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The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew. Volume I

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Geoffrey Khan

I.3. Dagesh and Rafe

Texte intégral

I.3.1. Dagesh

I.3.1.1. Preliminary Remarks

1Dagesh is a dot that is marked within a letter. It is in origin an Aramaic active participle meaning ‘stabbing’ from the Aramaic root d-g-š ‘to stab’. This referred, it seems, to the ‘stabbing’ of the letter by the pen when the sign was marked.

  • 1  Our terms dagesh forte and dagesh lene go back to David Qimḥi (1160- 1235), who uses the Hebrew te (...)

2The dagesh sign was used mainly in two contexts. These are (i) on a consonant that was geminated (traditionally referred to in modern grammars as dagesh forte) and (ii) on the consonants תפכדגב when they were realized as plosives (traditionally referred to as dagesh lene).1 In both cases the letter with dagesh was pronounced with greater pressure than its counterpart without dagesh.

3The majority of consonants in the Tiberian pronunciation tradition could be marked with a dagesh.

4Dagesh is not marked, however, on the laryngeals and pharyngeals ( חעהא ) in the Standard Tiberian tradition, except in a few isolated cases to ensure correct reading (e.g. the dagesh in ʾalef in four words, see §I.1.1.). In principle, therefore, these consonants are not geminated.

5The letter resh, like the laryngeal and pharyngeal consonants, is generally not geminated by dagesh. Occasionally, however, the resh does have dagesh, e.g.

L: Image ‘your navel string was not cut’ (Ezek. 16.4)

L: Image ‘the bitterness of its soul’ (Prov. 14.10)

L: Image ‘because my head’ (Cant. 5.2)

L: Image ‘anything bad’ (Jer. 39.12)

L: Image ‘to irritate her’ (1 Sam. 1.6)

  • 2  Morag (1960, 207–8).

6When it is marked in cases such as these, it should be identified as dagesh forte, indicating the gemination of the consonant. In the attested examples, the resh with dagesh in the Tiberian Masoretic tradition would have had its primary realization as an uvular trill according to the rules that have come down to us from the medieval sources (§I.I.1.20.). This does not appear, however, to have been a relevant conditioning factor for the dagesh. Some Middle Eastern Jewish communities pronounce the resh as geminate in their biblical reading where the dagesh was marked, but in all cases they pronounce the resh as an apical-alveolar.2

  • 3  Bar-Asher (1987).
  • 4  Bar-Asher (1987, 13–14).
  • 5  Katz (1981, 32–36).
  • 6  Morag (1960, 208–16).

In medieval manuscripts of Rabbinic Hebrew that belong to the eastern tradition of transmission, dagesh is marked on resh more frequently than it is in the Tiberian biblical text.3 The tendency to mark dagesh is greater in some eastern manuscripts than in others. It is particularly common in the Parma B manuscript of the Mishnah. The dagesh is marked on resh after the relative particle שֶׁ še and on the medial resh of a number of verbal and nominal morphological patterns with a geminated middle radical, e.g. Image ‘he mixed’ (piʿel) and Image ‘mixed’ (puʿal), Image ‘weavers.’4 The resh is pronounced geminated in a similar range of contexts in Middle Eastern reading traditions of Rabbinic Hebrew that have survived into modern times, e.g. Aleppo [ʃerrɑʔaˈta] Image ‘who has seen (fs)’ (Berakhot 3.6), [ʕərˈreːβ] Image ‘he created an ʿeruv’ (ʿEruvin 2.6), [leharraˈgin] ‘to murderers’ Image (Nedarim 3.4).5 The gemination is more widespread in some traditions than in others. Also in verbal and nominal patterns with a geminated middle radical it tends to be restricted to certain verbal roots and lexical items, as is the case in the medieval manuscripts. Sometimes there are variations within the same root that are exploited to express a semantic distinction. In Jerba, for example, the resh in the root ברע is geminated in the piʿel when it has the meaning of mixing one thing with another, but it is not geminated when it has the sense of creating an ʿeruv. Morag believes that the lack of consistency in the gemination of the resh across the traditions of Rabbinic reading and within individual traditions may have been the result of varying degrees of influence from biblical reading traditions.6

The dagesh in the resh in the Tiberian biblical tradition in a case such as Image ‘because my head’ (Cant. 5.2) after the particle -שֶ ֺ , which corresponds to one of the contexts where it occurs in the eastern Rabbinic traditions, suggests that the tradition of gemination of this letter is of considerable time depth. It is likely to have had its origin at a period when Hebrew was a living language, assuming that Rabbinic Hebrew originated in the vernacular of the Tannaitic period. Its occurrence here may reflect the influence of spoken Hebrew at the time of the formation of the Tiberian reading tradition, the particle -ֶׁ ש itself being a feature of Rabbinic Hebrew.

I.3.1.2. Morphological Gemination

A dagesh may reflect gemination that is a feature of the morphological pattern of a word. This typically occurs in the second radical of the root, e.g. Image ‘he sought’, Image ‘thief’, Image ‘gracious’. A possible case of morphological gemination of resh in the Tiberian biblical tradition is Image ‘your navel string was not cut’ (Ezek. 16.4).

7Morphological gemination also includes gemination that is inherent to the root. When a root has identical consonants as its two final radicals, these appear as a geminated consonant with dagesh when adjacent to each other before an affix. This gemination does not occur in word final-position when the stem does not have an affix, e.g.

Image ‘peoples’, Image ‘his people’; cf. sing. Image < *ʿamm

Image ‘gardens’, Image ‘his garden’; cf. sing. Image < *gann

I.3.1.3. Dagesh to Distinguish Meaning

8In various cases, gemination of a consonant reflected by a dagesh sign is used in the Tiberian tradition as a strategy to distinguish homophones (Yeivin 1980, 49, 294).

9This may be contextually dependent. When, for example, the negatoR ֺ אל is juxtaposed with the homophonous prepositional phrase ל ֹ ו a dagesh is added to the negator to distinguish the two, e.g.

L: Image [ˈlloː ˈloː] ‘The offspring would not be his’ (Gen. 38.9)

L: Image [ˌlloː-ˈloː] ‘in an argument that is not his’ (Prov. 26.17)

  • 7  Yeivin (1985, 361–63).
  • 8  A few cases of a dagesh that appear in the BHS edition and were identified by Knauf (1979) as serv (...)

Gemination to distinguish homophones, however, is generally a permanent feature of the morphological pattern. It can be regarded, therefore, as a type of morphological gemination. Examples of this include cases such Image ‘powerful’ referring to God, used in phrases such as Image ‘the Mighty One of Jacob’ (Gen. 49.24, Isa. 49.26, Isa. 60.16, Psa. 132.2, 5) vs. Image ‘powerful’, used to refer to humans, Image ‘toils’ vs. Image ‘idols’, Image ‘he gives rest’ vs. Image ‘he places’, Image ‘you spend the night’ vs. Image ‘you murmur against’, and the historical gemination separating the pairs Image ‘he begins’ (Jud. 10.18) vs. Image ‘he profanes’ (Num. 30.3).7 The gemination in these pairs of forms most likely originates in existing variant morphological patterns that have been exploited to avoid homophony.8

  • 9  Yeivin (1985, 1119).

The gemination marked by dagesh in the interjection word Image (also written Image) may have been a device to distinguish it from Image ‘to where?.’9

10The use of dagesh to distinguish the meaning of homophones or polysemous words is more frequently encountered in the Babylonian tradition of Biblical Hebrew (Yeivin 1985, 355– 63). In Babylonian vocalization, a dagesh (known as digsha in the Babylonian tradition) is represented by a superscribed minute gimel and rafe (known as qipya) by a superscribed minute qof.

  • 10  Data supplied by Shai Heijmans. OB = Old Babylonian, MB = Middle Babylonian.

In many cases in the Babylonian tradition a dagesh is added to distinguish between the use of a word that has an association with God and the use of the same word that has an association with humans (often with negative connotations) or foreign gods. This has been seen already in the Tiberian tradition in pairs such as Image vs. Image and Image vs. Image As in the Tiberian tradition, the dagesh is used in the Babylonian tradition in the member of the pair associated with humans or foreign gods. The word םיהולא , for example, is marked with dagesh when it refers to foreign gods (Yeivin 1985, 357, 909–10), e.g.10

Image (OB | L [BHS]: Image Deut 11.16 ‘other gods’)

Image (OB | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 12.12 ‘the gods of Egypt’)

11The dagesh is used also in the cognate word in Biblical Aramaic when it refers to foreign gods, e.g.

Image (MB | L [BHS]: Image Dan 5.4 ‘the gods of gold’)

12The word םינהכ is marked with a dagesh when it refers to ‘priests of foreign gods’ (Yeivin 1985, 358), e.g.

Image (MB | L [BHS]: Image Zeph 1.4 ‘the priests’)

Image (MB | L [BHS]:  Image 2 Chron. 13.9 ‘and you will make for yourselves priests like the peoples of the lands’)

13A dagesh is used elsewhere in manuscripts with Babylonian vocalization to mark other types of semantic distinctions of homophones. It is frequently marked on the prepositional phrase ול , for example, to distinguish it from the homophone אל (Yeivin 1985, 1132–33), e.g.

Image (OB | L [BHS]: Image Job 21.31 ‘who will repay him’)

Image (OB | L [BHS]: Image Job 33.10 ‘as an enemy for him’)

14This includes cases where the qere is ל ֹּ ו but the ketiv is אל , e.g

Image (OB | ketivImageqere   Chron. 11.20 ‘and he has a name’)

15Other cases include, for example, a dagesh on the word אנ in Exod. 12.9, where it denotes ‘raw’, to distinguish it from אנ expressing a request (Yeivin 1985, 357) and a dagesh on the resh of ךירע ‘your enemy’ in 1 Sam. 28.16 presumably to distinguish it from the plural of םירע ‘towns’ (Yeivin 1985, 354):

Image (OB | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 12.9 ‘do not eat any of it raw’)

ָּImage (OB | L [BHS]:  Image 1 Sam. 28.16 ‘your enemy’)

The examples of dagesh functioning to distinguish meaning in the Babylonian tradition cited above are most easily interpreted as innovative additions to existing forms rather than morphological variants. It should be noted that in some cases the dagesh is marked after a long vowel, e.g. Image The question arises as to whether these dagesh signs reflect gemination or are simply diacritical signs. Yeivin (1985, 355–63) believes they indeed have the function of dagesh forte. There is, moreover, objective evidence of gemination of dagesh to distinguish meaning in the Tiberian tradition in forms with a long vowel such as א ָּ נ ָָּּ֫ ה by the marking Arabic shadda in the Karaite transcriptions, e.g.

