Re: Hebrew in all its Allophonic Majesty (was: IPA question)

Hello,
[Steg:]
> > [B] ~ [b] ~ [b:]
> > [P] ~ [p] ~ [p:]
> -
>
> You actually learned that the dageshless forms of bet and pei were
> *bilabial* fricatives?
Well, at first at my Biblical Hebrew seminar I was first taught the
modern liturgical forms (which are in most cases identical the Sefarad
reading of Mod. Hebrew, IIRC), but then I pressed for details and got
this :-)

[...]
> > The geminates are there with a strong dagesh  (i.e. after a short
> > vowel). As a matter of fact, it appea[rs] all consonants except the
> > glottals ([?], [3], [H] and for some reason [r], but not [q]) were
> > doubled in that position, but in some texts a "dagesh virtualis" is
> > actually attested in these as well, especially after the article.
> -
>
> What is a virtual dagesh?
No-one knows, to best of _my_ knowledge. It is attested somewhere, in
Masoretic texts usually (not that I'm surprised, you know - after all,
the Masoretes were out-of-date by half a millenium!). The phonetic value
is, I guess, unknown.

>  If i remember correctly, i've seen a
> /r/-with-dagesh somewheres in Shir haShirim,
Possibly, I just can't check. Ah, the Masorah! :-)

My records indicate that actually the letters to suffer this were only
het [H], he [h], and  `ayin [3].

> /h/ with a dot, of course, isn't a dagesh but a mapiq.
Sure. Apparently, as per above, it can be a dagesh as well.

[Steg:]
> > > Standard Modern Israeli Hebrew:
> > > pronounces /r/ as a velar approximant
[Myself:]
> > In one variety only (probably Ashkenaz, but I may be wrong here),
> > the other has an alveolar trill or flap.
[Steg:]
> I was under the impression that that was considered the prescriptive
> 'standard'.
Well, broadly, there are two standards anyway.

> i personally prefer the alveolar flap, but then again i
> distinguish /H/, /3/, and /h/, too :-P .
Well, I seldom pronounce [3] or [?], but I do distinguish [h], [x], and
[H], and also [k] and [q]. My [r] is velar (speaking Hebrew), but hey -
I can't cope with the alveolar trill even in Russian - my 'hard' /r/ is
uvular, though my palatalised /r/ is indeed an alveolar trill. But I
know I'm not the only conlanger who suffers this! :-)

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

'I am a philologist, and thus a misunderstood man'
                 --JRR Tolkien, _The Notion Club Papers_

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