Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Vadim,

> Thank you for the reference. I see that DeCaen also belives in CVCVC origin
> of segholates, unlike Gesenius. However, DeCaen concentrates on late
> Tiberian dialect when, indeed, the second vowel turned into shwa. I try to
> answer why this transformation took place.

HH: I think DeCaen was agreeing with Gesenius. After all, he cites 
the same section of GKC that Peter Kirk earlier mentioned, and that 
section says:

The supposition of monosyllabic ground-forms appeared to be required 
by the character of forms now existing in Hebrew, as well as in 
Arabic, etc. But there are strong reasons for believing that at least 
a large proportion of these forms go back to original dissyllabic 
bases with a short vowel in each syllable.

HH: The word "dissyllabic" corresponds in meaning to the form CVCVC 
given by DeCaen. The prefix "di-" implies "two." The theory is that 
these CVCVC forms eventually shortened to the monosyllabic segholate 
forms, which later regained a final vowel syllable. So the 
development in syllables was 2-1-2.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard