Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

Perhaps the time has come to clear up a question that seems to recur on
b-hebrew concerning the shape of Hebrew words.

The following was raised on a different thread and needs its own thread to
be discussed

>As far as pronunciation, when we look at poetry, if we read it as each
letter representing a syllable consisting of a consonant followed by a
vowel, the text then has a meter, a rhythm, that it lacks when read with
modern pronunciation. However, the modern pronunciation or a reconstruction
of Tiberian pronunciation based largely on Yemenite pronunciation, are very
similar and the most widely known, therefore any teaching should teach that.
>

That proposal by Karl is that Hebrew was a CV(CV)(CV)-only language.
(C=consonant, V=vowel)
The contention of all Hebraists that I know is that Hebrew has both CV and
CVC syllables.
I find the CV-only proposal to be untenable, so maybe it would be good to
see its 'evidence'.

The poetic argument above seems impossible to demonstrate consistently
and it becomes highly subjective.
E.g. Ex 15:4 (filling in 'v' for any vowel)
תהמת יכסימו  tvhvmvtv yvkvsvyvmvwv (10)
ירדו במצולת כמו-אבן  yvrvdvwv bvmvSvwvlvtv kvmvwv 'vbvnv (16)
(in traditional terms this is a 2 beats plus 3 beats.)

On the other hand, there is excellent morphological evidence for CVC
syllables in BH.
Any syllable pattern must explain its relationship to sister languages and
must reasoably explain the trajectory and changes within the languages.
E.g., BH katabti 'I wrote' has a CVC syllable in -tab- according to the MT.
Also katabta 'you wrote' with CVC.

One must ask whether or not that reflects the biblical language. Did BH have
CVC syllables?

One may look at sister languages and see what developments took place and
propose explanations that can can cover the overall developments and
relationships, just like what is done in IndoEuropean languages.

Arabic has katabtu 'I wrote' katabta 'you wrote' with a CVC syllable in
exactly the same place. Also the same 'a' vowels. Hb and Ab diverge in the
final vowel 1p and i/u splits are quite common between languages and
dialects. Both i/u are  'high' vowels. In fact, many Arabic dialects today
have words that differ in i/u across dialects yaktub/yiktib/yaktib 'he will
write'. uzen/izen 'ear'

Aramaic is genetically closer to Hebrew than Arabic. (this is seen in the
binyan structures where Arm-Hb are tighter than Arabic is with either, and
in overall shared vocabulary that is 'genetic' [ereS 'earth' Aram ara`] and
not 'borrowed') What does Arm have?
katbet 'I wrote', ketabta/ketabt(e) 'you wrote'. It has -tab- like the
others in 2s but has a closed syllable -bet in the 1s.
A historical linguist finds this helpful from several directions. First, the
connection between Arabic and Hebrew, even though more distantly related
than Hb-Arm, preserves a -tab- syllable in the 1s, which points to Aramaic
as an innovator for this feature. (It apparently dropped its 1s vowel and
then resolved the consonants with a new vowel.) Secondly, it shows that the
Hebrew pattern did not develop from Aramaic. This is important because Karl
has frequently claimed that during the exile or shortly after the Jewish
people suddenly forgot BH and used Aramaic to fill in what was missing. That
is not an explanation that any historical linguist will be able to accept as
explaining the above evidence. It's just not in the cards. Thirdly, the MT
preserves the archaic -tab- syllable in the 1s, which is one piece of
evidence showing the conservative nature of the MT morphology.

Nouns show similar congruence across these languages.
The noun pattern *maktab/*miktab is preserved in all three languages,
suggesting that it is genetically shared from a period before they split
from each other. Note the CVC-CVC pattern
The segolates also show preservation from before their divergence. E.g. Heb
malki is like Arabic malki is like Aramaic malki, despite the fact that the
lemma form is melek in Hebrew. This is explained by the old case system
where *malk-un dropped the case -un and then the resulting CvCC resolved
itself by becoming CvCvC malik>melek. Similar changes are seen today in
colloquial Arabic where the dropping of the case system results in CvCC
becoming CvCvC.
This all makes perfect historical linguistic sense. Plus the vowels in the
CvCC-un words can be traced accross the languages and certain
correspondences are seen that prove a genetic, developmental relationship to
a historical linguist. E.g. Arabic *u> Hb *o, Ar *a > Hb *e (but remains *a
where a suffix does not create a need for final CC resolution). Ar *i > Hb
*e (but *i where a suffix does not creat a need for final CC resolution.)

These can be multiplied with hundreds of specific examples.  (e.g. Ar
kalb-un, 'dog' kalbi 'my dog', Heb keleb kalbi.)

In choosing between such an analysis that has CVC already in the period of
BH and an analysis that has only CV, there would seem to be only one
rational choice for a historical linguist. CVC. I claim that it is the only
tenable view. So it would be nice if this thread can bring the issue to a
close for b-Hebrew.

braxot

Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life