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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why assume the Masoretes recorded spoken Hebrew?
  • Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:15:03 +0000

On 13/02/2005 12:17, Vadim Cherny wrote:

...

What I say, basically, is that the Masoretes recorded some instances of
begedkefet (with dagesh kal) more plosified than others (without dagesh). ...


OK if you replace "more plosified" by "not fricativised". In fact the raw data says nothing about the direction of change.

... Yes, I believe that begedkefet with dagesh kal is more of a plosive than
the
same letter stand-alone. No, I don't assume that stand-alone (say,
pronounced in alphabet) begedkefet's are pure fricatives. Quite possibly,
they were aspirated plosives.


If you knew anything about phonetics, or had taken any notice of what I wrote before, you would know that a non-aspirated plosives is not "more of a plosive" than an aspirated plosive, but simply a different kind of plosive.

...

Right. And if dagesh is a stop, intermission, then it "causes" gemination or
stronger plosification.


I will accept that in principle a "stop" might "cause" gemination or inhibit fricativisation. But I don't think that is what is happening here. In my opinion and that of most scholars, a dagesh is simply an indication of lack of fricativisation, or of gemination, two features which occur together with intervocalic begadkepat letters.

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 think otherwise mostly because the Slavonic Bible shows no trace of strong
plosives still in the 11th century. Considering the tremendous influence the
Hebrew exerted on Slavic language, Slavonic Bible likely reflected the
current Aramaic pronunciation. ...


I find this extremely surprising. I understood that the Slavonic Bible was based entirely on the Greek with no direct Hebrew or Aramaic influence. This certainly seems to be true of names in the Slavonic and Russian Bibles. Can you give me any examples of names in the Slavonic or Russian Bible which are based directly on Hebrew not via LXX? (Yes, they may have knocked off -os and -as endings according to standard Russian practice with Greek names as well as Hebrew ones: IOUDAS -> Iuda is parallel to SILAS -> Sila.)

...

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.


Both Sephardic and Ashkenazic phonology universally have the dagesh kal
letters as strict plosives.


An aspirated plosive is a strict plosive. So you have not answered the question.

...

in Arabic pe/fe was fricativised in all
positions at some time, so was gimel/jim in most dialects.


The Masoretes and their later interpreters lived in Arabic milieu. The
dagesh kal cannot be explained by natural phonetic processes of speech, as
we see in Arabic. ...


Yes, it can. See the very plausible explanations of many scholars. And read them properly first before trying to assert your own speculations.

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



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