  • 11  In this manuscript initial ʾalef + long qameṣ, i.e. [ʔɔː], is represented by a single Arabic ʾalif(...)

Image (BL Or 2556, fol. 40r, 9 | L [BHS]: Image Neh. 1.5. ‘Oh!’)11

16There is also evidence of morphophonemic restructuring by means of innovative gemination in a variety of other reading traditions, including those that have come down to modern times in oral form.

17The function of gemination to distinguish meanings of homophones is identifiable, for example, in the reading traditions of Rabbinic Hebrew that are reflected in the early vocalized manuscripts of the Mishnah. Kutscher (1969, 56, 76) drew attention to the following pair of words in the Kaufmann manuscript:

Image ‘cutting’ vs. Image ‘piece’

18The use of the pattern with dagesh to distinguish the concrete entity that is the result of the cutting from the verbal noun of the same root is likely to have developed by analogy with other nouns with the morphological pattern CCiCCa that express concrete entities in Rabbinic Hebrew (Bar-Asher 2015, 1342).

19Various cases of gemination to distinguish meaning have been identified in the living oral tradition of Rabbinic Hebrew of the Yemenite Jews and the Hebrew component in their speech by Gluska (1995). These include distinctions between verbal forms and nouns, in which the noun has the gemination, e.g.

Image ‘making cheese’ vs. Image ‘cheese (noun)’

Image ‘living (3pl. verbal adjective)’ vs. Image ‘life (noun)’

20Morag (1996) draws attention to some uses of gemination to distinguish meaning in the living oral tradition of Aramaic among the Yemenite Jews, e.g.

Image ‘living’ (referring to God) vs. Image ‘living’ (referring to humans)

  • 12  See in particular Florentin (1996) for examples of this phenomenon.

21In the Samaritan oral tradition of reading the Pentateuch there are numerous examples of morphophonemic restructuring to distinguish homophones.12 These include the strategy of distinguishing forms by the addition of gemination to one of the pair, e.g.

  • 13  Ben-Ḥayyim (2000, 92).

ʿāːrəm ‘the cities’ (Tiberian Image ) vs. ʿarrəm ‘cities’ (Tiberian Image )13

  • 14  Ben-Ḥayyim (2000, 92).

wå̄må ‘and the cubit’ (Tiberian Image) vs. wåmmå ‘and a cubit’ (Tiberian Image )14

  • 15  Ben-Ḥayyim (1957a-77 vol. 4, 8-9, vol. 5, 194, 2000, 260).

å̄då̄ni ‘Lord’ (divine) vs. å̄danni ‘master’ (human)15

  • 16  Florentin (1996, 231).

å̄ːsīdå ‘the stork’ (animal) (Tiberian Image Lev. 11.19) vs. assidåk ‘your pious one’ (human) (Tiberian Image Deut. 33.8)16

  • 17  Florentin (1996, 234).

yamən ‘Yamin’ (proper name) (Tiberian Image Gen. 46.10) vs. yammən ‘right hand’ (Tiberian Image )17

  • 18  Florentin (1996, 218). This particular minimal pair is not attested in the Samaritan Pentateuch, b (...)

wyå̄båd ‘and he perished (past)’ (Tiberian Image) vs. yå̄bbåd ‘he perishes (non-past)’ (Tiberian Image )18

I.3.1.4. Gemination Resulting from Assimilation

22In some cases, gemination has resulted from the process of a consonant assimilating another consonant with which it is contact. This typically occurs at the boundary between the stem of a word and an affix. It also functions, therefore, as a marker of a morphological boundary, e.g.

Image [jip-ˈpʰoːol] ‘he falls’ < *yinpol

Image [nɔːˈθaːatʰ-tʰ] ‘you (fs) gave’ < *natant

Image [miʃ-ˈʃɔːɔm] ‘from there’ < Image

Image [ji̟q-ˈ̟qaːaħ] ‘he takes’ < *yilqaḥ

Image (Num. 21.7) [vaθikʰ-kʰoːˈneːen] ‘and let it be established’ < Image

I.3.1.5. Gemination to Preserve High Lexical Vowels

23In a number of cases a consonant after a high lexical vowel, most commonly /u/, though occasionally /i/, has been geminated to preserve it. High lexical vowels exhibit a higher tendency to be reduced to an epenthetic shewa than low vowels:

I.3.1.5.1. After qibbuṣ

Image ‘deep (fs, mpl)’; cf. ms. Image *ʿamuq

Image ‘red (fs, mpl)’; cf. ms. Image *ʾaðum

Image (Gen. 3.7) ‘naked’ (mpl); cf. ms. Image *ʿērum

( 1 Sam. 13.20) ‘his axe’; cf. sing. Image *qardum

24This can be identified in various puʿal forms verbs that appear to be in origin passives of the qal pattern without morphological gemination (Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, §52e):

‘they have been eaten’ (Neh. 2.3) < *ʾukalū

Image ‘he was taken’ (Gen. 3.23) <*luqaḥ

Image ‘and it will be poured’ (Zeph. 1.17) < *šupak

I.3.1.5.2. After ḥireq

Image ‘bond’ < *ʾisār

I.3.1.6. Gemination of a Consonant in Place of Vowel Lengthening

25In a number of cases, a consonant is geminated after an original short *a. This is attested predominantly at a morphological boundary between the stem of a noun or adjective and an inflectional suffix. As a result, the vowel remains short and does not undergo pretonic lengthening, as would have typically been the case if the *a was in an open pretonic syllable, e.g.

Image ‘camels’; cf. sing. Image

Image ‘small (mpl)’; cf. ms. Image

Image ‘few’; cf. ms. Image

Image ‘marshes’; cf. sing. Image

Image ‘myrtles’; cf. sing. Image

 Image; cf. sing. Image ‘scorpion’

Image (Isa. 23.8) ‘honoured of’; cf. ms. Image

Image (Psa. 18.3) ‘my stronghold’; cf. sing. Image

Image (Isaiah 51.10) ‘the depths of’

Image (Jud. 5.15) ‘among the clans’

Image (Gen. 27.4) ‘tasty foods’

Image (Cant. 5.16) ‘desirable things’

26In the following the *a vowel undergoes attenuation to a ḥireq:

Image ( 2 Sam. 24.22) ‘and the threshing-sledges’; cf. sing. ל ְ מ ֹ גרו (Isa. 41.15)

27Historical gemination of this nature can be reconstructed for ḥet in various forms where this letter is now preceded by pataḥ, e.g.

חב ּ ו ִּ םיר (< *baḥḥūrīm) ‘young men’; cf. sing. Image (< *bāḥūr) Image (< *miḇṭaḥḥīm) ‘confidences’; cf. sing. Image (< *miḇṭāḥ)

Image (< *ʾaḥḥīm) ‘brothers’; cf. sing. א ָּ ח (< *ʾāḥ)

I.3.1.7. Gemination Associated with Stress

28In a few verbal forms, a final sonorant radical is geminated when preceded by a main stress accent and followed by an inflectional suffix, e.g.

Image (Jud. 5.7) ‘they ceased’

Image (Job 29.21) ‘and they waited’

Image (Job 29.12) ‘they are lofty’

Image (Ezek. 27.19) ‘they gave’

I.3.1.8. Gemination after a Prefix

29In some cases, gemination occurs at the boundary between a prefixed particle and the stem of a word, e.g.

Image ‘in what?’ < *ba + mā

Image ‘how much?’ < *ka + mā

Image (Jud. 5.7) ‘until you (fs) arose’ < *ša + stem

Image ‘because my head’ (Cant. 5.2) < *šƐ + stem

We can include here Image ‘why’ < *la + ma. The gemination in this word is also associated with stress on the preceding syllable (see §I.3.1.7.), since it, in principle, does not occur in variant forms in which the stress occurs on the final syllable, e.g. Image (Exod. 5.22). Gemination, however, still occurs when the word has maqqef and so is unstressed, e.g. Image (Prov. 17.16).

30Another possible case of this type of gemination is the dagesh that occurs after the prefixed conjunction vav in the יו ִּ ק ְ ט ָּ֫ ל [vaɟɟi̟qˈtˁoːol] verbal form. Another motivation for the dagesh here, however, is likely to be to distinguish the meaning of this form from the potentially homophonous but semantically distinct form ְ יו ִּ ק ְ ט ָּ֫ ל (§I.I.3.1.3.).

31Gemination is occasionally used as a strategy to mark a morphological boundary between the interrogative particle he and what follows, when the following word begins with shewa, e.g.

Image [hakkʰaˈθoːnɛθ] ‘acknowledge now whether it is your son’s robe’ (Gen. 37.32)

Image [haR̟R̟iʔiːˈθɛːɛm] ‘Have you seen? ’ (1 Sam. 10.24)

Image [hakkʰɑsˁɑːʕɑ̟qɔːˈθɔːh] ‘Is it according to its outcry’ (Gen. 18.21)

Image [habbamaːħaˈniːim] ‘is it in camps?’ (Num. 13.19)

32When the word following interrogative he begins with a guttural, the particle has a full pataḥ vowel or, before qameṣ, a full segol. These were pronounced as long vowels and can be regarded as substitutes for gemination of the initial guttural, e.g.

Image [haːˈʕoːoð] ‘is here still’ (Gen. 31.14)

Image [haːʔeːˈleːeχ] ‘shall I go’ (Exod. 2.7)

Image [hɛːʔɔːnoːˈχiː] ‘Is (it the case that) I … ’ (Job 21.4)

I.3.1.9. Gemination at Word Boundaries (Deḥiq)

33The phenomenon known as deḥiq (Aramaic ‘compressed’) has been described in §I.2.8.1.2. This involves the gemination of a word-initial consonant after an unstressed vowel in the preceding word, e.g.

