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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: VadimCherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] shewa in imperative
  • Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:08:14 +0100

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
___________



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Peter Kirk
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