Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

isaac,

so you agree with my two points:

1. the distinction between kamatz and patax does have some practical 
meaning even today, for example putting the stress in the word naxal.

2. your description about the scribe filling in kamatz or patax just 
according to whether there existed a dagesh or not, cannot possibly
approximate reality, e.g. in the word naxal where a dagesh does not 
exist at all.

in order to define better the point of contention on open/closed 
syllables i would add the following:

3. the open/closed stressed/unstressed syllable logic is practicall 
the only one consistent with the hebrew nikud system.

4. it is still not clear to what extent this logic, and the 
entire nikud system, are proper to BH.

i would say that the clear answer to item 4 is "to a large extent".
it is up to those who disagee to bring a concrete alternative 
hypothesis which relates hebrew nikud to some other vowelling system
available to masoretic scribes. since the choice is not very big
(aramaic, greek, roman, arabic, samaritan?...), this task should not 
be very difficult. good luck.

regards
nir cohen

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:19:35 -0500, Isaac Fried wrote
> Stress is a fickle thing. We, indeed, articulate naXAl (qamac-patax), 
> 'inherited', versus NAxal (patax-patax), 'brook', yet we stress gaMAl 
> (qamac-patax), 'ripened', the same way we stress gaMAl (qamatc-qamac), 
> 'camel', and gaMAl, (patax-qmac), 'camel-driver'. To differentiate between 
> the two we utter raCAh (qamac-qamac), 'he wanted', but RAcah (qamac-qamac), 
> 'she run'.
> 
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
> 
> On Jan 25, 2011, at 2:15 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. wrote:
> 1. >>> De: Isaac Fried  
> The thing is that we (at least this humble member of this great list)   
> don't know what is the intended distinction between a qamats and a   
> patax.... 
> 
> one practical difference is knowing if the word is stressed milra or 
> mil'eil. 
> for example, a patax or kamatz changes the stress, hence the whole meaning, 
> of  
> the word naxal (river or inherited). 

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