Image ‘I shall cause to witness against them’ (Deut. 31.28)

ַּImage ‘you make for yourself’ (Prov. 24.6)

34Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ includes constructions with the interrogative word המ such as the following in the category of deḥiq:

Image ‘what is this?’ (Exod. 13.14)

In all cases in the Tiberian tradition the final vowel of the word before the geminated consonant was pronounced long but with reduced duration. In other traditions of Hebrew, there is evidence that the final vowel was pronounced short (see §I.2.8.1.2. for details). The dagesh exhibits properties of the dagesh in forms such as Image ‘in what?’, in which it marks the boundary between morphemes, and the dagesh in forms such as Image ‘camels’, where it substitutes for the lengthening of the preceding vowel. Also in words such as Image ‘camels’, as remarked above, the dagesh coincides with a morpheme boundary. The dagesh of deḥiq can, therefore, be identified as primarily a marker of a boundary between two words that were closely connected prosodically. In the Tiberian tradition, efforts were made to make a clear prosodic division between the words also by maintaining some degree of vowel length in the final vowel or, in the case of constructions with ־המ , by introducing length in a fully shortened vowel.

I.3.1.10. The Distribution of the Fricative and Stop Variants of the Letters תפכדגב

35For the distribution of the fricative and stop variants of תפכדגב consonants within words, see §I.1.25.

36When a תפכדגב consonant occurs at the beginning of a word and the preceding word ends in a vowel, the general rule is that the consonant is fricative if the accent of the preceding word is conjunctive or if the preceding word is connected by maqqef, but is plosive if the accent of the preceding word is disjunctive, e.g.

Image [ʃaloːˈʃɔː vɔːˈniːim] ‘three sons’ (Gen. 6.10)

Image [zɔːˈχɔːɔR̟ wun̟qeːˈvɔː baR̟ɔːˈʔɔːɔm] ‘male and female he created them’ (Gen. 5.2)

Image [nimsˁuʔuː-ˈvɔːɔm] ‘they were found among them’ (Jer. 41.8)

  • 19  Cf. Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ, long version, edition in volume 2 of this book, §II.L.1.7., short version, e (...)

37There are several exceptions to this principle. These are mentioned in the Masoretic treatises19 and include the following.

38(i) When a paseq occurs after a word with a conjunctive accent, e.g.

Image ‘They have done completely’ (Gen. 18.21)

Image ‘May the Lord add to his people (a hundred times as many) as them’ (1 Chron. 21.3)

39(ii) When the first word ends in a consonantal vav, the תפכדגב letter at the beginning of the next word is normally a plosive, as it is after words ending in other consonants, e.g.

Image ‘ (enter) his courts with praise’ (Psa. 100.4)

Image ‘I cried aloud to him’ (Psa. 66.17)

There are, however, two cases where the Image consonant is fricative after consonantal vav:

Image ‘He will stretch the line of confusion over it’ (Isa. 34.11)

Image ‘The sound of a carefree multitude was with her’ (Ezek. 23.42)

40(iii) When the first word ends in a consonantal consonant yod, the תפכדגב letter at the beginning of the next word is normally a plosive, e.g.

Image ‘perhaps you may inspire terror’ (Isa. 47.12)

Image ‘for what great nation’ (Deut. 4.7)

Image ‘into a great and mighty nation’ (Num. 14.12)

There is one exception to this:

Image ‘the Lord in them’ (Psa. 68.18)

41(iv) If two bets or kafs follow one another and under the first of them there is a vocalic shewa, then the first of the pair is plosive even when the preceding word ends in a vowel and has a conjunctive accent, e.g.

Image ‘and when she came’ (Josh. 15.18)

Image ‘and she caught him by his garment’ (Gen. 39.12)

Image ‘Is it not like Carchemish?’ (Isa. 10.9)

42If a vowel occurs under the first of the two consonants rather than shewa, the first remains fricative according to the usual rule, e.g.

ּImage ‘And he (shall take) a wife in her virginity’ (Lev. 21.13)

Image ‘men of Babylon’ (2 Kings 17.30)

43We can generalize and say two fricative bets or kafs are avoided in syllable onsets in the same foot (feet indicated below by round brackets, extrametrical syllables are in angled brackets):

Image [(ba.viʁ.) (ˈdoː)]

Image [(vɔː.) (ˈvɛː.ɛl)]

ּImage [(viv.) (θuː.) (ˈlɛː.) <hɔː>]

A further factor is that the initial bet and kaf in constructions such as Image and Image are prepositional affixes. Other תפכדגב consonants that are not prepositions under the same conditions remain fricative, e.g.

ּImage ‘and the sons of Dedan’ (Gen. 25.3)

Image ‘you shall not abhor’ (Deut. 23.8)

44The plosive pronunciation of the bet and kaf, therefore, is made further optimal by the fact that it clearly demarcates a morpheme boundary. This factor can be identified in a variety of other features of the reading tradition (§I.3.1.8.).

45(v) Likewise, when the preposition bet has shewa and is followed by pe, the bet is plosive even when preceded by a word with a conjunctive accent ending in vowel, e.g.

Image ‘and I will get glory over Pharaoh’ (Exod. 14.4)

Image ‘and my words which I have put in your mouth’ (Isa. 59.21)

46When the bet has a vowel, it is fricative in these conditions, e.g.

Image ‘He will not look upon the rivers’ (Job 20.17)

47A pe is closely related to bet in its articulation. A preposition bet or kaf that is followed by a fricative תפכדגב consonant that is not of similar articulation is not made plosive under the conditions in question, e.g.

Image ‘and he put him in the garden of Eden’ (Gen. 2.15)

Image ‘surely when [the east wind] strikes it’ (Ezek. 17.10)

48(vi) Seven cases do not fit into the previous categories, over which there was no disagreement by the Masoretes. Four of these are in the Song of the Sea (Exod. 15):

Image ‘he has triumphed gloriously’ (Exod. 15.1, 21)

Image ‘Who is like you?’ (Exod. 15.11)

Image ‘they are as still as a stone’ (Exod. 15.16)

Image ‘and I shall make (your pinnacles) of agate’ (Isa. 54.12)

Image ‘and I am weary of holding it in’ (Jer. 20.9)

Image ‘and wisdom like wisdom of the gods’ (Aramaic, Dan. 5.11)

  • 20  According to the Hebrew Masoretic treatise published by Ginsburg (1885 ,37) the kaf in (...)

49Some of these appear to have been motivated by an effort to avoid a series of identical fricative consonants in contiguous syllables or words.20

50Cases over which there is said to be disagreement between Ben Asher and Ben Naftali include the following. L in some cases follows Ben Asher and in others Ben Naftali:

Ben Asher (L): Image ‘the people whom you have redeemed’ (Exod. 15.13); Ben Naftali: Image

Ben Asher: Image ‘in the eighth month on the fifteenth (day)’ (1 Kings 12.32); Ben Naftali (L): Image

Ben Asher (L): Image ‘the counsellors, the treasurers, the justices’ (Aramaic, Dan. 3.2, 3); Ben Naftali: Image

Ben Asher: Image ‘trigon, harp’ (Aramaic, Dan. 3.5); Ben Naftali (L): Image

51On balance, Ben Naftali prefers clearer separation by reading dagesh in the majority of these case.

  • 21  Kitāb al-Khilaf (ed. Lipschütz, 1965, 18-19).

52(vii) Ben Naftali read the preposition kaf as plosive after יַו ְ ה ִ י with a conjunctive accent in seven cases where Ben Asher read the kaf as fricative according to the usual rule.21 L follows Ben Asher in this respect:

Image

I.3.1.11. Orthoepic Uses of Dagesh

53In a number of circumstances, gemination marked by dagesh has been introduced into the reading for orthoepic purposes to ensure that letters are clearly articulated and not slurred over. The cases in question fall into various categories.

I.3.1.11.1. Splitting Weak Consonants by Shewa

54When two weak consonants are in contact across a syllable boundary, the first is sometimes geminated and marked with dagesh. This has the effect of introducing a vowel in the form of vocalic shewa between the two consonants, which increases their distinctness and reduces the risk of elision. This is found in particular in syllable contact involving sonorants ( רנמל ), gutturals and qof, e.g.

Image [mi̟q̟qaR̟eː-ˈlɔːɔjlɔː] ‘accident of the night’ (Deut. 23.11)

Image [mammaR̟oːˈR̟iːim] ‘bitterness’ (Job 9.18)

ּImage [ˌwuˑnθa̟q̟qaˈnuːhuː] ‘and we shall draw him away’ (Jud. 20.32)

Image [ji̟q̟qaˈhaːaθ] ‘obedience of’ (Gen. 49.10)

  • 22  According to Melamed (1948, 1) the purpose of the dagesh in (...)

Image [haR̟R̟iʕiːˈmɔːh] ‘to irritate her’ (1 Sam. 1.6)22

55In some cases, this strategy is applied when only one of the consonants in contact belong to this group, and occasionally also elsewhere, e.g.

Image [ʕi̟q̟qaˈvoːoθ] ‘footprints of’ (Psa. 89.52)

Image [mi̟q̟qaˈðɔːoʃ] ‘sanctuary’ (Exod. 15.17)

Image [mittˁɔhɔːˈR̟oː] ‘his lustre’ (Psa. 89.45)

  • 23  For the case for interpreting the dagesh in the forms (...)

Image [missˁiʕiːˈR̟ɔː] ‘small’ (Dan. 8.9)23

Image [hɑssˁɑfiːˈnoː] ‘to hide him’ (Exod. 2.3)

56As can be seen from the list of examples above, the letter before the geminated consonant is frequently mem, especially when the mem has a ḥireq. Such forms may have been facilitated by the fact that similar sequences occur when the preposition מ ִּ ן assimilates to a word. The same may apply to examples with initial he with pataḥ, which resemble the prefixed definite article (Ariel 2020, 142).

This orthoepic strategy achieves a similar result as the strategies of lengthening the preceding vowel to induce reading of the shewa as vocalic, e.g. Image [saːliˈʕiː] ‘my rock’ (2 Sam. 22.2, Psa. 18.3) (§I.2.5.8.5.), and the lengthening of the preceding vowel to introduce metrical epenthesis between the two consonants, e.g. Image [jaˌʃaˑʕ∅ˈjɔːhuː] ‘Isaiah’ (Isa. 1.1) (§I.2.10.).

