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

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  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Any meaning to the Dagesh?
  • Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:37:24 +1100


Isaac,

It seems to me that you are guilty of reading the modern language back into the classical language. When you said that you've heard of newish grammars no longer representing dagesh, I assume you mean grammars of Israeli/Modern Hebrew. (If not, please produce the references of newish grammars of BH to which you refer; I know of no such works.) Note that the modern language, in contrast to the classical language, pretty much does not treat gemination as phonemic. To treat the classical language in such a way means that you have to make the absurd claim that dagesh indicates that the preceding vowel is an /i/. We don't have to look far to see that such a hypothesis simply does not work. In contrast, viewing one of the functions of dagesh as marking gemination does in fact work, which I assume is why this view is universally articulated in the grammars of the language. However, for one adopting a linguistically unsupportable approach to the language such as yourself will of course view things entirely differently from everyone else. This does not make your results fact, even though you continue to assert them as fact. Rather, it simply means that your results likely do no represent the linguistic reality of the language because your methodology and theory which you bring to the language is unsound.

Regards,
David Kummerow.


Jason,

Arab diction has its peculiarities which are of no concern to Hebrew.
There is a universally natural doubling of a consonant located
between two vowels, for instance DIBBER, 'he spoke', but this has
nothing to do with the dagesh in the B. There is no indication that
an exaggerated, over-natural, doubling, say DIB---BER, was ever
practiced in Hebrew.
I think that the purpose of the dagesh in B of DBR is only to
indicate the lack of the preceding vowel I.
Notice that no doubling may occur in DIBRAH, 'she spoke'.

Isaac Fried, Boston University





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