Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Rochelle:

While I find your theory about music interesting, I cannot 
help but wonder if it accounts for all of musical expression.

What about short and long notes?

What about short pick up notes before the main notes?

What about drawn out notes for emphasis?

Is there any way to recognize syncopation should there 
be any?

How about dotted notes followed by short notes?

You mentioned that there are ways to recognize when 
syllables are added to music, what ways are there to 
recognize when syllables are removed from music?

Just curious.

Karl W. Randolph.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rochelle Altman" <willaa AT netvision.net.il>
> 
> ...
> 
> I said I would answer when I returned, so...
> 
> I can only answer for texts that were translated into English from Hebrew:
> BN MS.Lat. 8824 and from the binding of Isaac through the book of Joshua in
> BM Cotton Claudius B.4.
> 
> It is relevant that the English transliteration of ADNI, "ADONAI," dates
> back to at least the 9th-10th centuries CE. Using xenographic exchange,
> ADONAI shows up in the English text in BM Cotton Claudius B.4 where YHVH or
> ADNI is written in Hebrew texts using xenographic exchange.. We have
> examples of this use among the DSS, for example, in 11QPS where YHVH is
> written in Paleo-Hebraic. (BN 8824 was from a consonantal vorlage;
> apparently, so was Cotton Claudius B.4.)
> 
> MT pointing or no, the alef clearly was enunciated.
> 
> Now, Psalms 22:31, 130:6; 136:3 (not 6) all include "l-"; Psalm 73:28 has
> "b-"...
> 
> The OE word for "Lord" is "driht-";  The OE for "EL" is "God."
> 
> In every occurrence of YHVH or ADNI the OE uses "drihten  plus a filler,
> e.g. PS 96(95) "nu drhten"; Ps. 23 "drihten me" or the masculine genitive,
> -es -- "drihtenes" (of [the] Lord) depending upon context. All of these
> uses are three syllables and match metrically to the Hebrew..
> 
>    In the specific cases of "my Lord" or "our Lord" "adoni" we find drihten
> minne (my lord) or "drihten ure" "our Lord" as in Ps: 22:31 -- four
> syllables match four syllables.
> 
> Now, in the cases of "l-" and "b-", the MT allots the vowel to the particle
> instead of the consonant. Why? Because it is the same vowel phoneme. In
> fact, this allotment does not mean that the vowel attached to the aleph was
> not enunciated; it was. Look at the pronunciation: la do nai. It was merely
> subsumed into one phoneme.
> 
> Rhythmically, ADNI remained three syllables.
> 
> What I find interesting is that two examples of apocopated forms, final
> vowels lost, "l-" and "b-" are being used here to illustrate how Hebrew
> remained CV and never lost or reduced weak final vowels until the
> post-exilic period.
> 
> I said I had no intention of getting into this aspect; because the evidence
> denies that Hebrew, unlike darn near every other Semitic or IE language,
> never lost weak finals. The mechanisms of vowel loss are diverse. Note that
> when ADNI or YHVH stands alone, apparent aphaeresis does not occur.
> 
> Syncope is the most common cause of apocopation in Semitic languages --
> with the *second* vowel lost or reduced. Another very common mechanism is
> apocopation by proximity, that is, loss of a vowel phoneme because two
> vowels are perceptually the same. The apparent lack of vowel pointing for
> the alef is apocopation by proximity -- and the wrong consonant was
> assigned the vowel. In apocopation by proximity, it is the *first* vowel
> that is lost; not the second.
> 
> Well, Kimchi said that the Masoretes were no grammarians; it's pretty clear
> that they had tin ears, too.
> 
> --
> Rochelle Altman

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