57A variant type of orthoepic strategy is to insert a vowel after the first of the two consonants in contact and geminate the second consonant, i.e. CC > CVCC rather than CC > CCVC. This is found in:

Image [jiːṛaddoːof] ‘let him pursue’ (Psa. 7.6)

58This may have been applied to avoid geminating resh. Parallels to such restructuring of the syllable structure of words are found in the Samaritan reading tradition, e.g.

tēšåbbəṣ < *tašbeṣ (Ben Ḥayyim 2000, 59 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 28.4 ‘checkered work’)

I.3.1.11.2. Dagesh to Strengthen Syllable Onsets

  • 24  For the need to avoid coalescence in such contexts see the discussion in Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ, long ve (...)

In the standard Tiberian manuscript codices there are a few cases of the marking of the dagesh sign on letters other than תפכדגב on the second of two consonants in contact at the boundary of syllables for the purpose of ensuring that the consonants and syllables are kept distinct. This ensured a clear division of syllables and words. In L, for example, a dagesh is sometimes placed on an initial lamed of the second word of a phrase connected with maqqef when the first word ends in nun, e.g. Image ‘and he gave him’ (Gen. 24.36) (Yeivin 1980, 294–95). This can be regarded as a measure to separate the two words clearly and prevent the coalescence and slurring of weak sonorant consonants. The dagesh would mark the articulation of the lamed with increased muscular pressure to ensure it maintains its correct articulation. According to Kitāb al-Khilaf, Ben Naftali placed a dagesh in the first nun of the name Image in the combination Image ‘the son of Nun’ (ed. Lipschütz 1965, דכ ). This was a measure to prevent the coalescence of two identical weak sonorant letters across a word-boundary.24 An alternative strategy to separate the two letters was to place a paseq between the words, e.g.

L: Image ‘to make exceedingly great’ (1 Chron. 22.5)

L: Image ‘iron in abundance’ (1 Chron. 22.3).

According to Kitāb al-Khilaf, Ben Naftali marked a dagesh in the qof of the verb Image ‘he supplants’ (Jer. 9.3, L: Image) (ed. Lipschütz 1965, גל ) and this is found in C and in a number of other Tiberian Masoretic manuscripts (Yeivin 1968, 51). This ensured a clear syllable division and also, by implication, indicated that the ʿayin had a silent shewa. This, moreover, alerted the reader to the fact that the syllable division was different from that of the more frequent form Image ‘Jacob’. Qof falls into the category of weak letters, which is demonstrated, for example, by the fact that it often loses dagesh when in a metrically weak syllable with shewa (§I.2.5.2.). The practice of the Masorete Ben Naftali to use dagesh in this way reflects his general tendency to introduce innovative measures to ensure a careful reading to a greater extent than Ben Asher, who was more conservative (A. Ben-David 1957b).

  • 25  Alvestad and Edzard (2009) have demonstrated how this principle can explain the distribution of th (...)

The phenomenon of marking dagesh to give prominence to syllable division has a natural phonological explanation. The optimal contact between two adjacent syllables is where the onset of the second syllable is stronger than the offset (coda) of the preceding syllable (Vennemann 1988, 40). According to this principle, strength is equated with the degree of sonority or the quality of being vowel-like. This optimality principle can influence how a sequence of phonological segments is syllabified.25 In a sequence of two consonant segments CC, a syllable division between the two is more preferred if the second consonant is less sonorant, i.e. stronger, than the first. The sonority of a consonant can be decreased by a process of fortition. Gemination is a clear process of fortition (Bybee 2015, 45), so it follows that gemination of a consonant is a natural way to mark a clearer syllable division. This also indicates that the dagesh in such forms as Image should indeed be interpreted as having the phonetic realization of gemination and is not purely an abstract symbol of syllable division.

The practice attributed to Ben Naftali to mark dagesh in a weak letter after a guttural with silent shewaImage and in the second word in phrases such as and ב ִּ נ־ן ּ ןו to mark a clear division of syllables occurs in a number of later Bible manuscripts, e.g. Image ‘and he harnessed’ (Exod. 14.6), Image ‘Jazer’ (Num. 32.35), Image ‘to eat bread’ (Gen. 31: 54), Image ‘to them from sorrow’ (Esther 9.22) (Ginsburg 1897, 114–36; Luzzatto 2005, 169– 72). These can be interpreted as reflecting a tradition of marking syllable divisions that is descended, directly or indirectly, from the practice attributed to Ben Naftali.

There is a reference in some early Masoretic sources to the practice of marking dagesh in the yod of the word Image ‘and male donkeys’ (Gen. 32.16, L: Image), which is attributed to either Ben Asher or Moshe Moḥe (Baer and Strack 1879, xxxviii–xxxix). This would be a use of dagesh on a weak letter after a vowelless guttural analogous toImage

I.3.1.11.3. Extended Dagesh Forte

59There is evidence that the practice of strengthening syllable onsets for orthoepic purposes by geminating a syllable-initial consonant was more widespread than is apparent from the vocalized Tiberian manuscripts. The process in question involved the reading of the dagesh lene in the stop variants of the letters תפכדגב as dagesh forte, i.e. as geminate.

60This is seen by examining in particular the Karaite transcriptions and passages in Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ.

61In several of the extant manuscripts of the Karaite transcriptions, the scribes marked the Arabic shadda sign where the Tiberian reading tradition had dagesh. In some manuscripts, the shadda is written only where the dagesh is dagesh forte according to the conventional interpretation of the distribution of dagesh forte and dagesh lene. In some manuscripts, however, the shadda sign is written both on letters with dagesh forte and on תפכדגב letters with what is conventionally interpreted as being dagesh lene. Some examples are given below.

62Manuscripts that mark shadda corresponding to only dagesh forte

BL Or 2539, fols. 56-114 Dagesh forte

Image (BL Or 2539 MS A, fol. 63r, 8 | L [BHS]: Image Gen. 21.11 ‘the word’)

Image (BL Or 2539 MS A, fol. 64r, 1 | L [BHS]: Image Gen. 21.15 ‘the water’)

Dagesh lene

Image (BL Or 2539 MS A, fol. 84r, 1 | L [BHS]: Image Deut. 4.10 ‘my words’)

Image (BL Or 2539 MS A, fol. 67v, 1 | L [BHS]: Image Gen. 22.9 ‘the altar’)

BL Or 2544 + Or 2545 + Or 2546
Dagesh forte

Image (BL Or 2546, fol. 3r, 7 | L [BHS]: Image Num. 14.45 ‘and they beat them into pieces’)

Image (BL Or 2545, fol. 207v, 5 | L [BHS]: Image Lev. 27.33 ‘it will be redeemed’)

Image (BL Or 2544 fol. 74v, 2 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 3.3 ‘the sight’)

Dagesh lene

Image (BL Or 2544 fol. 74r, 10 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 3.2 ‘with the fire’)

Image (BL Or 2544 fol. 75r, 6 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 3.6 ‘his face’)

Image (BL Or 2546, fol. 132r, 11 | L [BHS]: ִּImage Num. 36.1 ‘from the family of’)

63Manuscripts that mark shadda corresponding to both dagesh forte and dagesh lene

BL Or 2540

Dagesh forte

Image (BL Or 2540, fol. 4r, 4 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 1.10 ‘let us deal wisely’)

Image (BL Or 2540, fol. 5v, 4 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 2.2 ‘and she hid him’)

Dagesh lene

Image (BL Or 2540, fol. 4v, 1 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 1.12 ‘He increases’)

Image (BL Or 2540, fol. 3v, 4 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 1.4 ‘Gad’)

Image (BL Or 2540, fol. 3v, 3 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 1.4 ‘Dan’)

Image (BL Or 2540, fol. 7r, 5 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 2.18 ‘you hurried’)

BL Or 2548 fols. 1-185

Dagesh forte

Image (BL Or 2548 fol. 3r, 10 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 5.4 ‘why?’)

Image (BL Or 2548 fol. 13r, 9 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 37.5 ‘the king’)

Dagesh lene

Image (BL Or 2548 fol. 6r, 10 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 5.10 ‘acres of the vineyard’)

Image (BL Or 2548 fol. 10r, 5 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 13.20 ‘until generation’)

Image (BL Or 2548 fol. 14r, 10 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 37.6 ‘you (ms) heard’)

Image (BL Or 2548 fol. 14r, 9 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 37.6 ‘Isaiah, thus’)

64In Arabic orthography, the shadda sign represents the application of greater muscular pressure to a consonant in order to lengthen it. In medieval manuals concerning the correct reading (tajwīd) of the Arabic Qurʾān, descriptions are given of various degrees of lengthening expressed by shadda, but it was never used like dagesh lene to mark a non-geminated plosive consonant. The Karaite transcriptions that mark the shadda sign are essentially phonetic representations of the Hebrew reading with an Arabic orthography and so one can assume that when the shadda is marked, it was intended to represent lengthening of the consonant. What the data above reflect, therefore, are two varieties of reading. In one variety the dagesh is given its expected pronunciation, with dagesh forte strengthened but not dagesh lene. In the other variety, however, both dagesh forte and dagesh lene are strengthened and so are given the same phonetic realization. We may call this latter type of reading the ‘extended dagesh forte’ reading. The reading without this extension of dagesh forte will be referred to as the ‘dagesh forte—dagesh lene reading.’

65A passage from Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ also reflects a type of reading that does not conform to the traditional classification of dagesh into dagesh forte expressing gemination and dagesh lene expressing a non-geminated stop realization of a תפכדגב consonant.

  • 26  Edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.1.9.2.

66The passage in question concerns the consonant tav, which is said to differ from other letters in having three grades of strength. The form of the passage from the long version of this work is as follows:26

Chapter concerning letters that occur in three grades

Take note that just as there are among the letters those that when they are adjacent to another letter, this latter makes them light with rafe, likewise among the letters are those that occur in three grades with regard to heaviness and lightness. The first grade is lightening. The second is the normal dagesh. The third is the major dagesh. This includes the tav.

