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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, randallbuth AT gmail.com
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
  • Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 08:50:18 +0100


From: "Will Parsons" <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>:

Arnaud, comments on some points...

On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 21:27:19 +0100, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr> wrote:

Prosody is always a problem when divergent.
In addition there is no reason to think Ancient Hebrew had so many "dialects".
That language was not sprawling over a whole continent, as far as I know.
A.
***

That wouldn't prevent it from having a lot of dialectual variation. Consider
the case of Greek in ancient times.
***
Yes, but Greek was indeed spoken over a very large area, and it had replaced quite a lot of substratic languages.

As I see it, Ancient Hebrew was not spoken on an area much, much bigger than Crete *alone*
and I've not heard that Mycenian Greek had dialects.

In addition there is little reason to think that Hebrew spread over substrates.

In other words I tend to think that Ancient Hebrew was spoken over a rather compact area with little inferences.
I let you disprove this point of view.

A.
***



Hebrew itself very clearly indicates that emphatics must have been
glottalized in Ancient Hebrew, as vowels are not at all colored in any way
by emphatics.
Conclusive.
A.
***

It happens that I agree with you here - the lack of vowel colourization
is strong evidence of emphatics that were realized as glottalized. But still,
is this conclusive? I would say not. I would like to know (from someone
familiar with Yemeni Hebrew pronunciation) if in the Yemenite tradition
(where I believe, emphatics are pronounced as the corresponding sounds in
Arabic) there may in fact be an influence of emphatic consonants on the
adjacent vowels.
***
In all cases, this situation is a very strong argument to think that glottalized is the original feature.
A.
***



>>8. Affricates: lost (except Tsade)
>
> Tsade emically preserves what may have been a pharyngealized sibilant.
***
It represents the fusion of a glottalized affricate and a glottalized
lateral stop.
A.
***

Too dogmatic by far! What evidence is there that sadhe *was* an affricate
in ancient times? (And no, I don't consider the Codex Vaticanus "evidence"
discussed in a previous thread to be valid.)
***
Akkadian tsade and tsade cuneiform signs are doubtless an affricate as it is rendered as affricates in other languages, which have the distinction affricate / non affricate.

Cuneiform S was probably just s
Cuneiform s, z and s. are affricates.

So I suppose it must have been an affricate in the original proto-Semitic (and before).
A.
***



Or a glottalized lateral stop?
(Actually, I'm not even sure of what a "lateral stop" would be.)
***
Maybe you would prefer lateralized stop: a combination of T plus a lateralized fricative L (plus voice or other features).
A.
***



Do you know that story from Chaucer himself that he said eggs or eyes to a
southern English lady, and she did not understand him, because her plural
was eyen. Sometimes it does not take much to block communication.

Arnaud Fournet
***

Sometimes, but this is the exception. I don't know this story, but since
Chaucer himself was Southern English, I doubt that he found the ambiguity
a serious difficulty.
Will Parsons
***
The lady did...
She was probably less familiar than Chaucer with the dialectal variability of Middle English.

Arnaud Fournet







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