Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 8:06 PM, Jason Hare wrote:
> Isaac,
>
> The dagesh must be there because it is a short vowel (kubuts is ALWAYS
> short) found in an unaccented syllable. A short vowel in an unaccented
> syllable must always be in a CLOSED syllable. The dagesh closes the
> syllable. It is necessary with the pointing. You will not find an
> unaccented syllable with patach, segol, kubuts (because they are
> short) unless segol or patach precedes a syllable with a half-vowel
> (hatef-segol or hatef-patach, respectively). It's a basic part of the
> system, Isaac, and your refusal to accept it only highlights more of
> the weakness in your theory, which cannot account for the dagesh
> except to say that 'the dagesh seems to appear after kubuts and
> hirek,' which is just ridiculous and completely unsystematic. It has
> absolutely ZERO explanatory power.

Hello Jason,

The description you describe here is based on a misreading of the Tiberian
vocalization, and is related to the Kimhi's interpretation of the vocalization
marks.  This system is not based on the Tiberian vocalization reality, that
we can know from various sources, part of them available through the
Cairo Genizah, authored by the Tiberian Masoretes themselves.  In the
Tiberian system, any of the vowels can be short or long, except for tsere
and holam which are always long for historical reasons.  Now, this is not
to say that the system is completely divorced from reality.  In some senses,
it is a good approximation.  For example, in the Tiberian pronunciation, long
a had became qamats, and short e (tsere) had become seghol.  But after
the long a: > qamats shift had ceased, some short a vowels lengthened
because, for example, they were in open syllables.  Because of this, there
are still some situations where you encounter long patah.  For example:
kelev [ke: - lev] has a open (and stressed) vowel so the seghol is long
har [ha:r] has a stressed vowel so the patah is long
hacur [hac-cu:r] has a stressed vowel so the shuruq or qubuts is long
The use of qubuts vs shuruq is based on the orthogoraphy -- whether there
is or is not a waw.  Thus,
Ex 17:6 hcwr - has shuruq
1 Chr 11:15 - hcr - has a qubuts
But it's the exact same word, and it's pronounced the same!

For more information see here:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2006-November/030576.html

Some good references:

Israel Yeivin, An Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah, ed. and
trans. E.J. Revell

and also the following articles by Geoffrey Khan:

'Tiberian Hebrew phonology', in A. S. Kaye (ed.), Phonologies of Asia
and Africa, Eisenbrauns, 1997, 85-102.
'The Tiberian pronunciation tradition of Biblical Hebrew' Zeitschrift
für AltHebraistik IX (1996), 1-23
(The above is basically the same as 'Tiberian Hebrew Phonology',
although it complements it in some ways).
'The pronunciation of resh in the Tiberian tradition of Biblical Hebrew',
Hebrew Union College Annual LXVI (1995), 67-80.

The following are more involved articles:
'Vowel length and syllable structure in the Tiberian tradition of Biblical
Hebrew' Journal of Semitic Studies XXXII/1 (1987), 23-82.
'The syllabic nature of Tiberian Hebrew vocalization' in A. S. Kaye
ed., Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau I, Wiesbaden , 1991,
850-865.

Yitzhak Sapir