Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

Dear Karl,

We may not end up agreeing about the "CV syllable only" character of
biblical Hebrew that you, unlike the communis opinio, think is
possible.
To your theory I add just a few more objections - that I trust won't
fail to convince you.

There are many bi-consonantal roots where the second consonant is
lengthened/doubled. These could theoretically be described, therefore,
as triconsonantel roots. Take SBB סבב. The problem for your theory is
that Hebrew both has forms like sovev סובב, s'vavuni סבבוני, or lisbov
לסבב on the one hand, and sabbuni סבוני, y'subbenu יסבנו, or sobbi סבי
on the other.

Now in your readings of unvocalised Hebrew, the latter forms naturally
lack the indication they are lenghtened/geminated. In the MT reading,
all those forms have CVC syllables. It would be hard to imagine that
those consonants originally hadn't been lenghtened, because the
gemination precedes, and in fact probably causes, the tri-consonantal
layout of the bi-consonantal root.
There are many of those roots. In cognate languages these roots behave
very similarly, for example Arabic has both the words sabab سبب as
sabb سبّ . All this I simply found in the BH dictionary.
Another example: $DD שדד which both occurs in the shapes shadduni
שדוני, or y'shaddem ישדם ; and on the other hand y'shad'dem ישדדם,
shad'du שדדו, shoded שודד and a lot of others.

A second objection to your idea is the verbal system. It is hard to
imagine why Hebrew would have the pi'el and pu'al - which Hebrew has
in common with a.o. Aramaic (pa'el) and Arabic (stem II) - if it would
lack original CVC syllables. Simply because the only essential feature
of pi'el is the gemination. The same is true for the "definite
article", a form that essentially is nothing more than a lengthened
consonant in the noun.

I do like your brave non-conformism to the communis opinio. You know I
am a dissident myself in some points ;) But in this case I feel your
theory of preference is extremely improbable.

Best regards,
Herman


2006/2/2, Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>:
> Peter:
>
> It depends on the nature of the evidence.
>
> The problem as I see it is that the evidence from
> transliteration and known pronunciation of cognate
> languages that I know of is not from when Biblical Hebrew
> was without controversy recognized as being spoken as a
> native tongue, i.e. before the Babylonian Exile. If you are
> able to present information that I don't have from that time
> period and before, I will listen. But if all the information
> that you have dates from generations later, as is all such
> evidence that I have seen so far, I find that unconvincing.
>
> And yes, I do question the presuppositions under which
> some of the conclusions derived from the studies of
> cognate languages stems.
>
> You have reason to ask if there is any point to providing
> such evidence.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Peter Kirk" <peter AT qaya.org>
> >
> > On 31/01/2006 23:58, Karl Randolph wrote:
> >
> > > Herman:
> > >
> > > Thanks for your response. But now my disagreement.
> > >
> > > First of all, is not that a final he, as in LYLH, is presently a
> > > mater lectionis a relatively recent phenomenon? ...
> > >
> >
> > Karl, there is ample evidence from cognate languages, as well as
> > from transliterations, of the pronunciation of such words. But is
> > there any point in providing you with such evidence?
> >
> > -- Peter Kirk
> > peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> > peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> > http://www.qaya.org/
>
>
> --
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