Take note that the tav, unlike the other letters, may occur rafe, as in Image ‘and rooms of the gate’ (Ezek. 40.10); it may occur with dagesh, as in Image ‘instead of bronze’ (Isa. 60.17), Image ‘ornaments of gold’ (Cant. 1.11); and it may occur with major dagesh. The latter includes three tavs: Image ‘He made it an eternal heap of ruins’ (Josh. 8.28), Image ‘and its houses and its treasuries’ (1 Chron. 28.11), Image ‘and these three men’ (Dan. 3.23). I do not know anybody who differs (in reading) with regard to these three tavs. As for the form ב ָּ ת ִּ םי , there were differences (of reading) with regard to it. Take note that the Tiberians said that they have a resh that is not read (in the same way) by anybody else. It is likely that the climate of their town caused this. It has the same status as the tav in the word ב ָּ ת ִּ םי according to the view of Ben Naftali, who gives it a grade in between two grades.

  • 27  Edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.S.3.0.

67The short version of Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ supplies more details about the differences in the reading of : ב ָּ ת ִּ םי27

Take note that tav in three places is strengthened with dagesh to a greater degree than (other) cases of tav with dagesh. These are Image ‘He made it an eternal heap of ruins’ (Josh. 8.28), Image ‘and its houses and its treasuries’ (1 Chron. 28.11), ImageImage ‘and these three men’ (Dan. 3.23). Note that there is disagreement concerning every tav in the form ב ִָּּ םית , except in Image ( 1 Chron. 28.11). Whoever wishes to pronounce it with the normal dagesh of tav, may do so and whoever wishes to pronounced it with with the heaviness of the tav of Image ( 1 Chron. 28.11), may do so, on condition that this is when there are a conjunctive accent and a disjunctive accent in the word without an intervening letter.

Since in these passages it is stated that there are only three tavs that all readers agree should be given a major dagesh, this major dagesh must be something different from normal dagesh forte. Both what is traditionally regarded as dagesh lene and also what is traditionally regarded as dagesh forte would, therefore, have to be considered to belong to the second grade, the ‘normal dagesh’. The examples cited for the ‘normal dagesh’ include only words that contain what is traditionally identified as dagesh lene, viz. Image and Image It does not follow, however, that ‘normal dagesh’ must be identified as dagesh lene. Rather the author makes no distinction between dagesh lene and dagesh forte. This could have been because the ‘normal dagesh’ was considered to include a range of phonetic realizations and degrees of muscular pressure that included an ungeminated stop and a geminated stop. This is the usual interpretation of the function of the dagesh sign. Alternatively the passage could be interpreted as meaning that there was no phonetic distinction between what we call dagesh lene and dagesh forte. Rather tav with dagesh was normally realized with a similar degree of muscular pressure and duration, whether in contexts where it is traditionally interpreted as dagesh lene or in contexts where it is traditionally interpreted as dagesh forte. This, in fact, is the more straightforward interpretation of the passage, especially since the point of the passage is the division into ‘grades’ based on differences in degrees of ‘heaviness’ (thiqal), i.e. muscular pressure, and one grade would not be expected to contain a range of different pressures. The third grade would, therefore, involve an exceptionally high degree of muscular pressure and, one can infer, duration, which are found only in a few isolated words. What we seem to have here, therefore, is a description of an ‘extended dagesh forte’ type of reading with the addition of three cases of extra-long dagesh.

  • 28 (...)
  • 29 ‘He did not pronounce other cases with the similar strength’ (Lipschütz 1965, 4; Eldar 1994, 77).
  • 30 Ed. Lipschütz (1965, 4):

According to Mishaʾel ben ʿUzziʾel in his Kitāb al-Khilaf, the Masorete Ben Naftali read all cases of Image that had two accents by applying more muscular force than in cases without two accents (Lipschütz 1965, 4; Eldar 1994, 77).28 Ben Asher, however, is said to have disagreed with Ben Naftali and read only ב ָּ֨ ת ָּ֜ וי (I Chron. 28.11) and ּ בּו ָ֨תִּ ֜ ִ םי (Deut. 6.11) with strong pressure. The second example is not mentioned in Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ but has the same accents (ʾazla and geresh). Ben Asher did not read any other cases of ב ָּ ת ִּ םי with the same degree of pressure.29 Mishaʾel ben ʿUzziʾel (Lipschütz ibid.) cites a Masoretic statement that is attributed to Ben Asher: ‘because he (Ben Asher) mentioned in his Masora saying that in the Bible are four cases with intense dagesh.’30 These statements in Kitāb al-Khilaf indicate that the pronunciation of tav as extra-long in some cases was a feature of the reading of Ben Asher and Ben Naftali.

  • 31  It was one of the principles of Muʿtazilite doctrine that the term ‘unbeliever’ could not be appli (...)
  • 32  See Baalbakki (2008, 132).
  • 33  The Masorah Parva to I Chron. 28.11 contains the note: ה׳ תוין דגשי׳ בחוזק ‘There are five tavs th (...)

68At the end of the passage from the long version of the Hidāya it is stated that in the Tiberian reading there is a realization of resh that is not found in any other reading and that this ‘has the same status as the tav in the word ב ָּ ת ִּ םי according to the opinion of Ben Naftali, ’ who pronounced the tav of this word with ‘a grade in between two grades’ (manzila bayna manzilatayn). The author of Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ applies a classification based on grades (manāzil) to three variant articulations of resh. These were non-emphatic advanced uvular [R̟], emphatic alveolar [rˁ] and geminate respectively, which can, likewise, be correlated with three degrees of muscular pressure. The non-emphatic advanced uvular realization of resh is referred to in the Hidāya as the ‘light’ (khafīf) grade, the geminate resh, marked by a dagesh, is the ‘major’ (kabīr) grade, and the emphatic alveolar is ‘the grade between grades’ (manzila bayna manzilatayn) (Khan 1995, 2013c). Unlike the classification of the three variants of tav, the classification of three variants of resh is presented as two basic grades, with a third variant that is between two grades. The term manzila bayna manzilatayn is likely to originate in the Muʿtazilite theological tradition.31 It is used in Arabic grammatical literature to refer to cases of intermediate grammatical status. Al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078), for example, states that the Arabic negator laysa has an intermediate position (manzila bayna manzilatayn) between the verb kāna and the negative particle with regard to the extent of its inflection.32 Mishaʾel ben ʿUzziʾel states that the distinctive feature of Ben Naftali’s reading of ב ָּ ת ִּ םי was that he regularly pronounced the tav in it with more force when it had two accents than when it lacked a secondary accent. The term manzila bayna manzilatayn, therefore, must be referring to a degree of strength that was greater than a normal dagesh. In the passage on the tav in the Hidāya, the normal dagesh was read as a geminate so the intermediate position of Ben Naftali is presumably referring to a degree of strength that was greater than normal gemination but less than the extra-long pronunciation in the specified cases. The practice of pronouncing the dagesh of tav with a strength greater than normal gemination was, according to the Hidāya, unique to the Tiberian tradition.33

  • 34 34 Ed. Busi (1984, 60):

69The passage cited above from the original Arabic versions of Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ underwent an adaptation in the Hebrew versions of the work that were produced in medieval Europe, such as Horayat ha-Qore (twelfth century) and Sefer Ṭaʿame ha-Miqra (thirteenth century) (Eldar 1994, 16–18). In Horayat ha-Qore the passage has the following form:34

Chapter on the tav. In three places tav has a (stronger) dagesh than all (other) tavs with dagesh, namely: ImageImage ‘He made it an eternal heap of ruins’ (Josh. 8.28), ImageImage ‘and its houses and its treasuries’ (1 Chron. 28.11 ,) Image ‘and these three men’ (Dan. 3.23), and all cases of םיתב that denote measurement, such as ImageImage ‘and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil’ (2 Chron. 2.9) and the like with pataḥ and dagesh. But (cases of) םיתב that denote habitation, like Image ‘and houses full of all good things’ (Deut. 6.11), ImageImage ‘he made his slaves and his cattle flee into the houses’ (Exod. 9.20), all have qameṣ and are not given strong dagesh (i.e. they have dagesh lene), with the exception of Image ( 1 Chron. 28.11), which, although it denotes habitation, it has strong dagesh and qameṣ, because it contains a conjunctive accent and main accent, and it is as if it is two words. Some add to the ones (i.e. these examples) that should be given strong dageshImageImage (Deut. 6.11), because the conjunctive accent and main accent are together in the word.’

  • 35  The passage has the same adapted form also in Sefer Ṭaʿame ha-Miqra. Eldar (1984, 28) used this ad (...)

Here a section has been added to the original passage referring to the plural form תַב ִּ םי ‘baths’. This version of the passage conveys the sense that there are two types of dagesh, viz. dagesh forte and dagesh lene. The three cases of dagesh in the tav after qameṣ in Image (Josh. 8.28), Image ( 1 Chron. 28.11) and Image (Dan. 3.23), and some also include the dagesh after the qameṣ in Image (Deut. 6.11), are equated with the dagesh of תב ִּ םי , i.e. they are interpreted as ‘normal’ dagesh forte. In all other cases of ב ָּ ת ִּ םי the dagesh is dagesh lene. There is no reference here at all to an extra-long grade of dagesh. Evidently the author of Horayat ha-Qore was not familiar with the version of the Tiberian reading tradition in which the extra-long dagesh existed. For this reason, he misunderstood the point of the original passage that the dagesh in the tav after qameṣ in the specified cases was exceptional in the degree of its strength and was not like the normal dagesh forte of words such as תַּב ִּ םי . The author of Horayat ha-Qore was also unfamiliar with the extended dagesh forte reading, since he alludes to a dagesh lene in most cases of . ב ָּ ת ִּ םי35

70One may infer from this that extra-long dagesh was a phenomenon of the extended dagesh forte reading and was not known in the dagesh forte—dagesh lene reading. It would appear that only the latter was transmitted to Europe, or at least in the circles where the European recensions of Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ were produced. If this is the case, then the reference to the Masoretes Ben Asher and Ben Naftali having extra-long dagesh in their reading of tav in specific words would imply that their reading was of the extended dagesh forte type.

  • 36  Long version, edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.1.7; short version, edition in vol. 2 of this (...)

