June 18, 2010
A Review and Guide to the use of
Phonology and Morphology
of Biblical Hebrew [1]
by David Steinberg
David.Steinberg@houseofdavid.ca
Home page
http://www.houseofdavid.ca/
I
General Observations
Dr. Blau was one the leading Hebraists and Arabists of the
twentieth century. Anyone who has studied his papers must be impressed by his
profound learning and closely argued logic. Thus he is well suited to writing the Bauer
and Leander of the first half of the twenty-first century. I am writing this
note in the hope that:
(a) some of my comments might be helpful to those using this major work; and,
(b) my observations will be of use in revising the book at some future date.
1.
Title and Nature of Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew
This
book follows the evolution of many linguistic elements from Proto-Semitic (PS - say prior to 3000 BCE) until the period
of the authorship of the Hebrew Bible (mainly c. 750-400 BCE) and then their
evolution within the precursors of the Tiberian reading tradition (PTH) until
its crystallization in the pointed Tiberian Hebrew (TH) of the Masoretic Text (MT) c. 850 BCE.
Evidence exterior to the Tiberian tradition (comparative Semitics, Greek
transcriptions (BHGk-Lat), Qumran Hebrew (BHQum), Babylonian pointing (BHBab),
modern pronunciations Samaritan and Jewish) are drawn on where relevant.
Basically
the material in this book (excluding chapter 1) can be looked as providing the
equivalent of a massive series of diachronic footnotes which could be appended
to any synchronic grammar of Tiberian Hebrew such as A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar by Naude, Kroeze,
Van Der Merwe (1999).
2.
Target Audience and their Interests
It
would seem to me that there are two main audiences for this book:
a)
scholars and students of languages, particularly Semitic languages;
b)
scholars and students of Biblical Hebrew (BH) and the Hebrew Bible. These readers,
particularly students of Biblical Hebrew verse and wordplay,
will be mainly interested in reconstructing as closely as possible the
synchronic linguistic systems (quality and quantity of vowels and consonants,
stress system, syllabification etc.) of the varieties of Hebrew occurring in
the Hebrew Bible at the time of authorship or final editing (/EBHP/, [EBHP], /LBHP/,
[LBHP]). The skeleton of this reality is
contained in the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible (PMT) minus the internal vowel letters, not
resulting from diphthong reduction, which we know, from epigraphic finds, must
have been added, at least to pre-exilic texts, after c. 550 BCE.
At a
most basic level, such scholars require a guide on how to vocalize the
consonantal text to resemble as closely as possible its form when written. Such a guide is presented, for
example in Beyer
1969 (Althebräische Grammatik : Laut- und Formenlehre), Harris 1941 (Linguistic
Structure of Hebrew pp. 144 ff.), my own Biblical Hebrew Poetry and Word
Play - Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and Visual Experience
and in the following quote from Sáenz-Badillos 1993 ( pp. 69-70)
On the assumption that
the consonantal system of pre-exilic Hebrew has in general been satisfactorily
preserved, there have been various attempts to reconstruct the vocalization and
pronunciation of classical BH, which certainly differs considerably from that
established by the Masoretes fifteen centuries later. Basing themselves primarily on comparative grammar, scholars have tried
to highlight the most important changes, mainly phonetic, which can be detected
in Hebrew after 600 BCE.
Among the most
significant of these, including some which had already begun to take place
before the exile, are the following: elision of syllable- or
word-final alef, which probably
occurred quite early, spirantization of the bgdkpt consonants, which resulted
originally in their dual realization as plosives or fricatives, with fricative
realization clearly dominant later, neutralization of velar
and pharyngeal phonemes (/ḫ/>/ḥ/, /ġ/>/c/)…, neutralization of /ś/ and /s/, 'segolatization' which introduced anaptyctic vowels
to avoid sequences of two consonants (*kalbu > keleb, *sipru > seper),
pretonic vowel lengthening and consonant reduplication, perhaps with
displacement of the accent to the final syllable, Philippi's law, by which
short /i/ changes to /a/ in closed accented syllables … and the law of
attenuation by which /a/ in certain environments changes to /i/ (*massima
> missim), reduction of certain vowels to shewa or, in the environment of a
laryngeal consonant, to another ultrashort vowel, reduction of final doubled
consonants, vowel changes before and after the laryngeals, reduction of double
laryngeals and of double /r/, disappearance of intervocalic
/h/, weakening of the pharyngeal and laryngeal consonants, possibly a further contraction of diphthongs or
the use of anaptyctic vowels (*baytu > bayit, *mawtu > mawet), etc.
