Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

Vadim, I deliberately sent my message off list. Please do not copy 
private messages back to the list. In this case the point is more that I 
didn't want to prolong an off-topic discussion, but I might have been 
saying something confidential.

I agree that in any language there is an intonational difference between 
commands and other kinds of speech. I disagree that this is necessarily 
reflected in the vowel or stress patterns of the verb.


On 24/06/2005 12:52, VadimCherny wrote:

> I don't argue that "harass" or any other word could be pronounced 
> differently. My point is, any speaker differentiates accent and vowel length among 
> neutral, question, and exclamation.This is how we hear intonation. In exclamation, 
> notably commands, first vowel is routinely reduced, just listen to milspeak.I hear the 
> same in Arabic and English, so believe Hebrew imperatives are emphatic of neutral 
> verbs. Try pronouncing catav is command, get c'tav or c'tov. Azerbaijani, Peter is 
> right, stresses the first vowel in imperative at the expense of the second.
>
> Vadim Cherny
>
> .On 24/06/2005 08:22, Vadim Cherny wrote:
>
>  
>
> > This becomes ridiculous. ...
> >
> >    
>
> Vadim, George's point is that the English word "harass", like the 
> Russian "tvorog" for example, has two different pronunciations with 
> different stress patterns (but the same meaning), and each speaker will 
> use the same basic stress pattern in the imperative as in other forms. 
> So your example "harass" is an unfortunate choice.
>
> I know that some Russian verbs shift their stress in the imperative, but 
> I have no evidence of this happening in English, or for that matter in 
> Hebrew. In Azerbaijani the shift is in the opposite direction: the 
> stress is word final in most verb forms, and so on the ending, but in 
> the imperative it moves backwards on to the verb stem - necessarily in 
> the singular because there is no ending, but in the plural there is an 
> ending which is, unusually, unstressed. So this kind of stress shift is 
> by no means a language universal.
>
>  
>
> >    
> >
> > > Mr. Cherny obviously is lacking in his understanding of English.  There
> > > are two distinct pronunciations of "harass" which are not determined by
> > > the context in which they are found or the use to which they are put.
> > >
> > > Ha ' - es  or
> > > Ha  - ras '
> > >
> > > The pronunciation used is determined by the preference of the one using
> > > the term and not by its usage.
> > >
> > > george
> > > gfsomsel
> > > ___________
> > >
> > >   
> > >
> > >      
> > _______________________________________________
> > b-hebrew mailing list
> > b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >    
>
>
>  


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



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