71Another section of Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ that could be interpreted as evidence for the extended dagesh forte reading is one that concerns the reading of word-initial תפכדגב letters with dagesh after a preceding word with a conjunctive accent in contexts where a fricative reading may be expected.36 Most of the constructions in this section contain word-initial תפכדגב consonants with what is normally interpreted as dagesh lene. The section, however, also includes word-initial תפכדגב consonants in deḥiq constructions. There is no doubt that the dagesh of deḥiq constructions was dagesh forte (§I.2.8.1.2.). It appears that Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ considered these to have the same type of תפכדגב stop as the other constructions, which would imply that the word-initial תפכדגב in the other constructions would have been pronounced with dagesh forte.

72The extended dagesh forte reading arose by giving the dagesh sign its full value in all contexts. One motivation for this was an attempt to make a maximally clear distinction between fricative and plosive forms of the תפכדגב letters. Another motivation for strengthening the pronunciation of the dagesh in this way was to mark a clear separation between syllables. This enhanced accuracy of reading words with תפכדגב consonants was achieved without deviating from the standard Tiberian notation system.

73Without doubt, there was a distinction historically between geminate and non-geminate תפכדגב stops (i.e. between dagesh forte and dagesh lene). This is seen, for example, in pre-Masoretic Greek and Latin transcriptions such as the Greek transcriptions of the second column of Origen’s Hexapla and the Latin transcriptions of Jerome:

βοϰρ = Image ερδοϕ = Image vs. ιδαββερ = Image σαδδιϰιμ = Image (Brønno 1943, 357, 383)

iegdal = Image (Sperber 1937, 158), marphe = Image (Sperber 1937, 192), baddim = ב ַּ םיּׅד (Sperber 1937, 211),

thephphol = ת ִּ לֹּפ (Sperber 1937, 159)

74The evidence we have of the extended dagesh forte reading is datable to the tenth and early eleventh centuries in the use of the shadda in a certain group of the Karaite transcriptions and in Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ. This can be interpreted as reflecting the fact that it was in the late Masoretic period that the extended dagesh forte reading began to be used by some readers. Since the orthoepic work Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ seems to be assuming that the extended system is the correct Tiberian reading, it can be hypothesized that the extended system was regarded as the preferred system among the surviving teachers of the Tiberian reading at that period. Indeed, we have argued above that the sources can be interpreted as indicating that this was a feature of the reading of Ben Asher and Ben Naftali, who belonged to the last generation of Tiberian Masoretes.

75As the Karaite transcriptions suggest, the extended dagesh forte reading appears to have existed alongside the more conservative dagesh forte—dagesh lene reading. Fragments of anonymous Masoretic treatises datable to the tenth or eleventh centuries reflect this variation. In one such treatise (ed. Allony and Yeivin 1985, 101), there is a reference to a distinction between ‘heavy dagesh’ (dagesh thaqīl) and ‘light dagesh’ (dagesh khafīf) that corresponds to the normally accepted distinction between dagesh forte and dagesh lene. In another treatise, on the other hand, cases that are traditionally regarded as dagesh lene are referred to by the Arabic term for gemination tashdīd (II Firkovitch Evr.-Arab II 365, fols. 6r, 21r).

76The orthoepic development of the orally transmitted Tiberian reading tradition appears not to have been known outside of Palestine and in the later Middle Ages it fell into complete oblivion. This lack of knowledge of the latest stages of the Tiberian reading arose because the tradition was disseminated outside Palestine and to later generations only in the form of the written vocalization. The vocalization in its standard form did not reflect these orthoepic developments. There is, therefore, a scholarly amnesia with regard to the final form of the Tiberian reading tradition, which can only be reconstructed in sources such as the Karaite transcriptions and the original Arabic versions of the orthoepic treatise Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ.

77This extended dagesh forte reading is likely to have been the stimulus for the use of dagesh forte on other consonants at the onset of syllables to mark clear syllable division in forms such as the verb עי ְ ק ֵֹּ֔ ב ‘he supplants’ (Jer. 9.3), which is attributed to Ben Naftali in Kitāb al-Khilaf (ed. Lipschütz 1965,–  גל ), and the extended use of dagesh in non-Standard Tiberian manuscripts (see §I.3.3. below).

I.3.1.12. Dagesh in the Word ב ָּ ת ִּ םי

78According to the passage on the tav in Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ that was discussed in the previous section, the dagesh in the word ב ָּ ת ִּ םי was pronounced in two ways. When the word had a secondary accent, it was pronounced extra-long, with the third grade of muscular force, greater than cases of ב ָּ ת ִּ םי without a secondary accent. Ben Naftali pronounced all cases of the word with a secondary accent in this way, whereas Ben Asher read it as extra-long only in one (or according to the Kitāb al-Khilaf two) specific verse (s). The tav of the word was pronounced as a ‘normal’ dagesh (second grade tav) when the word did not have a secondary accent and also, in the case of the reading of Ben Asher, in cases where it had a secondary accent outside of the one (or two) specific verse (s). As discussed, the term ‘normal’ dagesh in this passage referred to a ‘normal’ geminate dagesh forte, since Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ is describing an extended dagesh forte type of reading.

The extra-long duration of the dagesh is possibly the result of a prosodic epenthesis between stress prominences. When there was a secondary accent in the word, the tav was given an added duration to ensure a clearer separation between the stresses for the sake of rendering the reading eurhythmic to a maximal extent. The same applies to the other two words in which, according to Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ, the tav was pronounced extra-long, viz. These are Image ‘He made it an eternal heap of ruins’ (Josh. 8.28, Image ‘and these three men’ (Dan. 3.23). In both cases the tav occurs in between two stress prominences that are close to each other. In Image one could assume that the word ־לֵּת had a secondary stress, although it is not marked by an accent or a gaʿya. The word has a short /e/ vowel, without inherent length (cf. ת ִּ ל ֹ ו , like ל ִ ב ֹּ ו , בֵל ), so it would be expected to be segol if not lengthened by some kind of stress (see §I.2.11.).

79In the group of Karaite transcriptions that reflect an extended dagesh forte reading a shadda sign is marked on the tāʾ representing the Hebrew tav in all cases, e.g.

Image (BL Or 2550 fol. 18v, 5 | L [BHS]: Image Zeph. 2.7 ‘in the houses of’).

80In the group of Karaite transcriptions that reflect a dagesh forte—dagesh lene reading, however, a shadda is not marked on the tāʾ, indicating that in this type of reading the word was read as a non-geminated stop, e.g.

Image (BL Or 2544, fol. 189r, 13 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 9.20 ‘the houses’)

Image (BL Or 2544, fol. 159r, 8 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 8.9 ‘from the houses’)

Image (BL Or 2544, fol. 181v, 4 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 8.17 ‘the houses’)

Image (BL Or 2549, fol. 40v, 8 | L [BHS]: Image Jer. 6.12 ‘their houses’)

Image (BL Or 2544, fol. 158r, 13 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 8.5 ‘and from your houses’)

81Also where there is a secondary accent in the word, the transcriptions of this group do not mark a shadda sign, reflecting a pronunciation with an ungeminated tav. This applies even to 1 Chron. 28.11, which is the form in which, according to the Masoretic treatises, both Ben Asher and Ben Naftali read the tav as extra-long:

Image (BL Or 2544, fol. 158v, 10 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 8.7 ‘and from your houses’)

Image (BL Or 2442, fol. 213v, 13 | L [BHS]: Image Deut. 6.11 ‘and houses’)

Image (BL Or 2556, fol. 122r, 7 | L [BHS]: Image 1 Chron. 28.11 ‘its houses’)

We have seen that the author of Horayat ha-Qore in medieval Europe states that the tav of the word has dagesh lene, except in Image ( 1 Chron. 28.11) and Image (Deut. 6.11).

  • 37  Ed. Jastrow (1897, 12–13):

82Ḥayyūj, writing in Spain at the end of the tenth century, considered that the tav in all instances of ב ָּ ת ִּ םי was pronounced as an ungeminated stop. This is implied by the following passage from his Kitāb al-ʾAfʿāl Dhawāt Ḥurūf al-Līn:37

  • 38  The plosive pronunciation of the tav after long qameṣ was regarded as anomalous by Ḥayyūj and he i (...)

‘As for the “light” (type of תפכדגב ), this is like ImageImage ‘in the beginning God created’ (Gen. 1: 1) … and like Image ‘and they shall fill your houses and the houses of your servants’ (Exod. 10.6).38

  • 39  Ed. Gumpertz (1958, 46):

83Yequtiʾel ha-Naqdan, who was active in medieval Ashkenaz in the second half of the thirteenth century, writes in his work ʿEn ha-Qore that the tav in the word ב ָּ ת ִּ םי should be read with dagesh lene following Ḥayyūj:39

‘I have found that Rabbi Yehudah Ḥayyūj, of blessed memory, said that there is a dagesh lene in the tavs of ImageImage and the like. …. Be careful not to pronounce the dagesh strongly.’

The reading traditions of the Jewish communities in Arabic-speaking countries in modern times preserved the gemination of dagesh forte according to the distribution of the dagesh forte—dagesh lene system of reading. There is no trace of an extended dagesh forte type of reading. Nor is there any trace of an extra-long gemination of tav. The plural form ב ָּ ת ִּ םי is regularly read with dagesh lene, e.g. Yemen: bavoːtʰeːxäm (Image ‘in your houses’ Isa. 3.14) (Morag 1963, 38; Yaʾakov 2015, 72 n.134). This applied even to cases where the word has a secondary accent.

84It appears, therefore, that the extended dagesh forte reading, which included the reading of the tav of ב ָּ ת ִּ םי as geminate and as extra-long in some cases where it had two accents, fell into oblivion in Jewish communities outside of medieval Palestine.

I.3.1.13. Loss of Gemination

85Gemination has been lost in the Tiberian tradition in the following circumstances.