… It is not always easy to determine the
precise date of each of these events. But it is certain that they occurred
between the time when Hebrew was still a living language and the era of the
Masoretes. In addition to recording the actual changes in language,
which in many instances were not confined to Hebrew, the Masoretic pointing
system also reflects the linguistic views of the Masoretes in a variety of
ways, with evidence of Aramaic influence and of unduly subjective
reconstruction. Approaching the matter from the opposite direction, that is, by
eliminating from Masoretic Hebrew whatever has resulted from the processes
listed above, various attempts have been made, with differing degrees of
success, to reconstruct pre-exilic Hebrew, including its morphology.
See also Linguistic
Changes Affecting the Pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew 2000 B.C.E. - 850 C.E.
According to Various Scholars and Phases of Biblical
Hebrew and its Antecedents
Very
helpful are reconstructions of the pronunciation of biblical passages as are
provided by Beyer 1969, Harris 1941 and
myself. Given the ubiquity of web connections, in a modern book these
should be duplicated in online sound files as is done for Chaucer's
Middle English poetry (also
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/changlang/activities/lang/chaucer/chaucerpage1.html
) and for Old
English
(http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Grendel.html).
Regrettably, this book does not provide any
accessible guide to the reconstruction of the synchronic linguistic system of
Biblical Hebrew. Indeed, some
of the histories of forms ignore the intermediate forms
most likely to have existed during the period of Biblical Hebrew
(900-c. 400 BCE). It, as implied above, really provides diachronic background
to the synchronic system of Tiberian Hebrew which binds together a consonantal
skeleton of the mid first millennium BCE and a vocalization system of the late
first millennium CE. In truth, as regards pre- and early post-exilic BH, it conforms to Dr. Blau's
description of de
Saussure's view (p. 1) -
(de Saussure) disparaged
historical linguistics as “atomistic”; he believed that it focused on mere
details and neglected what really matters. He extolled a synchronic approach as
capable of discovering the system of a language, which he
saw as the goal of genuine linguistics. In his opinion, a language makes up a
closely knit system, comparable to a chessboard. A small change in the position
of one chess piece, even one of inferior rank, may completely change the
relations between all the pieces and thus the whole system.
Dr.
Blau himself indicated that what is needed (a synchronic description of the
original Biblical Hebrew language system) could be accommodated within a
diachronic study -
1.1.15. Though
historical(-comparative) linguistics is, as a rule, atomistic, this need not be
the case. In principle, it may compare the linguistic systems of different
languages or of one language at different periods. Thus the tense system of
Biblical Hebrew, in which the participle does not constitute an integral part
of the tense system, may be compared with that of Rabbinic Hebrew, in which the
participle has been, to a great extent, absorbed into the tense system. Thus
historical and synchronic approaches may be united.
3. Need
for Tables and Syntheses
The
reader requires the aid of tables and short prose syntheses heading the dense
paragraphs of diachronic examples and analyses in order to form a synchronic
understanding of the language systems Biblical Hebrew, Proto-Tiberian Hebrew
and Tiberian Hebrew.
This book is very weak in this area.
Bauer
and Leander was
not exemplary in this regard but did provide some useful tables (pp. 297, 300,
302, 304, 308, 314, 315, 318, 321, 388, 389, 410).
A
fundamental need is a table, or series of tables, showing the comparative vowel
systems of Biblical Hebrew, Proto-Tiberian Hebrew and Tiberian Hebrew.[2]
4.
