Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>All we can really say with certainty is that:
. . .

I didn't repeat your summation because the general picture is
probably clearer than you were portraying.


>> And here one must ask which value of HTA was intended, an [i] or [e], and
>>always remembering to ask according to which manuscripts?
>> Apparently, HTA went to [i] around the 2nd century CE, maybe a little
>> later.
>> Fortunately, because this was about 4-5 centuries later than EI went to I,
>> the spelling traditions with HTA are relatively stable, especially in the
>> centuries 2-5 CE, when the historical spellings were usually preserved.
>
>I'm not sure you can say most of what you just said in the last paragraph
>with any degree of certainty. >

There is more surety than you may be aware of.
All reconstructions are within bands of probability, but that being said,
Greek phonologists wouldn't have a problem with my paragraph. See
Horrocks, Gignac, Bubenik, Teodorrson, even Buth.

EI went to an I sound [pronounced 'ee' in 'feet'] from as early as the
4th century
(Teodorrson) and especially in the 3rd and 2nd c BCE. You can give this
trend a 99% rating.
HTA may have started drifting in the first century CE but only appears to be
generally absorbed into I in the 2-3 c CE. Inscriptions and papyri, even
Dead Sea Greek all make this pretty clear. Roman catacombs too. the
whole Mediterranean. You can give this a 90 rating. But one must sift the
data as a phonologist and cognizant of how sound systems change emically.
Then the broad strokes are pretty easy.

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
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