Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Garth Grenache <garthgrenache AT hotmail.com>]

Isaac Fried> I don't believe in short and long vowels.

Oh well!


Isaac Fried> They don't exist now...

In Modern Hebrew?
They do exist in Arabic.


Isaac Fried> ...and 
there is no reason for them to have existed before. 

There is no reason OR you are yet to identify a reason?

Do you think that shewa was as long as the rest?


Isaac Fried>Prof. Blau seems to 
have a lively imagination.


A brilliant imagination, I agree :)
And what matters is that he doesn't just stop with imaginative theories, but 
demonstrates their soundness with examples from the language.



On Aug 2, 2010, at 11:22 AM, Garth Grenache wrote:>>Would you like me to give 
Blau's explanation for how ultimate stress became in Hebrew?
Isaac Friend>What is it?

Blau suggests four stages of stress from ProtoHebrew/ProtoSemitic to Hebrew:

i. Perhaps second-last syllable (penult) is stressed in words containing only 
short vowels; otherwise the last long vowel was stressed, which was often 
also the penult. 
ii. General penultimate stress. 
iii. Loss of final short vowels in most verbs and nouns leaves the stress on 
last syllable (ultima). 
iv. Some words with penultimate stress which retained long final vowels, had 
their stress also moved to the ultima, e.g. sha:-mA-ra:->sha:-ma-rA: -> 
sha:me-rA:  (pausal retains original vowel and its penultimate accent 
shamA:ra: because it was lengthened in pause)


Garth Grenache, Australia