Problematic Notation and Terminology etc.
a)
Language Terms (terms should have been listed and
defined at the beginning of the book)
In the book the
term "Biblical Hebrew" seems to be used with a range of meanings
which includes the precursor of the language of the Bible (my Proto-Hebrew) which still retained (some?) case endings (e.g. in 4.4.4.5) which must be dated prior to 1000 BCE and
TH of c. 850 CE. In my view a closely defined system, such as my own
Stages of the Hebrew Language, would clear up much confusion.
The comments in this paper will use my terminology.
b) Telescoped derivations - the signs <,> are used whether the derivation is direct, or whether intermediate stages were going unnoticed. This is particularly important in cases where the skipped intermediate forms are likely to have existed during the period of Biblical Hebrew (900-c. 400 BCE). It would be desirable to use another symbol, such as →, for abridged shifts - i.e. intermediate stages not marked. E.g. - in 1.15.3 presumably, in IPA notation, the shifts are
*/maqaːˈmaːtu/ (Proto-Northwest Semitic - PNWS) > */maqaːˈmoːtu/ or */maqoːˈmoːtu/ (Proto-Hebrew - PH) > */maqoːˈmoːt/ (Biblical Hebrew - BH) > */mqoːˈmoːt/ (Proto-Tiberian Hebrew - PTH) >
/mәqoˈmot/ (TH c. 850 CE vowel length no longer phonemic )
The TH form /mәqoˈmot/ was
probably pronounced by the Tiberian Masoretes as *[măqoːˈmoːθ] (< *[mәqoːˈmoːθ]) (short vowels restricted to closed unstressed
syllables).
Putting in
the full derivation would not only be clearer and would provide the probable Biblical Hebrew form, but would also eliminate the need for
1.15.4n.
c) Transcriptions of Proto-Tiberian and Tiberian Hebrew
This book,
following the conventional scholarly transcription of the
TH vowel system usually
transcribes e.g. שָׁמַר"he guarded" as šāmar. I would argue
that this should always be asterisked (*šāmar)
since,
as is clear from the book itself, the only transcription directly
justified by שָׁמַר
is šɔˈmar whereas *šāmar is deduced
(reconstructed) from both שָׁמַר
and a number of other sources of evidence ably
discussed in the book. Looking at this word, its history from PH to the MT form is probably something
like -
*/šaˈmara/ (PH) > */šaˈmar/ (BH) > */šāˈmar/ (pretonic lengthening c. 300 BCE )[3] > */šaːˈmar/[4] (PTH c. 400 CE ) > */šåːˈmaːr/ (stress lengthening c. 600 CE ) > /šåˈmar/ (TH c. 850 CE vowel length no longer phonemic )
The TH form /šɔˈmar/ was probably pronounced by the Tiberian Masoretes as *[šɔːˈmɐːr].
d) Phones and Phonemes - In the
introductory section the author takes some pains to explain the difference
between phonemes and phones. However, the italicized Hebrew transcriptions
mix the two. I would suggest that a clear statement be made at the
beginning of the book such as the following -
1) Something
similar to Phones and Phonemes.
2) All italicized Hebrew transcriptions
in this book:
i) refer to Proto-Tiberian
Hebrew unless otherwise indicated;
and,
ii) are phonemic[5] except that they include the spirantized allophones of
the bgdkpt consonants where relevant. In other words yām = /yām/ (IPA /yaːm/). Phonetic transcriptions will be
presented in the traditional square brackets [ ].
e) Problem Notation
for a Vowel - the use of oe instead of ę or ɛ for IPA ɛ really only adds to obscurity
f) Notation for Long Vowels - in a historical grammar of Biblical
Hebrew it is most desirable to distinguish the long vowels by origin (cf. 1.10.2.3.2n) see - Vowel Length.
g) Anceps vowels (see also below) - these are clearly
marked in Blau 1972 (Torat Hahege Vehatzurot eg. p. 97) and in Bauer and
Leander. I have noticed only one case where it is marked i.e. on p. 160
(see immediately below)
In
all other cases, that I noticed the presumed anceps vowels are marked as if
they were long vowels - ā, ῑ,
ū -
while it is probable that these vowels were either short or anceps. N.b.
if typographical limitations were causing problems Hendel-Lambdin-Huehnergard
indicated the anceps using the tilde i.e. ã ĩ ũ and
I use this convention.
