Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Anstey, Matthew" <MAnstey AT csu.edu.au>]

Many phonological rules, like spirantisation in TH, operate over phonological 
units, such as phonological words, phrases, intontation units, etc. They 
don't work over the domain of syntactic (or graphemic) words.
 
So spirantisation between words (just like initial gemination eg ma-nnorah 
Gen 28:17) indicates that the TH records a very *realistic* pronunciation, 
that has retains *some* features of spoken/chanted text.
 
Cheers,
Matthew Anstey
ARC Postdoctoral Fellow, Biblical Hebrwe linguistics
Charles Sturt University, School of Theology, Canberra