I.3.1.13.1. Guttural Consonants

86Guttural consonants, and frequently also resh, lost their gemination in the pre-Masoretic period due to their weakness. In such cases the preceding vowel was lengthened by way of compensation:

Image [hɔːʔɔːˈðɔːɔm] ‘the man’ < *haʾʾadam

Image [hɔːˈʕeːesˁ] ‘the tree’ < *haʿʿeṣ

Image [haːˈħoːðɛʃ] ‘the month’ < *haḥḥodeš

Image [haːˈhuː] ‘that’ < *hahhū

Image [hɔːˈR̟ɛːmɛʃ] ‘the creeping creature’ < *harrƐmƐš

I.3.1.13.2. Weak Consonants with Shewa

87Gemination is occasionally lost in a consonant that has vocalic shewa. This applies in particular to sibilants, sonorants (yod, lamed, mem, nun) and qof, which are weak consonants. The loss of gemination in such cases has two causes, viz. the articulatory weakness of the consonants and the prosodic weakness of the syllable of the shewa (§I.2.5.2.). There is some variation across the manuscripts with regard to the loss of gemination in such forms. In some cases, there is no compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel, and the consonant that loses the gemination is syllabified as the coda of the preceding syllable, e.g.

L: Image ‘the frames’ (1 Kings 7.28 < Image)

L: Image ‘the Levites’ (Exod. 6.25, etc. < Image)

L: Image ‘and he spoke (Gen. 8.15, etc. < Image)

88In some cases, the preceding vowel is lengthened, generally indicated by a gaʿya, and the consonant that has lost the gemination is read with vocalic shewa. This applies most commonly to a mem after the definite article (§I.2.5.8.1.) and a sequence of two identical consonants (§I.2.5.8.3.):

L: Image ‘the one speaking’ (Gen. 45.12, etc.< Image ‘the one speaking’)

L: Image ‘when he cursed’ (A: Image 2 Sam. 16.7 < Image)

I.3.1.13.3. Loss of Gemination when Adjacent to another Geminated Consonant

89Dotan (1983) has shown that in L a dagesh marking gemination is sometimes omitted in a consonant with a full vowel when it is immediately followed by another geminated consonant. The omission of dagesh in this context is too systematic to be regarded as simply a scribal error, but rather it must be considered to reflect a phenomenon of the reading tradition. It is attested most commonly in weak consonants of the type that tend to omit dagesh when they are pronounced with shewa, i.e. sibilants, sonorants and qof. The majority of examples occur after the interrogative ־המ , the preposition מ ִּ ן , the definite article or the vav consecutive. In many cases the dagesh is printed in BHS, although it does not appear in the manuscript L, e.g.

Image ‘What is the burden’ (Jer. 23.33) < Image

Image ‘from the Almighty’ (BHS Image Isa. 13.6) < Image

Image ‘the monument’ (BHS Image 2 Kings 23.17) < Image

Image ‘and the covering’ (BHS Image Isa. 28.20) < Image

Image ‘the ears of corn’ (Gen. 41.24, BHS mistranscribes the first vowel as a qameṣ due to erroneously interpreting a fleck on the parchment as the lower dot of a qameṣ: Image cf. B Image)

Image ‘and he fought’ (BHS Image Jud. 11.20) < Image

Image ‘Uzziah’ (2 Kings 15.30) < Image

Image ‘nations’ (Aramaic, Dan. 3.7) < Image

90This kind of omission of dagesh occurs in the onset of unstressed syllables and the following geminated consonant typically, though not invariably, forms the onset of a stressed syllable. The consonant that has lost the gemination is, therefore, generally prosodically weaker. The condition that the omission of the gemination occurs adjacent to other gemination could reflect a rhythmic phenomenon, whereby the clash of two strengthened, and so prosodically prominent, consonants is avoided.

I.3.1.14. Erroneous Printing of Dagesh in BHS

91Golinets (2013), in an important study of the manuscript L, has drawn attention to a number of errors in the diplomatic edition of L that is printed in BHS and its derivative digital editions in the reading of vocalization signs. This is due to various reasons, including confusion of natural specks on the parchment for pen marks, the concealment of vocalization signs by the strokes of letters and the overwriting or erasure of vocalization signs by a later hand.

  • 40  There are a few additional places where the printed version of BHS is correct, but some of the dig (...)

92Many of the errors in reading relate to the dagesh sign. Several dagesh signs that appear in unusual places in various words in BHS and are not found in other manuscripts have been demonstrated by Golinets (2013, 250–51) to be specks on the parchment of L. These include the following cases:40

Image

I.3.2. Rafe

93The rafe sign is a horizontal line written over a letter. As with several other Masoretic terms, it appears to be an Aramaic participle in origin ָּ הֵפָר . In Judaeo-Arabic Masoretic treatises it is sometimes Arabicized as an Arabic participle, e.g. the anonymous treatise preserved in the Genizah CUL T-S NS 157.52: היפאר rāfiyya, pl. יפאור rawāfī.

94The main use of the sign is to mark תפכדגב consonants as fricative. It is not, however, marked consistently in manuscripts. The marking of the sign was not standardized in the Tiberian tradition to the same extent as the marking of dagesh and it differs from one manuscript to another. Some of the model Tiberian manuscripts mark it more frequently than others. Rafe signs are, for example, more abundant in C and S than in L and A. It is marked only rarely in B. If two letters together both require rafe, the sign is generally only marked once over the space between them.

  • 41  Rafe signs are marked in Ginsburg’s Massoretico-Critical Text of the Hebrew Bible (1894).

95Rafe is not represented in most printed editions, including BHS and BHQ, which are based on L.41

96The inconsistent marking of rafe on fricative תפכדגב consonants in L can be seen in the two sample verses below:

97L: Gen. 30.1-2

Image

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

In most manuscripts, the rafe sign is generally, but not always, marked also on non-consonantal he and ʾalef, e.g. Image ‘queen’, ב ָּ א ֿ ‘he came.’ A few manuscripts, especially C and S, often mark a rafe on the ʾalef in Image ‘Israel’, possibly reflecting its elision in this frequently occurring word.

  • 42  Yeivin (1980, 286-7), Blapp (2017, 17-19).

98The rafe sign is used sporadically on other letters in the manuscripts.42 This is found mainly in contexts in which dagesh would be expected according to normal morphological patterns and prosodic processes, e.g.

99Weak letters that have lost dagesh when pointed with shewa:

A: Image ‘and they inquired’ (Jud. 6.29)

A: Image ‘send’ (Psa. 74.7)

100Omission of dagesh in word-initial position where it would normally occur according to the rules of deḥiq (§I.2.8.1.2.):

A: Image ‘a meditation for me’ (Psa. 119.99)

101After an accent in words where gemination would normally occur:

A: Image ‘why’ (Job 7.20)

102The rafe sign is sometimes marked in contexts that closely resemble contexts where dagesh would be expected, e.g. on a prefix of a verbal form that is preceded by vav with shewa to distinguish it clearly from a geminated prefix of a wayyiqṭol form:

A: Image ‘and will listen’ (Isa. 42.23)

A: Image ‘that he may come’ (1 Sam. 4.3)

103After a prefixed preposition with shewa to distinguish the construction from constructions with a preposition combined with a definite article:

C: Image ‘on he the hill of’ (1 Sam. 9.11)

104On the nun of first person and third person feminine verbal suffixes to distinguish them from verbal suffixes with geminate nun:

A: Image ‘redeem me’ (Psa. 119.134)

A: Image ‘you have made me’ (Job 7.20)

L: Image ‘they will tingle’ (1 Sam. 3.11)

105Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ uses the term rafe for an ungeminated consonant in such contexts, e.g.

  • 43  Long version, edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.3.2.2.:

When a rafe (letter) follows it, it has segol, as in Image (L: Image Jer. 11.15 ‘what has my beloved?’).43

106The letters with rafe in the contexts just described typically belong the set of weak sonorant letters ל , מ , נ . Rafe is sometimes marked on these letters in the manuscripts, no doubt by a process of analogical extension, when they are ungeminated in other contexts, where there is no risk of confusion with geminated letters, e.g.

C: Image ‘he has granted us’ (Isa. 63.7)

C: Image ‘its leavening’ (Hos. 7.4)

S: Image ‘wizard’ (Lev. 20.27)

  • 44  Yeivin (1980, 286–87).

S: Image ‘and into a byword’ (Deut. 28.37).44

  • 45  Yeivin (1980, 286).

107In some manuscripts, rafe is occasionally marked on vav to indicate its consonantal value. This is found before ּ ו expressing [uː] and also in other contexts (§I.1.6.), e.g.45

C: Image ‘and you make equal’ (Isa. 46.5)

L: Image ‘and let it be’ (Psa. 90.17)

I.3.3. Dagesh and Rafe in Manuscripts with Non-Standard Tiberian Vocalization

108There is a considerable degree of variation in the use of the dagesh sign in manuscripts with Non-Standard Tiberian vocalization, but there is a clear tendency in many manuscripts for the sign to be used more frequently than in the standard Tiberian vocalization. Concomitantly there is also a wider use of the rafe sign.

109The distribution of dagesh and rafe in Codex Reuchlinianus, the best known biblical manuscript with this system of vocalization, has been studied by Morag (1959). The use of dagesh and rafe in numerous other manuscripts of this type written in Europe, both biblical and non-biblical, has been described by Eldar (1978, 125–43). He shows that many of the manuscripts follow a basic principle of marking of dagesh similar to that of Codex Reuchlinianus, although there is a considerable amount of diversity in points of detail. Yeivin (1986) has described the distribution of dagesh in Vatican Urbinati 2, which was also written in Europe and exhibits a somewhat different distribution from the aforementioned manuscripts. The investigation by Blapp (2017, 2018) of Genizah fragments with Non-Standard Tiberian vocalization of a predominantly eastern origin from an earlier period (tenth–thirteenth centuries) has revealed a basic distribution similar to Codex Reuchlinianus and the material surveyed by Eldar, although each fragment exhibits some variant features.

110In the Non-Standard Tiberian manuscripts, the rules of the marking of dagesh and rafe on the תפכדגב letters in the Standard Tiberian system are, in principle, applied to all letters, except the pharyngeals ( ר ,) ע , ח and those that function as both matres lectionis and consonants ( א , ה , ו , י ). The dagesh sign, therefore, is marked on the majority of letters at the beginning of a word and within a word after a silent shewa.