Sections that I noticed to contain
or refer to anceps vowels include (this is clearly an incomplete list)
1.15.4n - should be *qamtĩ (PH)
1.18.1
and note
3.3.5.3.3.5
and note
p. 93
several places
3.3.5.4.1.
3.5.7.2.2.
3.5.7.2.3n.
3.5.12.2.2n.
3.5.12.2.8n.
p. 160 several places
4.2.2.3.2.
4.2.2.3.3
4.2.2.6.2.
4.2.2.7.3
4.2.3.3.1
4.3.2.2.6
4.3.3.1.2n
4.3.3.3.4
4.3.3.4.1n
4.3.3.4.4n
4.3.5.2.2.4
4.3.8.7.2.1
4.
Scope and Nature of Introductory Section
The existing introductory section is
very good but introductory sections should cover, in outline, the full range of
linguistic issues required to follow the book's arguments. Two important items
-
i) Dr. Blau's reconstruction of the
stress history of PS to PNWS to PH
to BH depends on four assumptions all of which are contested by a number of
respected senior scholars in the field[6]:
a) that many suffixes in PNWS and PH ended
in unstressed anceps vowels;
b) that in the transition between PH and BH all final
short vowels were dropped. Thus in BH all words
ended in either consonants or long vowels[7]. Earlier
anceps vowels either survived as long vowels or were dropped;
c) that in PS stress fell either -
i. on penultimate syllable, if it was long closed or containing a long vowel, and otherwise on the antepenult; OR,
ii. the long vowel most closely
preceding the case and mood endings the syllable containing that vowel is
stressed. If there is no such long vowel, the syllable preceding the case and
mood endings is stressed.
d) that in PH stress was uniformly penultimate;
e) that the Canaanite shift commenced
before the shift to uniformly penultimate stress and affected only long
stressed a i.e. [áː]. (Many
scholars in the field consider that the Canaanite shift affected all instances
of long a - stressed or not).
It
seems to me that the book should discuss these issues in the introduction
rather than leaving the reader to pick up bits here and there. An outline of Dr.
Blau's stress stages should be included in the introduction. A highly slimmed down version of Blau 1976/1993 p. 30-34 would do.
ii)
Somewhere it would be desirable to discuss the nature of long and short vowels and gemination.
II. Specific
Comments
1. Possible
Errors or Omissions
1.3.4
- Recent work (Young, Rezetko, Ehrensvärd
2008 chapt. 12; Vern
2008.) has
shown it to be very likely that the so called "archaic poetry" of the Bible could
have been authored at any time after 1000 BCE probably using a standard set of archaizing features[8]. This is a significant point in a
historical grammar.
1.3.8 - Is the
statement "The use of ʾet with the pronominal suffix becomes more common than
object suffixation on the verb." correct? See Polzin 1976 ( Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of
Biblical Hebrew Prose. Scholars Press pp. 28 ff.)
1.7.12
- Given the total confusion among historians today about what elements
(Canaanite, Aramaean, Shosu) made up the eventual Israelite regional
"tribes" and the general agreement that these "tribes"
formed in situ, they might consider replacing -
"Moreover, one must not
lose sight of the fact that the languages of the Israelite tribes were very
close to the dialects of the Canaanites whom they conquered,"
by something like -
"The
Israelite people probably developed out of an amalgam of groups originating
from both within and outside cis-jordanian Canaan. Even those originating from
elsewhere probably spoke languages derived from Proto-Northwest Semitic and were thus close to the
dialects of the Canaanites"
1.10.2 - note Hendel-Lambdin-Huehnergard p. 8 -
Original śin was a lateral fricative
[ɬ], pronounced like hl (cf. bōśem
≈
Greek balsam;
kaśdim
≈
Akkadian kaldu), becomes [s]
Original samekh was pronounced like [č], as in “check”
(Egyptian transcriptions)
Original šin was perhaps [s], as in Arabic, becomes [š]
1.10.2.19 - Mention The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield Academic Press)?
1.11.3 - Should "variable" be "variant"?
