Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> >The Masoretes wrote nothing about gemination ...
>
> They did. They wrote long books about such things, in very difficult
Hebrew.
>
Those were written by latter scholars in the attempt to explain the MT, in a
sense, to distill grammar from phonology. I'm not aware of grammar books
written by the Masoretes.

> >... or plosification. ...
>
> Of course not, because this exists only in your imagination.
>
Peter, if you want to reject the existence of begedkefet pairs, of bet and
vet, this is ridiculous. They do exist. The only question is whether they
existed in the time of Masoretes, or appeared later. I think, the pairs
appeared later, when inter-consonantal schwa became silent.

> >... If we look
> >for possible universal meaning of dagesh kal and hazak, there is only
one: a
> >stop, intermission. The Masoretes meant stop where they put dagesh. All
our
> >notions of gemination or plosification are deductions or a tradition;
there
> >is no evidence that the Masoretes heard gemination where they put dagesh.
>
> There is a lot of evidence e.g. in transliterations and in the history
> of Semitic languages, as well as in the Masoretes' own words, that
> dagesh in intevocalic positions (dagesh hazaq) represents gemination.
>
Gemination in LXX is only post-tonic, thus natural. I'm talking of kal.
Dagesh "causes" gemination, but dagesh does not "mean" gemination, rather a
stop. Where did the Masoretes (those Masoretes who wrote the MT, not later
scholars) say anything different?

> > the dagesh cannot mean "both" gemination and
> >plosification simultaneously, that hitcabbed (plosification and
gemination)
> >is unpronounceable, though more aspirated hitcannes (gemination only) is
> >fine.
>
> I agree, it does not mean "gemination and plosification simultaneously",
> but only gemination. But gemination also that the alternative process of
> fricativisation (sometimes called spirantisation) does not apply. But I
> don't see anything unpronounceable in "hitcabbed", geminated b is no
> less pronounceable than geminated n.
>
Perhaps I should reiterate my position; it is not far from yours, actually.
I don't believe that begedkefet pairs existed at the time of the Masoretes.
Strict (unaspirated) plosive begedkefet's appeared when inter-consonantal
schwa became silent. At about the same time, begedkefet's in other positions
became more aspirated than before, and eventually fricativised. Possibly
this happened under the influence of modern European languages, or to better
distinguish "normal" begedkefet's from second-in-a-row ones. This process
created begedkefet pairs.

I therefore believe that both dagesh kal and hazak originally caused only
gemination. Only later, when inter-consonantal schwa became silent,
gemination was replaced with plosification (in the sense of aspirated
plosives becoming unaspirated).

Why the dagesh kal was only applied to begedkefet? To answer this question,
ask why the Masoretes needed dagesh kal. The likely answer is, to avoid
"eating" the second-in-a-row consonant. Why, then, of all consonants, only
begedkefet's tended to be "eaten"? Because they were more aspirated than
others.

> >... where did the Masoretes heard such "relative plosification" of
> >second-in-a-row consonants? The translators of LXX heard no such thing.
>
> the details of the fricativisation are lost in time

not a good argument

> as it is not clearly attested in Greek

It is not attested in LXX at all, except for the odd spelling Rebekkah,
where the gemination is post-tonic (not kal), and the second vowel
introduced because of the plosive beta.

> or in Jerome's Latin - the latter seems to use b,g,d for the voiced
begadkepat and ch,ph,th
> for the voiceless

contrary to fricatives-in-intervocal position hypothesis
Jerome is easily understandable, actually: syllable final - voiceless -
aspirated

> perhaps paralleled the similar fricativisation process in early Byzantine
Greek.

similar? The Greek does not differentiate aspiration for second-in-a-row
consonants

> possible that the fricativisation process was quite a recent one in the
Masoretes' time

quite a speculation, as opposed to the fact of dagesh kal in singing
If this was a phonetic process, why did not it affect other Semitic
languages, where the word-initial does not differ in aspiration?

Vadim Cherny