Biblical Hebrew Forum

[davedonnelly1 <davedonnelly1 AT juno.com>]

Hi George;

You wrote

>>>
Actually, the Masoretes DID place the vowels of Adonai on the
Tetragrammaton. The initial vowel is a shewa. In the word Adonai, this
has to be a composite shewa (with patah), but it is still grammatically a
shewa. The holem vowel was usually not written, perhaps for reasons of
piety (nothing above the name of God), though there are a handful of
instances where it is written, seemingly offering the proof that the
Mosoretes were indeed thinking of the vowels of Adonai.

Occasionally, when the actual word Adonai precedes the Tetragrammaton,
the vowels of Elohim were inserted instead.
>>>
George,

The initial vowel in both Hebrew word #3068 and in Jerusalem is a simple
shewa
and it is pronounced with some sort of an "e" sound not an "a" sound.

The compound shewa in Adonai has some sort of an "a" sound.

Can't we truly say that the first vowel in Hebrew word #3068 and the
first vowel in Jerusalem have the same sound.
Using the same criteria shouldn't we say that the first vowel in Hebrew
Word #3068 and the first vowel in Adonai are pronounced differently, even
though they are both called shewas.

Of course if the Masoretes had placed a hatef patah under the yod in
Hebrew word #3068, 
then the first vowel in both words would not only have sounded the same,
but they actually would have been the same compound shewa.  

But the Masoretes chose not to place the precise first vowel of Adonai 
under the yod in  Hebrew word #3068.

Note that in the Leningrad Codex while the Masoretes placed the vowel
[i.e. hatef-segol]  of  Elohim under the yod of YHWH only once, however
in the Ben Chayyim Hebrew text of 1525 A.D., the Masorete('s) placed the
vowel [i.e. Hatef-segol] of Elohim under the yod of YHWH 305 times.

It would appear as if there is no problem in placing a compound shewa
under the yod in YHWH,
if the Masoretes had wanted to do same.

Dave Donnelly
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>From randallbuth AT gmail.com  Wed Feb 24 08:28:06 2010
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Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:21:42 +0200
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From: Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
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Subject: [b-hebrew] dagesh lene missing in caph - why?
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vayyixtov Karlos
>Hi everyone,
> I have a question about the dagesh lene that perhaps someone can help me
with.>
> In Genesis 28:4, the word "blessing" (birchat avraham) has a dagesh lene
in the caph. This is what I would expect. Birchat word starts with a
closed syllable (bir) and so the shewa under the resh is silent, and so
the begadkefat letter caph takes the dagesh lene.>
> In Genesis 33:11, the word "my blessing" (birchatay) does not have a
dagesh lene in the caph. I assume that this must be because the shewa is
vocal and therefore the hireq under the bet must be long and the first
syllable must be open. Is that correct or is there another reason why
the dagesh lene would be missing?>


shalom Karlos,

The phenomenon you refer to has a name, which is not so important, and was
probably caused by the vaguries of time, where different features extended
themselves through the language at different times.

For the name, one may refer to the shva under the resh as neither shva-naH
nor shva-na`, but shva meraHef. The xaf shows that the shva has sound, but
the syllable 'bir' is closed, showing a silent shva. So it is 'between
the two'.
The shva is vocalized, making the previous syllable only partly closed,
and/or the 'i' vowel only partly long/short.
This whole connected syllable/shva phenomenon is a sub-phonemic
feature, meaning that it does not carry meaning, but it is part of
correct speech. (Subphonemic refers to things like the aspirated [p(h)] sound
in English "pill" versus the unaspirated [p] in English "spill")

For chronology, it means that two processes happened at different times
and had different trajectories.
1. full suffixed noun *barakati > *brakati > *braxati
2. while construct  *barakat > *barkat/birkat
Incidently, this is consistent thorughout the MT and not just the verses you
quoted. The suffixed noun has -xa-t-, and the construct has -kat.

Something similar occurs with words like melex 'king' (*malk-)
*malk-kem  >  *malk-xem "your-guyses king"
*malakeykem > *malaxeyxem > mal-xexem "your-guyses' kings"

A reference grammar will discuss this, try Jouon-Muraoka and look under
'shwa-medium' or some such.

HTH,

Randall Buth


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