Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> It is worth noting that almost all languages have the basic p, t and k
> sounds, but their fricative equivalents are relatively rare and absent
> in many languages.
>
I don't see any significant divergence of our views. I don't mean that Greek
phi was 100% fricative; likely, it was a hoarse sound. Similarly for
begedkefet.
My point is that word-initial pei sounded for LXX folks more like phi than
like pi. I assume you agree about this.
Neither the word-initial pei, nor phi were pure fricatives. But pi was
strong plosive. The Masoretic word-initial pei is a strict plosive,
contrasted to (non-dageshed) hoarse fricative pei elsewhere. Or, let pei be
aspirated plosive, I have no problem with that. Then the word-initial pei in
Masoretic phonology  is specifically less aspirated than certain other
pei's.
I don't argue about the exact sound, rather about the relative aspiration of
begedkefet with and without dagesh kal. Clearly, with dagesh kal the sound
is less aspirated.
The difference in aspiration is unrelated to inter-vocal position. Some
inter-vocal begedkefet's are plosives (second radical in hitpael); some
non-inter-vocal begedkefet's are fricatives--or, at any rate, aspirated
(third radical in smihit plural).
No language, as far as I know, consistently and significantly reduces
aspiration of the second-in-a-row consonant (that is, the one after closed
syllable or word-initial). Yet, we assume Masoretes heard what they wrote
down.
There is one environment, in which second-in-a-row consonant loses
aspiration: opera singing with lower part of larynx. This happens because of
the inter-consonantal stop (intermission), introduced to avoid jamming the
second-in-a-row consonant.

> >>Vadim, I was trained in phonetics to hear small sound differences
> >
> >But try asking peas traders at your local market to do likewise.
> >
> The Masoretes were not market traders, they were expert linguists who
> trained themselves to hear fine phonetic distinctions.
> ...
This seems kind of unprecendented, isn't it? Besides, they indeed were
traders.
But they could clearly hear the subtle differences--in singing, where accent
and elongation reveal the subtleties.

Vadim Cherny