Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rochelle Altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>]

At 02:20 AM 1/26/2006, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 25/01/2006 17:18, Rochelle Altman wrote:.

> > 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.
>
> OK, we now agree: the pronunciation is not le-'a-do-nai but la-do-nai, 
> three syllables. But earlier you wrote in your "Final vowels added to all 
> C" version of Psalm 96 "le Adonai", which looks like four syllables to me. 
> My point was that this would have been pronounced la-do-nai, three 
> syllables, and you now seem to agree.

Yes, and no. I was quoting the MT. Before I was adding the extra vowels. 
According to the MT pointing, the vowel was apocopated by proximity. Hence, 
it was perceived as "la" and not "le"

> > 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.
>
> Well, it is possible that these forms were apocopated or elided only at 
> the same time as or after the final short vowels were lost, but these are 
> distinct phonetic processes which did not necessarily took place at the 
> same time.

Extremely unlikely that vowels will be lost from different words at the 
same time -- with one exception: reformers decide that they write the rules. .

> > 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.
>
> No one denies that Hebrew lost weak final vowels. The issue is, when? 
> Arabic also lost its weak final vowels, but only after the Qur'an was 
> written down. Hebrew lost its weak final vowels earlier. How much earlier? 
> We don't know. It had almost certainly lost them by the end of the Second 
> Temple period. But had it lost them before the time of the Babylonian 
> Exile? That question is not so easily answered.

Religious song is extremely conservative; the melodies constrain just how 
much can be added or subtracted and still retain the rhythm. Without a 
bilingual, we have no way to cross-check if and when changes occurred. We 
have a bilingual for the Psalms.

> > 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.
>
> Understood. But this is not a mistake, because the rules of Hebrew 
> pointing are that unpronounced consonants are not pointed, and that 
> unpointed consonants (except at word end, excluding he) are not 
> pronounced. So, for la-do-nai, it must be the silent alef rather than the 
> lamed which is unpointed, and so the lamed has to carry the vowel point.

Agreed, however, that's the way the Masoretes perceived it.

> > Well, Kimchi said that the Masoretes were no grammarians; it's pretty 
> > clear that they had tin ears, too.
> >
> > I am sorry, I arrived at 1:00 am and have had to plow through more than 
> > 700 messages -- I am too tired to continue right now. Hope I'm not too 
> > confusing in this note.
> Thank you for your attention. I'm not sure that I follow the relevance of 
> the Old English, but you make sense about the Hebrew.

The relevance of the Old English is that the Psalms are a translation from 
an old consonantal Hebrew vorlage -- and our bilingual. Information on when 
vowels phonemes were lost appears in the pre-exilic Psalms.

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

Thank yuo for your intererst,

Rochelle Altman