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[b-hebrew] XBR vs. ubburu: Hebron

From: Peter Bekins <pbekins AT fuse.net>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [b-hebrew] XBR vs. ubburu: Hebron
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:40:26 -0500

A lurker on the list pointed out to me that in Egypt there is no "L."...

Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian transcribed foreign language "L" with Egyptian "r."

That was my point, sorry I didn't elaborate. I am quite busy and quite sick of this thread. I don't know why I responded in the first place.

Peter Bekins

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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Any meaning to the Dagesh?
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Yitzhak,

You said that another way of asking my question is "is gemination phonemic?"
I don't know if you are right, as even after looking up these words do I understand what this phrase means. lol

So lets just keep my question as I asked it:
Does the presence/absence of a dagesh (any type of dagesh - this even includes the mapiq) alone effect a change of any kind (excluding the obvious change in pronunciation)?

The words in the example that you gave via link does not apply to my question, - as there are differences in the words in addition to the presence/absence of the dagesh:
<MIL.FH> and <MIYLFH> - one has a YOD while the other doesn't.
<MIN.IY> and <MIYNIY> - one has a YOD while the other doesn't.
<(UL.F.H.> and <(W.LFH.> - one has a qibbuts while the other has a shureq.

The example of <)AL:P"Y> and <)AL:P."Y> isn't helpful as the word <)AL:P."Y> doesn't exist in the Bible.

So does the dagesh alone effect any kind of non-pronunciation change to a word?

B"H
John Steven

Yitzhak Sapir wrote:

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 12:00 AM, John Steven wrote:

I was wondering, does the presence/absence of the dagesh alone change
the meaning of the word in any way?
Now I understand that sometimes when words changed form that a dagesh
may be added/removed - but as far as I know it is always accompanied
with vowel changes as well.
So I am wondering if there is ever a case where you have the exact same
letters and vowels, but different Dagesh configuration which will have
different meanings?

To give an example of what I mean:
B.:R")$IYT
B:R")$IYT
Different Dagesh configuration - same meaning.

What you're asking in linguistic terms is: is gemination phonemic?
You even go so far so as to describe a minimal pair -- two words that
have different meanings but differ on only one phonetic difference,
indicating that phonetic difference has implications for meanings of
words.

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). You also have to realize that the question
deals with the Tiberian Hebrew vocalization, where you find the dagesh.
A similar question can be asked for the vocalization of ancient Hebrew
but for that you have to deal with reconstructing words and their
pronunciation. For the dagesh forte, see the minimal pairs here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=s1MSQuK_gi0C&pg=PA70
(I think the minimal pairs are hypothetical though, in the sense that
in each pair, one word may not be present in the Bible in that exact
inflection. However, we realize that in the Biblical language, this is
how the word would be vocalized, had the Biblical author used that
inflection).

For dagesh plene (the spirantization issue), there is an example of alpe
("two thousand of") vs alfe ("thousands of"). But see the following
comment in the same book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=s1MSQuK_gi0C&pg=PA494
In the article mentioned in the footnote he argues that it is questionable
whether the dual would have been used in the construct state, in such
a situation. That is, it is not clear that there really could have been a
word "alpe."

A different more simpler question may be: Can I read the Bible without
having to force my pronunciation? The answer is yes. The differences
are subtle, and many modern Israelis when reading the Bible are not
directly aware of them (they assume that Biblical Hebrew is close to
modern Hebrew and in modern Hebrew, gemination does not exist).
However, you will miss out on the subtle differences, and on important
clues that will allow you to tell various forms one from another.

Yitzhak Sapir
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[b-hebrew] XBR vs. ubburu: Hebron, Peter Bekins, 02/20/2009