Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

many thanks to naama, bill and yigal for prompt and thoughtful replies. 
let me revisit my original questions in light of their comments.

(1) re poetic chant:
one important crux is the use of *both* systems in the book of job. what 
one would consider prose vs poetry receive different systems of chant. 
something deeper is going on. but why?

further, as the work of Price made clear, the two systems have *major* 
differences, at least: (i) the organization of verses (the D0/D1 accent 
system); (ii) the restricted articulation of conjunctive phrases (poetry 
is limited to a maximum of one conjunctive accent vs. majority system); 
(iii) poetry accents are sensitive to a greater degree to the type and 
number of syllables of words. but why?

the two-group theory would make all this seem accidental ... , wouldn't 
it?

(1b) re music and metre:
bill offered the standard response, in a forceful manner. but here's the 
problem: since Weil we are reasonably sure that the tiberian accent is 
underlyingly a two-tone rising contour---the musical equivalent of a 
quantity-insensitive iamb. now, if you study the tiberian phonology long 
enough, you'll find it is fundamentally iambic as well. this to my mind 
would be a wild co-incidence ... the work of khan and revell on feet and 
stress-shifting should not be divorced from the chant, or so it seems ...

(2) re metre and consequences:
i think there are several. donald vance, in his published dissertation 
(2001), makes it very clear the metre and textual emendation are 
intimately related: nothing less than the text-critical warrant of "metri 
causa" (for the sake of metre) is at stake. i think the rejection of metre 
has very much to do with the reaction against the 19th-century german 
craze for free emendation, and indeed the whole critical movement.

can we talk about a politics or ideology of hebrew grammar? maybe. my own 
work on tense/aspect has revealed a lot more going on in germany ca. 
1800-1850, for example.

shalom,
V
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Dr Vincent DeCaen
Adjunct Professor
Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto
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Donner son consentement, c'est volontaire.