Arnaud, comments on some points...
On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 21:27:19 +0100, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr> wrote:
***Prosody is always a problem when divergent.
In addition there is no reason to think Ancient Hebrew had so many "dialects".
That language was not sprawling over a whole continent, as far as I know.
A.
***
That wouldn't prevent it from having a lot of dialectual variation. Consider
the case of Greek in ancient times.
***
Hebrew itself very clearly indicates that emphatics must have been
glottalized in Ancient Hebrew, as vowels are not at all colored in any way
by emphatics.
Conclusive.
A.
***
It happens that I agree with you here - the lack of vowel colourization
is strong evidence of emphatics that were realized as glottalized. But still,
is this conclusive? I would say not. I would like to know (from someone
familiar with Yemeni Hebrew pronunciation) if in the Yemenite tradition
(where I believe, emphatics are pronounced as the corresponding sounds in
Arabic) there may in fact be an influence of emphatic consonants on the
adjacent vowels.
***
>>8. Affricates: lost (except Tsade)
>
> Tsade emically preserves what may have been a pharyngealized sibilant.
***
It represents the fusion of a glottalized affricate and a glottalized
lateral stop.
A.
***
Too dogmatic by far! What evidence is there that sadhe *was* an affricate
in ancient times? (And no, I don't consider the Codex Vaticanus "evidence"
discussed in a previous thread to be valid.)
Or a glottalized lateral stop?***
(Actually, I'm not even sure of what a "lateral stop" would be.)
***
Do you know that story from Chaucer himself that he said eggs or eyes to a
southern English lady, and she did not understand him, because her plural
was eyen. Sometimes it does not take much to block communication.
Arnaud Fournet
***
Sometimes, but this is the exception. I don't know this story, but since
Chaucer himself was Southern English, I doubt that he found the ambiguity
a serious difficulty.
Will Parsons
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