Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Garth Grenache <garthgrenache AT hotmail.com>]

Dear Yitzhak and everyone,

Until yesterday I had believed for a substantial time that the shwa marked a 
non-vowel or a vowel that had been essentially lost, just like there is no 
vowel between 'sh' and 'l' in Aramaic "shlama".

Today, with the help of Yitzhak, and a bit of reading and research, my 
understanding has changed.

I now reckon that shwa was not a lost vowel, but instead was a short vowel in 
an open syllable, just as Yitzhak has said, and that this short status 
allowed it's quality to be changed depending on its surrounding consonants 
and vowels, but by no means meant that the perceived vowel quantity 
disappeared altogether in Biblical or Medieval times.


I propose this development:

1. Following the lengthening of penultimate short syllables (open syllables 
with short vowels), the antepenultimate short syllable became relatively 
deemphasized.
2. This deemphasis resulted in an earlier onset of the following consonant, 
as evidenced by its realisation in Greek writting as a doubled consonant:  
*MeSSias for Aramaic "Masheehaa"
*SaDDoukaios for "Sadookeem"
The original rhythm of the word in 1. being maintained, the earlier onset of 
the following consonant must be accompanied by a reduction in the preceding 
short vowel.
3. The deemphasis and reduction of this short vowel made it's pronounced 
quality difficult to distinguish.
4. Morphophonetic changes occurred to it, such as assimilation of its quality 
to the quality of the following vowel, or to the openness/closeness of the 
surrounding consonants.
5. By the time of the Tiberian pointing, the quality of the vowel was usually 
discernable when it followed a gutteral consonant (which can be pronounced 
without any necessary openness or closeness of the mouth), but difficult to 
discernable (or disputable) when following other consonants which affect the 
closure of the mouth.  Hence the Tiberian tradition: simple shewa was used 
for non-gutterals,  compound shewas for gutterals.
6. The more commonly perceived qualities of simple shewa in various 
situations became standardized by rules, which could then be applied to cases 
where the quality of shewa was indiscernable or disputable.


Does that seem to be a reasonable suggestion?


What convinced me that shewa did retain some length, was the Greek 
transcriptions in the NT.  When two Greek letters do not usually begin a 
word, any intervening vowel in a transliteration could be taken as 
epenthetic.  But when two Greek letters commonly begin words together, such 
as...
*bl-, but  NT has beliar for b:liyya`al
*sb-, but NT&LXX has sabaoth for s:ba'oth
*sk-, but NT&LXX has suchem for sh:chem/shechem
...the intervening Greek vowel is evidence that that the shewa was a true 
audible vowel with some length and (various) qualities.

Thanks for your help!

Garth Grenache,
Australia.





                                          
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