Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

in deciding whether the dagesh is essential to hebrew or not,
the first question is if it is older than the early 7th century
AD where the arabic dagesh was introduced. but even if it is
older, it would reflect first millenium AD and not first millenium
BC hebrew. so, isaac, if your question is about BH then your
conjecture has nothing to rely on and is as good as the exact
opposite.

also, the linguistic elements do not serve only the context. often 
they grow in contrast to a neighboring dialect. according to a well 
known joke, you may change in modern english all d to t, all sh to 
sch, all c to k, all u to au etc causing little damage. but at the 
end you will get german instead of english. 

nir



>>> Para: Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com>
Data: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:11:51 -0400
Assunto: Re: [b-hebrew] Again on hireq/sere
What I mean is that you may remove all (ALL!) the dgeshim and you  
will not miss them. The dgeshim were used, methinks, as reading props  
much earlier than the NIQUYD and they became superfluous with the  
introduction of the punctuation. The NAKDANIYM left them in place out  
of reverence for a much older tradition.

1. YAMIYM in Gen. 4:3 is punctuated by a qamatz, while in Ps. 8:9 it  
is punctuated by a patax.

2. DAMIYM in Ex. 4:25 is punctuated by a qamatz. The dagesh in BATIYM  
is, indeed, unusual.

3. SUSIYM in 2Sam. 15:1 is indeed without the expected dagesh, but  
SUS is always written with a middle W (here is the only place it is  
written lacking), a W which is possibly lost here.

>> Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 15, 2011, at 1:43 AM, Pere Porta wrote:

> Isaac,
>
> what do you mean by "the dagesh is not a part of the NIQUD"?
>
> I brought here some months ago the difference between
>
> 1. YFMIYM, days (Gn 4:3)
> and
> 2. YAM.IYM, seas (Ps 8:9)
>
> Why the dagesh does not belong to the niqud?
>
> We have
>
> 1. DFMIYM, bloods (Ex 4:25) (no dagesh) and
>
> 2. BFT.IYM, houses (Ex 1:21) (dagesh).
>
> We have SWSIYM, horses (2Sa 15:1) (no dagesh) versus DWB.IYM, bears  
> (2K 2:24) (dagesh).
>
> And there are many more like these...
>
> How do you explain this if the dagesh is not a part of the niqud?
> 2011/4/15 Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
> A hirek is followed by a dagesh. The dagesh ("forte") is, in my  
> opinion, no more than an ancient cue for the hireq, as in IWER,  
> 'blind'. In other words, the dagesh is not a part of the NIQUD.

> On Apr 14, 2011, at 12:40 AM, Pere Porta wrote:
>>  Are there in Hebrew nouns, adjectives,
>> adverbs... having ONLY a hireq in their first syllable and a sere  
>> in their
>> second syllable (no dagesh, no shewa, no patah furtivum... at all!)?
>