Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf" <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>]

Dear Jonathan,

I have an explanation that differs from yours. The kaf is the first letter of 
the syllable, and because it has no preceding vowel, it should have had a 
dagesh and have been a stop, according to Masoretic rules. But it is 
fricative because other forms of MLK have a vowel before the kaf. Therefore, 
when Masoretic rules are violated, and we find a fricative begadkefat, which 
should have been a stop, this is often a signal that something is lacking 
that previously was there—here a vowel.

The vocalization of the four consonants YHWH leads to one closed syllable, 
YEH, and one open syllable, WA. A shewa in a closed syllable violates the 
rules of the Masoretes, Therefore, when it occurs, it may signal that 
something is lacking that previously was there. And this "something" 
naturally was a vowel after he. This would lead to three open syllables 
YE-H+vowel-WA.

The position of Nehemiah Gordon may or may not be true; in my view, his 
arguments are not  convincing. We do not know the real pronunciation of YHWH, 
but the clues we have, based on theophoric names, and corroborated by 
Akkadian transcriptions of Hebrew names, are that YHWH had three syllables, 
that the first was YE, and the last was WA, or WE (segol), and that the 
middle vowel was O  or U. There is absolutely no ancient Hebrew evidence in 
favor of the two-syllabic YAHWEH.



Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway




Mandag 3. Juni 2013 07:36 CEST skrev Jonathan Mohler 
<jonathan.mohler AT gmail.com>:

> This can be seen as a typical morphophonemic process, whereby one sound 
> takes on a characteristic of a neighboring sound.  One of the 
> characteristics of the lamed is that it is a "continuant;" the fricative 
> kaf thus is extending the continuant characteristic of the lamed.  This is 
> the most observable phenomenon in language.  What Rolf is dubbing a 
> "voiced" kaf is actually a "stop" or what phonologists call a [ -continuant 
> ] (the lamed is a [ +continuant ]).  Whatever one thinks about the 
> masoretic pointing, linguists have and continue to show that their 
> phonology is consistent with that of all languages.  That is, the Tiberian 
> system was a real-world spoken language.
>
> I recommend everyone on this list pick up some beginning linguistics books 
> such as:
> Phonological Analysis, a Functional Approach, by Donald A. Burquest. (see 
> p.3 for the above argument).
>
> On Jun 2, 2013, at 11:00 AM, b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
>
> >> In Numbers 31:8 we find the plural construct form of MLK (king). First 
> >> we see the closed syllable MAL, which is normal. Then we see the open 
> >> syllable KE, which is not normal, because the kaf is fricative and 
> >> should have been voiced. What does the fact that the kaf is fricative 
> >> indicate?
> >
>
> Jonathan E. Mohler
> Baptist Bible Graduate School
> Springfield, Missouri, US