Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] CV syllables, was music in Hebrew

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] CV syllables, was music in Hebrew
  • Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 13:47:34 -0500

Yitzhak:

Peter Kirk already well answered some of your objections.

Karl W. Randolph.


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
>
> On 2/3/06, Karl Randolph wrote:
>
> ...
> > The evidence for Biblical Hebrew having had a CV
> > structure is again theory, in this case my own based on
> > reading Tanakh a few times through in unpointed Hebrew.
> > That influenced me to believe that each letter originally
> > stood for one consonantal sound, in contrast to the
> > Masoretic pointing of two sounds for some of the letters.
> > When read in that way, many words are unpronounceable
> > except as CV syllables, hence my theory.
>
...
>
> Second, the evidence you brought for those letters being
> unpronounceable was from Modern Hebrew, against which
> evidence was brought that 1) you are wrong (on the Ayin/
> Aleph unvocalized issue), 2) your knowledge of Modern
> Hebrew is faulty. You have not answered those criticisms.
>
Unless you claim that "Modern Hebrew" is not the same
as what in common parlance is the name for the language
spoken in modern Israel, then the pronunciation I was
taught is similar but not the same as Modern Hebrew.

Secondly, I have come to the conclusion that even that
modern reconstruction of Masoretic pronunciation is most
likely incorrect when applied to the Biblical period.

> Finally, even if you prove that some or many words are
> unpronounceable except as CV words, that doesn't mean
> that the rest of the words that are left are unpronounceable
> except as CV words. It's quite possible for a language to
> have some CV words and some CVCC words etc. In order
> to prove your theory you have to somehow show that *all*
> words were unpronounceable except as CV words.
>
No I don't. Especially since neither it nor its converse
are provable.

> Yitzhak Sapir

--
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page