Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Joshua AT can-do.net" <joshua AT can-do.net>]

Shalom list :)

The recent discussion related to shewa and its pronunciation has raised some
questions in my mind. The first is thus: If there are two types of shewa
(vocal and quiescent/silent), why did the Massoretic scribes not distinguish
between them as they do for all the other vowels (less qamets / qamets
chatuf)?

My second question is, if there is a difference, how certain are we that the
"rules" described in introductory grammars are the ones the Massoretes
intended? Joüon §8b indicates the basic system we follow was explained in
the 15th c., but he notes that even these were not absolutes. Further
confusing the issue is that he notes that some would argue a shewa after a
long vowel is generally silent also. Does the Hexapala and other ancient
works throw any light on this issue and allow us to come to some basic
conclusions, or are we in the dark at the present time?

And how can we relate what we know to finding two shewa's back to back in a
word? If the second shewa was silent, words like miš-pe-têy (MŠPTY) would
become something like mišp-têy with an internal cluster of consonants. It
would appear Hebrew tries (tried?) to avoid such consonant clusters (even
words with diphthongs like *bayt become bayit with an anaptyctic vowel; the
exception being at the end of the word, like kâ-tavt KTBT). If silent, I
guess it would beg the question: Did Hebrew try to avoid consonant clusters?
Maybe in the Biblical period the native Hebrew speaker would have had no
problem with internal consonant clusters. Can anyone provide some insights
on this?

I know the above questions really assumes there was only one "right" way to
do this (I would guess this was not so) and ignores dialect altogether and
anachronistically reads the oral reading tradition of the Massoretes back
into the text--so please do not shoot me! But I would love to see some
discussing (or some references) that shed some light on this subject.

When I was first learning to read Hebrew I had great difficulty with the
shewa because the grammars available to me at that time explained the rules
differently and, at times, (seemed) to disagree on when it was/was not
pronounced. Is this ambiguity (and possible disagreements) due to a general
disagreement on when Shewa should/should not be pronounced?

Thanks for reading my questions :) Sincerely, Joshua