1.15.6 - other scholars argue that,
unlike the word-final heh in the example, word-final alef was still
consonantal in pre-exilic EBHP. This
possibility should be mentioned
1.16.1 - Re
the statement " like dāg ‘fish’, according to the
Sephardic pronunciation ". From Morag 1970 (col.
1142) it would appear that in the Sephardic pronunciation דָּג and דַּג־ would
be identical except, perhaps, for a slight, non-phonemic, stress lengthening in
the former? If this is correct in this דָּג and דַּג־ (and *
דֲּג, if it were to exist) would all be pronounced [dɐg] in Sephardic Hebrew.
1.16.2 - there are problems with this para.
- First *yiwqad
implies that spirantization of the bgdkpt
consonants took place in PH or even earlier (see my comment below)
- Otherwise
the para. is ok if the shift "*yῑqad 'it will burn' <*yiwqad
" is seen as occurring after the loss of mood endings. If, however, the
shift is pushed back to the PH phase it should be reformulated -
*yῑˈqad (BH) 'it will
burn/is burning' <*yiwˈqadu (PH)
*yῑˈqad (BH) 'it will
become dry' <*yiyˈbašu (PH)
OR
*ˈyῑqad (BH) 'let it burn'
<*ˈˈyiwqad (PH)
*ˈyῑqad (BH) 'let it dry
up! etc' <*ˈyiwqad (PH)
1.16.7 - "...according
to regular sound correspondence, should..." should be "...according
to regular sound correspondence of the second consonant, should...".
- Is פַּלְמוֹנִי similar to
the Arabic process of naht?
1.18.3 - re.
Nestorian shift ḥ > x. The same shift occurred in Ashknenazi (and
hence Israeli) Hebrew.
1.19.10 - This is confusing. I would suggest in
substance one of the two following -
Total dissimilation is
reflected by the disappearance of the (second) glottal stop in *ˈʾaʾḥuzu ‘I shall take’. This yields an
intermediate form *ˈʾ āḥuzu, exhibiting compensatory
lengthening of the a; from this,
by the shift áː > óː and the above-mentioned dissimilation (§1.19.9?????)
and the shift to uniform penultimate stress to the Proto-Biblical
Hebrew form *ʾōˈḥuzu. The word's evolution would be -
*/ˈʾaʾḥuzu/ > */ˈʾāḥuzu/ > */ˈʾōˈḥuzu/ (PH) > */ʾōˈḥiz/ (BH) > */ʾōˈḥiz/ (PTH) > */ʾoˈḥẹz/ (TH)
OR
Total dissimilation is
reflected by the disappearance of the (second) glottal stop in *ˈʾaʾḥuz ‘let me take!’. This yields an
intermediate form *ˈʾ āḥuz, exhibiting compensatory
lengthening of the a; from
this, by the shift áː > óː and the above-mentioned dissimilation
(§1.19.9?????) and the shift to uniform penultimate stress to the Proto-Biblical
Hebrew form *ˈʾōḥuz. The word's evolution would be -
*/ˈʾaʾḥuz/ > */ˈʾāḥuz/ > */ˈʾōḥuz/ (PH) > */ˈʾōḥiz/ (BH) > */ʾōˈḥiz/ (PTH) > */ʾoˈḥẹz/ (TH)
1.20.6 - in the phrase "...phonemics (or phonology, dealing with
the smallest units of language, i.e., sounds or phonemes)," there is a danger of confusion
of phones with phonemes. I suggest substituting "...phonemics (or phonology, dealing with
the smallest units of language, i.e., sounds (phones) and phonemes).
2.4.13 - it would be most
useful to give examples in American English and British RP for each of the
vowels (Dr Blau does this in Blau 1976/1993 p. 9).
2.4.14
- For clarity I suggest that they change the first sentence
"The distinction between
a short high back vowel (short u, written qibbuṣ) and a long high back vowel (long u, written shuruq) is alien to Biblical
Hebrew."
TO
"The distinction between
a short high back vowel (short u, written qibbuṣ) and a long high back vowel (long u, written shuruq) is alien to Tiberian
Hebrew."
