlier in this thread). That makes
perfect sense to me.

Regards,
Jason