Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

The purported Hebrew "geminate consonants" is, I suspect, a figment  
of the imagination. Also, the "contrasting minimal pairs" of Jouon  
and Muraoka are certainly not contrasting and not minimal.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Feb 20, 2009, at 6:21 AM, Kevin Riley wrote:

> 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
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