2.4.15n
- is this view widely accepted by his peers? If not other views should be
noted.
p. 69 - I would suggest that this table be a comparison
of at least Biblical Hebrew and Tiberian Hebrew
(cf. my own effort at Consonantal Phonemes in Biblical, Tiberian
Masoretic and Israeli Hebrew and
Wikipedia Phonology
of Biblical Hebrew and Hebrew Phonology: Regional
and historical variation
3.1.3 - The statement "Neither the linguist nor the
naïve reader is interested in phonetic differences that do not differentiate
meanings" would
not be true of e.g. scholars interested in Biblical Poetry and wordplay where the sound of the language
could be important.
3.1.4 - The statement
The fact that allophones
are predictable, because they appear in defined environments, enables the
reader to identify them readily. Biblical Hebrew is a case in point. In
unvocalized biblical texts there is no graphic difference between bgdkpt
letters
pronounced as stops or as spirants. Nonetheless a reader familiar with the
language can easily distinguish them, despite the great phonetic difference.
Because each realization generally appears in a well-defined phonetic
environment (spirants occur after vowels, otherwise stops occur), the ordinary
reader readily differentiates them.... Moreover, even polyphonic letters (like ש marking both [š] and [s] ... are easily differentiated
rather overstates the case. We must assume that the developers of the
Hebrew and Syriac vocalization systems were well aware that the users of their
vocalized texts would have a range of linguistic abilities in their ancestral
language with many not understanding the text at all. I agree with Sáenz-Badillos 1993 ( p. 111)
The resulting (Tiberian
pointing) system is quite comprehensive, faithfully reproducing the
phonological structure of the language while also providing sufficient phonetic
information to read it correctly
3.2.1.1 - Re. statement
"Before the introduction of vowel letters, Hebrew script was entirely
consonantal, notating consonants only." two points:
- instead of
"notating" wouldn't it be better to use "denoting" or
"representing"?
- the idea that "Hebrew
script was (originally) entirely consonantal" reflects the views of Cross
and Freedman. They based it on the view that a Phoenician style orthography was
employed in the early Iron Age being replaced by an Aramaean orthography,
regularly writing final vowels from, say, the ninth century BCE. We have
virtually no epigraphic evidence to substantiate Phoenician style
orthography ever being used in the two Israelite kingdoms. It may have
been the case that Israelite writing started as purely consonantal or it may be
that there was virtually no Israelite writing prior to the importation of
Aramaean orthography regularly indicating final vowels.
3.2.1.2 - Re. "All
the letters of the Hebrew alphabet mark separate phonemes." It might be more accurate to write "In
Biblical Hebrew, each letter of the Hebrew
alphabet marks one or more separate phonemes."
3.2.2.2 - in the passage -
"the ancient Jews. Otherwise, why did the Jews", the use of the term
"Jews" is anachronistic. "Israelites" or
even "Hebrews" would be better
- add to the ref. "Blau 1982a" two others Steiner 2006 and Wevers 1970.
- suggest replacing "It stands to reason that ..." with "It can be demonstrated that..."
If
this is correct, one can assume that it would not have affected pre-exilic EBHP though it may or may not have been a
feature of post-exilic LBHP.
3.3.3.1.5n
- Add refs. to Ancient Hebrew by Richard C. Steiner in Hetzron 1997 and Khan 1994
3.3.3.3.8n
- two points -
- "...standard Israeli pronunciation
woʾŏniyyōt " should be
replaced by "standard Israeli pronunciation voʾoniyyot". On lack of vowel length
distinction in Israeli Hebrew see Berman 1997.
- unless there is a demonstrable phonemic or
even audible phonetic distinction in vowel length in Sephardi Hebrew "... according to Sephardic
tradition it is pronounced waʾoniyyōt."
should be replaced by Hebrew "...according to Sephardic tradition it is pronounced waʾoniyyot."
3.3.3.4.3
- "...borrowed from Hebrew" should be replaced by "...borrowed from
Hebrew via Aramaic".
