Modern spoken Hebrew completely lost schwa and dagesh, certainly dagesh kal,
...
... in only a century since its reinstatement as living language. ...
... Is it plausible that schwa and dagesh persisted for millennia, to be
heard by Masoretes? Hardly so.
No other language has general plosification of word-intitial fricative, or
the fricative following closed syllable. The dagesh kal does not correspond
to any existing phonological tradition.
So why Masoretes added schwa and dagesh? They did not write grammar, but faithfully
recorded the synchronic phonetics. Could the actually "hear" schwa and dagesh?
For a possible answer, note that other masoretic marks are only used for
singing. ...
... Why assume that schwa and dagesh were intended for speech? What if the
Masoretes intended them only for cantillation, and Ben-Yehuda wrongly applied
schwa and dagesh to spoken Hebrew?
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