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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] T-SADE

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  • From: "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
  • To: "Will Parsons" <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] T-SADE
  • Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:30:05 +0200


----- Original Message ----- From: "Will Parsons" <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
To: <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
Cc: <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>; <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] T-SADE


but it's very unlikely that sadhe had the affricate
> value [ts] when it was spoken as a mother tongue. The emphatics in
> Hebrew as in other Semitic languages form a series contrasting on one
> hand to unvoiced series and the other a voice series of obstruents. As
> far as I know, there are two attested phonetic realizations of > "emphatics",
> velarized/laryngealized type of Arabic, and the glottalized type of the
> African Semitic languages (more likely for Hebrew). In either case, we > have
> parallel series /s - S - z/ like /t -T - d/ like /k - K - g/. An > affricate
> like [ts] doesn't fit this model.

***

I would call that kind of argument an "aesthetical" one. That you can
nicely put phonemes in rows and columns is not a convincing proof of what
they might really be. I'm not a structuralist to the point of believing
that "structure rules".

Short of sending a phonetician back in time, there is unlikely to be
anything that can be called "proof", there's only the matter of lesser
or greater probability. Evidence of other Semitic languages is a lot
more convincing to me than a single Greek transcription where both the
reading itself and the evidentiary value is questionable. This is not
an "aesthetical" argument.
****

Actually we have plenty of evidence from Armenian, Hurro-Urartian and Hittite on how these "letters" were pronounced in Akkadian in particular.
It's quite clear that the propagation of Hebrew phonetics into cuneiform was inadequate and unfortunately probably impossible to emend.
Cuneiform $ (=shin) is in fact -s- and Cuneiform s and z (tsamekh) is in fact -ts- and -dz-.
Anytime you move out of the Semitic "bubble", then it becomes clear that there is a problem with graphemes $ and s which do not have the correct values.
It is also clear from Armenian that the emphatic s. in Akkadian was an affricate. Place names and other words written with <s.> in Cuneiform invariably pop up in Armenian with an affricate.

The "aesthetical" argument was referring to your last sentence: "In either case, we have parallel series /s - S - z/ like /t -T - d/ like /k - K - g/. An affricate like [ts] doesn't fit this model."
"fit that model".
/s - S - z/ is actually /ts TS dz/.

A.
***




In addition, it's well known from Egyptian hieroglyphic that tsamekh was
nearly doubtless an affricate [ts] (S p r scribe => t_ p r and not **s p r
as is expected)

I would disagree about samekh being "nearly doubtless" [ts], certainly
not on the basis of Egyptian transcriptions, seeing that Egyptian
phonology is quite uncertain. (That Egyptian /t_/ indicated an affricate
seems quite unlikely considering its development in Coptic.) Even if
at some point samekh *were* an affricate, that would not be an argument
that sadhe was also.

and as a matter of that nearly all sibilants have been used
to write /s/ in Greek or Ethiopian but this precise one. So in fact if one
believes in "aesthetical" argumentation, the conclusion would rather be that
there is "systemic" support for an affricate /ts./ade because tsamekh was
itself /ts/.

This makes no sense. Are you referring to Egyptian transcriptions of
Greek and Ethiopic or something else?
***
I'm referring to the way the original Semitic alphabet has been adapted for other languages.

If the original value of tsamekh were /s/, then it's a wonder that this letter has *never* been used anywhere from Greece to Ethiopia to Etruria to write the sound /s/.
As a matter of fact about everything has been used in Greek to write /s/ except precisely that very letter.
For that reason, tsamekh cannot have been /s/, it was /ts/.

A.
***



It's a matter of certainly that Greek *did* develop affricates. They are
quite common in Modern Greek. *When* they developed is of course more
doubtful, but they are certainly seen in Byzantine Greek. Sources are
influence other languages, and internal phonetic developments (typically
as a result of palatalization).
***
I still do not see the relevance of that point.

If the original pronunciation is sade, how come we have tsade in Codex Vaticanus?
Did Greek develop affricates out of initial s-??

By the way I also wonder how tiade can develop out of sade if you prefer the reading tiade to tsade.

A.
***



> I mentioned above shin also as being transcribed by sigma. Apparently,
> according to my sigla, there is also an attempt to indicate shin more
> accurately in the Vaticanus, ρηχς/rekhs (resh) χσεν/khsen (shin).
> This isn't evidence that shin was pronounced something like [ks], only
> that the transcriber was trying desperately hard to find something that
> would suggest the Hebrew pronunciation.
> William Parsons

***
To some extent this is also an argument against emphasis being
pharyngeal or velar, or too much upward in the throat, as we would expect
this kind of graphic devices for tsade if it were the case.

Right - I'm not arguing for pharyngeal/velar interpretation of emphatics
in Hebrew.
****
Neither am I.
Hebrew vocalism is definitely in favor of glottalization.

Arnaud Fournet







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