3.3.3.4.4
- The term "merger", though technically correct, is confusing to the
non-linguist. In ordinary English "merger" implies some sort of
combination which is not what it means here. What Dr. Blau is describing is a 2
stage process -
a)
(up to at least 300 BCE) there are 4 separate phonemes - /ḥ /, /ḫ/
(IPA [x]), /c/, /ġ/
b) /ḫ/>/ḥ/; /ġ/>/c/ while original /ḥ / and /c/ remain unchanged.
Thus the original 4 phonemes have become 2.
3.3.5.1.5
- The text should mention that some
important scholars (eg.
Hendel-Lambdin-Huehnergard
p. 20.) consider that the
Biblical Hebrew suffix was óːh
(found in some Arabic dialects) with the derivation something like
-hũ (PS) > - úh(u(ː)) (PH) > - óːh (BH) > óː (PTH)
See
also the discussion in Gogel p.
159 footnote 186.
3.3.5.4.2. - PH *ganabathéma has spirantized b but hard t and PH *ʾahebatki has a hard b and t - all in
the same paragraph!
3.3.5.2.1 - re. "(This is usually pronounced
with -ā as “compensation” for the dropping of the ה.)". There seem to be two problems
here. First ה is
clearly a mistake, it should be h. Second my understanding is the
feminine nominal unstressed suffix in most varieties of spoken Arabic is
phonemically and phonetically short i.e. /a/ [a] whereas the feminine nominal stressed
suffix in Biblical Hebrew is supposed to be long */ā/ *[ā].
3.3.5.3.3.3n
- As it is unclear, and historically
misleading, I suggest they modify
The original form of *lәhaḥăṭῑ was *lahaḥăṭῑʾ ; the last syllable is
irrelevant here.
TO something like
*lәhaḥăṭῑ derives from the earlier*lahaḥăṭῑʾ with the post-exilic
dropping of word-final
glottal stops and the reduction of the initial unstressed vowel. In turn this
derives from the original Biblical
Hebrew form *lahaḫṭῑʾ.
3.3.5.3.4
shouldn't
*šәmārēm < *šәmāraym < *šәmārahim
be
*šәmarēm (LBHP) < *šamaraym (EBHP) < *šamarahim
It
would be very useful if the text would state whether the lengthening of the
vowel following the first consonant in
לָהּ
'to
her' < lahã
was stress lengthening or compensatory
lengthening
3.4
- somewhere there should be a mention that in pre-exilic EH there is
almost no use of internal vowel letters. Thus it seems certain that these were
added, after the exile, to any surviving pre-exilic Hebrew texts.
3.4.1.1
- suggest deleting "incidentally"
3.4.2.2 - Our only evidence of "northern contraction"
is of ay > ē . As Dr. Blau has
pointed out in connection with the MT "... (historically incorrect)
impression that the two diphthongs were simultaneously monophthongized (in the
first page of "The Monophthongization of Diphthongs as Reflected in the
Use of Vowel Letters in the Pentateuch". It is thus, not necessarily correct,
and going beyond the meager evidence to assume that in "northern
Hebrew" the shift aw > ō had also occurred.
3.4.2.4
- re. *niglayʾtῑ > נִגלֵיתִי - */niglayʾtῑ/ in EBHP may well have been pronounced *[nigleyʾtῑ] (see Hendel-Lambdin-Huehnergard
pp. 9,19)
3.4.2.4
- a comparison with contemporary Western Aramaic would be enlightening here.
3.4.7.1
- ref missing fifth line.
3.4.7.2
- should "*yaššāmirū
<*yanšāmirū " be "*yaššamirū
<*yanšamirū "
3.4.8.3
- The pre-exilic EBHP form, corresponding to TH wә was *wa. This should be noted.
3.5 -
Title "The Vowels of Hebrew" should be "The Vowels of Tiberian
Hebrew" or "The Vowels of the Tiberian Tradition of Reading Biblical
Hebrew"
3.5.2.1n
- ref. should be added "James Barr The Variable Spellings of the Hebrew Bible, OUP, 1989"
3.5.2.2
- 'qām = קָם
' and 'dāg = דָּג'
should be
'qām > קָם
' and 'dāg > דָּג'
3.5.2.5n
- Suggest modifying -
In vocalized Israeli
spelling, originally long ῑ is always spelled with a
followiing ִי since in fact the spelling of vocalized Hebrew texts
is based on biblical orthography, with regularizations.
