Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re:[b-hebrew] Any meaning to the Dagesh?
From: Brak <Brak AT neo.rr.com>
To: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
Date: 27/02/2009 1:13 PM

> > > But I can clearly see, from the examples that you and David Hamuel have
> > > given, that the graphic presence/absence of the dagesh alone can
> > > indicate words of different meaning.
> > >
> > >     
> >
> > Which is another way of saying that dagesh forte is phonemic, a fact 
> > which we have been trying to tell you the whole time. And which is why 
> > we have kept repeating to you that statements you kept making about the 
> > definite article such as
> >
> > "if you remove the dagesh mark from the word in the <H:A/$OM"R> vs 
> > <HA/$.OM"R> no translational data would be lost."
> >
> > are in error because dagesh forte is phonemic. Hence the phoneme /haC/ 
> > differs to /ha/.
> >   
> You still don't get it - as I am talking about just the "Base morpheme" 
> of the word.
> But don't worry about it - my question has been answered already.

Well, that's what you changed your question to along the way.

Still doesn't change the fact that what you said about the definite 
article was wrong and that the analysis we gave was another way of 
answering your question. To use your "car" analogy, a mechanic may 
respond to my "car" question with an answer that seems like "tea" to me. 
Doesn't mean that his answer was wrong, just that I don't have the 
understanding of the subject of "cars" that he does (hence my question 
directed to him in the first place). Similarly here: you maintain the 
matter of the definite article has no bearing when, linguistically, it 
does. You've asserted that the removal of the dagesh from /haC/ can be 
done so without semantic consequence, when that's just not true, 
linguistically. Contrary to your claim that we've been talking "tea", 
discussion of the definite article has always been one of "cars". You 
may not see it as such, but that does not change the linguistic reality.

Regards,
David Kummerow.