Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Initial Consonant Clusters in Biblical Hebrew
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:49:29 -0400
Pere Porta:
1. Biblical Hebrew records primarily consonants. At Genesis 18: 2 we see
$L$H, but I don’t think anyone views that as an initial consonant cluster.
It’s thought to be $ + implied vowel + L +implied vowel + $ + H.
However, a lamed/L is [like a resh/R] a so-called “sonorant”, and according
to some linguists, a Hebrew could pronounce $ + sonorant + vowel as a single
syllable. “The words for ‘2’ are the only words in the language that commence
with an initial consonant cluster, permissible because of the sibilant +
sonorant combination in snayim and the sibilant + stop in stayim (see
Hoberman 1989).” “Ancient Hebrew Morphology”, by Gary A. Rendsburg.
>From Wikipedia:
“Examples of sonorants
A typical sonorant inventory found in many languages comprises the following:
two nasals /m/, /n/, two semivowels /w/, /j/, and two liquids /l/, /r/.”
All of N and L and R are sonorants. Since $N is possible [and attested once
in Biblical Hebrew] as an initial consonant cluster, $L + vowel and $R +
vowel are theoretically possible as well, though not attested in Biblical
Hebrew.
2. Here’s a more dramatic way of posing the same question.
Do people think that a Hebrew living in Biblical times could have pronounced,
as a strange foreign name, “Shrek” as a single syllable?
I am afraid that the answer may be: Unattested, and somewhat unlikely, but
by no means impossible.