Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>]

The two questions are however related, as it was the gemination that
prevented lenition in bgdkpt.  If we assume that lenition is a post-exilic
phenomenon, then had the Hebrews prior to the exile used the Tiberian
notation, only geminate consonants would have been marked with dagesh.  It
is interesting that native speakers often do not feel the need to mark
length in either vowels or consonants.  When they do so, it is usually out
of concern for those who are not native speakers.  The Finns are one obvious
exception to this.

Kevin Riley
 
-------Original Message------- 
 
From: Yitzhak Sapir 
Date: 20/02/2009 9:06:09 PM 
 
I am correcting myself here: I tried to use the same terms as Muraoka as I
was 
Referring to his grammar. But the dagesh qal is dagesh lene, not plene.
Second, 
Your question was about dagesh in general, not gemination. It still should
be 
Treated as two separate questions, though. 
 
On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Yitzhak Sapir wrote: 
> What you're asking in linguistic terms is: is gemination phonemic? 
[...] 
> The question should be considered separately for the dagesh forte (the 
> doubling/gemination) and dagesh plene (the one in bgdkpt, which is what 
> you have in your example). 

Yitzhak Sapir