Biblical Hebrew Forum

["VC" <vadim_lv AT center-tv.net>]

Dear Harold,

> 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.

I see two problems with this argument, besides my belief that short vowels
are a very late development in the language.
Firstly, there should have been dagesh in the second consonant.
Secondly, would you give me another example of CVsCVsC, where Vs is short
vowel, turning into CVCC? I fail to see any phonetic reasoning behind such
change.


Sincerely,

Vadim Cherny