Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Brak <Brak AT neo.rr.com>]

Yitzhak,
Please don't take offense by the preciseness of my question.
I am trying to find out a very specific thing. Therefor I have proved 
the criteria I have.

The example you gave in Gn4:9 and Ps 146:6 of <H:A/$OM"R@Pg/vqPmsa> and 
<HA/$.OM"R@Pa/vqPmsa> does not met the criteria of my question for two 
reasons:
1: There is an additional change to the word beside the dagesh (as you 
pointed out yourself - the HE has a hataf patah in the first word, and a 
patah in the second word. This only effects the prefix of the word the 
first being an interrogative, the second being an article).
2: <$OM"R> and <$.OM"R> both have the same meaning as they are both Qal 
Participle Masculine Singular Absolute based on the root <$MR>.


As for the <)AL:P"Y> and <)AL:P."Y> - you complain that I made an issue 
about it not being in the Bible. Well I am only working with the 
Biblical text at this time - so I am not interested in occurrences 
outside of the Bible at this time.

So again, please don't take offense over the criteria that I have given 
in my question. But that is what I want to know.

So if the answer is "yes" - please cite at least one example that fits 
my criteria:
1: No other changes to the word (such as vowel changes)
2: In the Biblical text.


Thanks in advance.

B"H
John Steven

"He who makes a mistake is still our friend; he who adds to or shortens 
a melody is still our friend; but he who violates a rhythm unawares can 
no longer be our friend."
-Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim 767-850 CE.

"If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you 
behave."
-Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

"The difference between the intelligent man and the simpleton is not the 
correctness of their decisions, but rather the cunning sinner can more 
skillfully defend and justify his iniquity."
- Rabbi Tovia Singer


Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> Hello John,
>
>   
> > 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 question as I posed it is the question you asked.  In any case,
> the answer is yes.  I find it slightly offensive that you are unwilling to 
> take
> my examples because of differences in spelling.  I took the time to answer
> you and find references and examples, and you decide that although you
> cannot determine if the way I posed the question means the same thing
> as you do, you still think my answer is insufficient.  Wouldn't it be better
> to try to understand the terms thoroughly to see whether there is a small
> chance I may be indeed answering your question?  However, what you
> don't realize is that these differences do not change the pronunciation.
> Qubuts and Shuruq are the same vowel, except one has a waw and one doesn't.
> Hiriq is the same vowel whether it is followed by a yodh or not.
> Holam is the same vowel whether it is followed by a waw or not.
> The differences in spelling arise mainly because of differing systems of
> vocalization.  Before the Masoretes, texts were "vocalized" using aleph, he, 
> waw
> and yodh.  This vocalization is inconsistent and the same word could be 
> spelled
> once with and once without one of these letters.  In general, though, we can
> discern some patterns.  For example, long word-final vowels are generally
> vocalized in the consontal text.  Compare, however, Esther 9:27 where the
> word wqbl is vocalized with a final long vowel.  The Masoretes' system is
> consistent but is independent of the previous system of vocalization.  The
> Masoretes themselves referred to these letters as "silent" letters.  That is 
> why
> they have a special sign for the mappiq -- to indicate it is not a
> silent letter.
> (Mappiq means, essentially, "pronounced").
>
> It is also important to realize that the Masoretes' system of vocalization is
> like all writing a poor system for transcribing speech.  The Masoretes use
> hataf patah for short a-vowels in open syllables.  But for short a-vowels in
> closed syllables they would use regular patah.  This means that
> ha$omer - "keeper?" in "Am I my brother's keeper"  Gen 4:9
> and
> ha$$omer - "the keeper" Ps 146:6
> would be vocalized differently, the first with a hataf patah, and the second
> with a patah.  But the only vocalization difference between the two is the
> doubling/gemination of the letter Shin.
>
> Your requirement that the word appear in the Bible is also problematic.
> While I realize the wish for it, you have to understand that the Biblical
> authors wrote the Bible and only had an opportunity to use a subset of
> the words in the language.  For their purposes, what matters is not
> whether a word was used elsewhere in the Bible, but whether in the
> language they used to write the Bible, there was a difference in meaning
> between the two words.  They may not have had the opportunity to use
> the exact two words that show that gemination was significant for
> differentiation in meaning in their language.  But because we know how
> to inflect words in their system, we can see that it was.  In order to
> show that ?alpe ("two thousand of") is not a separate word from ?alfe
> ("thousands of"), one has to show that there was no such word ?alpe
> in the language of the Biblical authors, whether they used it or not.
> That is what Muraoka tries to argue in the article cited in the book
> above.
>
> So, like I said, the answer to the question is "yes."
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
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