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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod

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  • From: Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
  • To: fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org, randallbuth AT gmail.com
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
  • Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:21:30 -0400 (EDT)

On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 08:50:18 +0100, "Arnaud Fournet"
<fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>
> 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.
> ***

The point was not that Hebrew wasn't spoken over a compact area, but that a
small area doesn't preclude there being significant dialectal differences.
One can point to numerous examples of "small" languages where there are (or
were) significant differences in dialect from village to village. Much more
important than physical area is the mobility of the population. Greek became
*less* differentiated dialectally as it expanded outward in the wake of
Alexander's conquests. In the case of Hebrew, it's harder to judge than Greek
both because of the much more limited evidence and the fact that the using a
defective method of indicating vowels could conceal major differences in
pronunciation.

> >> 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.
> ***

We've covered this before in another thread. Rendering X in language A by Y
in language B doesn't prove that X is pronounced Y in A if B doesn't have
an equivalent to X. So, no "doubtless an affricate", &c. Making dogmatic
statements about details of Akkadian phonology (let alone Proto-Semitic!) is
simply not justified.

--
William Parsons




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