Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Present day Hebrew speakers tend to say KATAB-TEM with three vowels and a stress on the second A, but to my ear, the "masoretic" KTAB-TEM (as the $MAR-TEM of Jos. 22:2), with only two vowels (no schwa "mobile"), and a stress on the E, sounds better. This is how I do it when I recite Hebrew in public. 

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Jul 14, 2013, at 8:23 PM, Will Parsons wrote:

kɔ:θ'av       kɔ:θəv'u:

kɔ:θəv'ɔ:

kɔ:θ'avtɔ:    kəθavt'ɛm

kɔ:θ'avt      kəθavt'ɛn

kɔ:θ'avti:    kɔ:θ'avnu:

Looking at this (and other vocalic alternations in Hebrew verb and

noun forms), I think one can see the surface forms as being pretty

shallow phonetic transformations on an underlying paradigm looking

like this:

kat'ab        katab'u

katab'a(h)

kat'abta      katabt'em

kat'abt       katabt'en

kat'abti      kat'abnu