Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 11/02/2005 14:29, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> ...
>
> > > ... 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. ...

Of course they exist. And they exist because plosives became 
fricativised, not vice versa. At least, there is very good evidence that 
the process went that way. You are asserting that the process went the 
other way, but have given no evidence for this.

...

> 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. ...

Dagesh doesn't "cause" anything. It is a mark indicating something. It 
does not indicate only gemination. It appears to indicate either 
gemination or lack of fricativisation. But maybe there is some common 
factor to these.

> ...
>
> 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.
>  

Actually this is indeed not far from my position, although I would 
suggest that more of the changes had happened before the  Masoretes.

> 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).
>  

Did this loss of aspiration actually happen? Are modern Hebrew 
word-initial pe, tav and kaf aspirated or unaspirated? Maybe it depends 
on the speakers' former homes.

> 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.
>  

What is wrong with the obvious answer, that only these consonants had 
distinct plosive and fricative forms?

> ...
>
> If this was a phonetic process, why did not it affect other Semitic
> languages, where the word-initial does not differ in aspiration?
>
>  
Because by that time other Semitic languages were developing in 
isolation, or dying. Of course in Arabic pe/fe was fricativised in all 
positions at some time, so was gimel/jim in most dialects.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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