TO
READ
Standard Israeli
spelling of vocalized Hebrew texts is based on biblical orthography, with
regularizations. Thus, although no vowel length distinctions are maintained in
modern Israeli Hebrew or in the Israeli reading of the Bible, in vocalized
Israeli spelling historically long ῑ is always spelled with a followiing ִי
3.5.2.8
- I find this para. confusing. Perhaps they might consider something like
Tiberian
pointing indicates only vowel quality except for the ultra-short vowels. It
appears that the Tiberian masoretes pronounced all vowels long except for those
marked as ultra-short and vowels in closed unstressed syllables. The latter
were pronounced short. Thus there were many historically short vowels, not
indicated by vowel letters, pronounced long by the Tiberians alongside historically
long vowels (ῑ, ē,
ō ū) usually indicated by vowel
letters. Thus the presence or absence of vowel letters altered neither the
phonemic or phonetic shape of Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation.
3.5.3.1
and 3.5.3.3 - see comment on 1.16.1
3.5.4.7 and 3.5.7.1.4- this material is
very important and should be part of the introduction
3.5.6
- "Vowels: The Hebrew Phonemes" should be "Vowels: The Tiberian
Hebrew Phonemes".
3.5.7,
3.5.12.2 - Under Dr. Blau's approach, the final vowels of the masculine
singular adjectives, primitive form *qatul and qatil are
lengthened. E.g.
*/gaˈdulu/ > */gaˈdōl/; */kaˈbidu/ > */kaˈbēd/.
What
was the form of the corresponding feminine and plural forms of these words in pre-exilic EBHP?
Two possibilities that occur to me -
|
Noun
in Absolute Case |
|
Comments |
||||
|
גדל (pre-exilic spelling; MT generally גָּדוֹל 'big' |
*/gaˈdulu/ |
*/gaˈdoːl/ |
*/gaːˈdoːl/ |
/gɔˈdol/ *[gɔːˈdoːl] |
Assumes
that in Biblical Hebrew grammatical analogy obtained between the
different members of this morphological class.
See 1.15.3. |
|
|
*/gaduˈlatu/ |
*/gadoːˈlaː/ |
*/gәdoːˈlaː/ |
/gәdoˈlɔ/ *[gәdoːˈlɔː] |
|||
|
*/gaduˈliːma/ (oblique case) |
*/gadoːˈliːm / |
*/gәdoːˈliːm/ |
/gәdoˈlim/ *[gәdoːˈliːm] |
|||
|
*/gaduˈloːtu/ |
*/gadoːˈloːt/ |
*/gәdoːˈloːt/ |
/gәdoˈlot/ *[gәdoːˈloːt] |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
*/gaˈdulu/ |
*/gaˈdoːl/ |
*/gɔːˈdoːl/ |
/gɔˈdol/ *[gɔːˈdoːl] |
Assumes
that, in feminine and plural forms, */u/ > /ō/ due to pretonic
lengthening, i.e. c. 300 BCE. |
||
|
*/gaduˈlatu/ |
*/gaduˈlaː/ *[gaduˈlaː] or |
*/gәdoːˈlaː/ |
/gәdoˈlɔ/ *[gәdoːˈlɔː] |
|||
|
*/gaduˈliːma/ (oblique case) |
*/gaduˈliːm / *[gaduˈliːm] or |
*/gәdoːˈliːm/ |
/gәdoˈlim/ *[gәdoːˈliːm] |
|||
|
*/gaduˈloːtu/ |
*/gaduˈloːt / *[gaduˈloːt] or |
*/gәdoːˈloːt/ |
/gәdoˈlot/ *[gәdoːˈloːt] |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
כבד 'heavy' |
*/kaˈbidu/ |
/kaˈbẹːd/ |
*/kaːˈbẹːd/ |
/kɔˈbẹd/ *[kɔːˈbẹːd] |
Assumes that in Biblical Hebrew grammatical analogy obtained between the different |