111Genizah manuscripts

Image (T-S A12.1, Blapp 2018, 138 | L [BHS]: Image Prov. 29.27 ‘abomination of the righteous’)

Image (T-S A13.35, Blapp 2018, 139 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 75.11 ‘all the horns of’)

Image (T-S A12.1, Blapp 2018, 141 | L [BHS]: Image Prov. 28.27 ‘lack’)

Image (T-S A12.1, Blapp 2018, 141 | L [BHS]: Image Ruth 4.3 ‘portion of’)

112European manuscripts

Image (Codex Reuchlinianus, Morag 1959, 217 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 10.19 ‘number’)

Image (Codex Reuchlinianus, Morag 1959, 225 | L [BHS]: Image Jer. 18.9 ‘kingdom’)

Image (Codex Reuchlinianus, Morag 1959, 217 | L [BHS]: Isa. 5.3 ‘my vineyard’)

Image (Codex Reuchlinianus, Morag 1959, 217 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 10.18 ‘sick’)

113Another aspect of the extension of dagesh in the Non-Standard Tiberian system is the use in some manuscripts of dagesh on word-initial תפכדגב consonants after a preceding word with a final vowel and conjunctive accent, where a fricative form of the letter would be expected in Standard Tiberian. In these manuscripts, dagesh is used also on other consonants in this context. Examples:

Image (Vatican Urbinati 2, Yeivin 1986, 495 | L [BHS]: Image Jud. 5.31 ‘may all your enemies perish’)

Image (Vatican Urbinati 2, Yeivin 1986, 495 | L [BHS]: ImageImage Jud. 20.36 ‘that they were defeated’)

114According to Morag (1959, 226–28), the dagesh sign at the beginning of a word and after silent shewa in this system of vocalization did not have a phonetic realization of gemination but only had the function of indicating a syllable boundary. Eldar (1978, 125–43) likewise takes the view that this dagesh did not have a phonetic realization but rather was a ‘separative dagesh’.

115Yeivin (1983, 1986) agrees with Morag and Eldar that the function of the dagesh in the Non-standard Tiberian manuscripts was to express the division of syllables. He argues, however, that it was not simply an abstract sign but rather had the phonetic value of a dagesh forte. This would explain why it is not marked on consonants that do not in principle take dagesh forte, in particular the pharyngeal consonants.

116I should like to argue that the distribution of the dagesh in manuscripts with Non-Standard Tiberian vocalization reflects a type of reading that arose by an analogical extension of the extended dagesh forte reading (§I.3.1.11.3.). The analogical process involved extending the gemination marking strengthened syllable onsets from תפכדגב consonants to all consonants in syllable onsets that could be geminated. Since gemination was a potential feature also of a range of other consonants, this distribution of gemination of the תפכדגב consonants in the extended dagesh forte reading was extended further to include these other consonants. This took place by a process of regularization, which resulted in a more consistent distribution of the orthoepic use of dagesh to mark clear syllable divisions, e.g.

Image

The incipient extension of dagesh to strengthen the onsets of syllables is found in forms such as Image ‘and he gave him’ (L, Gen. 24.36) and forms attributed to Ben Naftali such as ב ִּ נ־ן ּ ןּו ‘the son of Nun’ and Image ‘he supplants’ (Jer. 9.3).

The orthoepic marking of dagesh on the second of two identical letters across word-boundaries, such as Image and on a letter after a vowelless guttural, such as Image is found also in some manuscripts with Palestinian pronunciation (Fassberg 1987), e.g.

Image (T-S A43.1, Revell 1970a, 76 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 57.11 ‘on your heart’)

Image (Bod. Heb. e 30 ff. 48-49, Revell 1970a, 76 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 46.12 ‘who are far from righteousness’)

Image (Bod. Heb. e 30 ff. 48-49, Revell 1970a, 77 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 5.28 ‘they seemed’

Image (Bod. Heb. e 30 ff. 48-49, Revell 1970a, 77 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 7.11 ‘let it be deep’)

117The use of the rafe sign is likewise extended in some Palestinian manuscripts analogously to its extension in Non-Standard Tiberian manuscripts. It is found in particular on consonants following ḥet and ʿayin that do not close a syllable, thus contrasting with dagesh that marks syllable closure after these consonants as we have just seen, e.g.

Image (T-S A43.1, Revell 1970a, 77 | L [BHS]: Image Exod. 28.34 ‘bell’)

Image (T-S A43.1, Revell 1970a, 77 | L [BHS]: Image Isa. 62.1 ‘I will not keep silent’)

118In some Non-Standard Tiberian manuscripts, dagesh is added to a letter after a vowel, where a dagesh is lacking in the standard Tiberian tradition. This is found predominantly on the weak letters ק , נ , מ , ל and the sibilants in word-medial or word-final position, e.g.

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 68.25 ‘your processions’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 68.22 ‘he will shatter’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 70.6 ‘poor’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 70.5 ‘those who seek you’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 68.23 ‘I will bring back’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 70.5 ‘he is great’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 69.20 ‘all of’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 68.24 ‘in blood’)

119These letters exhibit features of weakness in the standard Tiberian tradition, such as the loss of dagesh when they have shewa (§I.2.5.2.). It is likely, therefore, that the dagesh that is added to them in these contexts after open syllables was primarily intended as an orthoepic measure to guard against their weak articulation and to ensure that they were pronounced distinctly.

120Another consonant that is sometimes marked with dagesh after a vowel in such manuscripts is ṭet, e.g.

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 144 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 71.2 ‘and you rescue me’)

121The manuscript T-S A13.20, where Blapp has identified many examples of this feature, also exhibits the marking of dagesh on word-initial consonants that do not usually take word-initial dagesh in Non-Standard Tiberian manuscripts, such as ḥet, vav and yod:

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 143 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 69.29 ‘of the living’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2018, 143 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 69.35 ‘and earth’)

Image (T-S A13.20, Blapp 2017, 163 | L [BHS]: Image Psa. 70.3 ‘let them be put to shame’)

  • 46  Some medieval Arabic sources report marginal cases of tashdīd (i.e. gemination) of consonants at t (...)

122There are numerous Non-Standard Tiberian manuscripts with the extended use of dagesh in the Genizah, which are datable to the Masoretic period or shortly after, i.e. tenth–thirteenth centuries (Díez Macho 1963; Blapp 2017, 2018). Arrant (2020) has shown that many of these manuscripts were written in a monumental format with three columns similar to the model Tiberian manuscripts. This suggests that the marking of dagesh in such manuscripts reflected a living reading tradition in the Middle East at the time when such manuscripts were written.46

123Manuscripts with Non-Standard Tiberian extended dagesh were widely distributed in medieval Ashkenaz. Yequtiʾel ha-Naqdan, who was writing in medieval Ashkenaz in the second half of the thirteenth century, is aware of the existence of such manuscripts. He and readers in his community, however, thought that the dagesh was a dagesh lene and so, understandably, the dagesh had no phonetic realization in consonants that did not belong to the תפכדגב group. This is expressed in the following passage from his ʿEn ha-Qore (ed. Yarqoni 1985, 105):

  • 47

‘Now you should understand that the letters תפכדגב with dagesh are heard in all words (marked with them). Their being pronounced with dagesh or rafe is known in the language and fixed in the mouth, in the place of articulation, whether it be dagesh forte or dagesh lene. But as for the letters שקצסנמטלזו , the dagesh lene is not heard in them in most places… most people of our land do not know how to pronounce the dagesh lene that occurs in these letters.’47

Yequtiʾel then gives a number of examples of dagesh lene in the letters שקצסנמטלזו both after guttural letters, e.g. Image and after non-guttural letters, e.g. Image (Yarqoni 1985, 107). Although the tradition of marking this dagesh continued in medieval Ashkenaz, Yequtiʾel’s remarks indicate that the reading of the dagesh as dagesh forte had largely fallen into oblivion. He qualifies his remarks with the phrase ‘in most places… most people of our land’, which may indicate that he was aware of some vestiges of the type of pronunciation that was originally reflected by the extended dagesh of the Non-Standard Tiberian vocalization. Indeed a statement by David Qimḥi, writing in southern France at roughly the same period as Yequtiʾel, could be interpreted as indicating that there were still memories of this original pronunciation. In his Mikhlol he states:

  • 48  Ed. Rittenberg (1862, 140a):

‘Whenever mobile shewa is followed by one of the letters תפכדגב , the letter from the תפכדגב (letters) is soft… The same applies to the other letters with regard to their strength and lightness, for example in Image ‘why’ the reading of the lamed is strong and in Image ‘and why?’ the reading of the lamed is light because of the mobile shewa in it. In Image ‘the man questioned us carefully’ (Gen. 43.7) the reading of the shin is strong; in Image ‘and he shall ask for him’ (Num. 27.21) the reading of the shin is light. In Image ‘ (why) has your countenance fallen?’ (Gen. 4.6) the reading of the nun is strong; in ImageImage ‘they will fall and not rise again’ (Amos 8.14) the reading of the nun is light. Likewise, the other letters (are read) in this way, except for yod, which is always light unless it has dagesh.’48

  • 49  Cf. Morag’s (1959, 220) description of the distribution of dagesh in Codex Reuchlinianus.

124In this passage, Qimḥi refers to strong and weak variants of consonants. He states that this variation is found not only in the consonants תפכדגב , but also in other consonants. The distribution of the variation in the other consonants is the same as is found with the תפכדגב consonants, i.e. the weak variant occurs after a vowel. This appears, therefore, to be an allusion to the type of pronunciation that is reflected by the extended dagesh of Non-Standard Tiberian vocalization, although Qimḥi does not refer to the marking of the dagesh sign on the strong variant of the consonants outside the תפכדגב group. His remark at the end of the passage that yod does not have strong and weak variants in the same way as the other consonants ‘unless it has dagesh’ can also be correlated to the type of pronunciation reflected by Non-Standard Tiberian vocalization. In manuscripts exhibiting this type of vocalization yod often lacks dagesh in word-initial or post-consonant position and takes dagesh only where this occurs in the standard Tiberian vocalization.49 In this passage, therefore, we may have evidence that features of the extended dagesh type of Non-Standard Tiberian pronunciation survived in Ashkenaz and were applied to biblical manuscripts with standard Tiberian vocalization. It should be noted, however, that Qimḥi makes a distinction between dagesh lene ( שגד לק ) and dagesh forte ( שגד קזח ) in the תפכדגב consonants and does not identify the fortition of the other consonants in word-initial position with the gemination of dagesh forte.

125As alluded to by Yequtiʾel ha-Naqdan, the type of pronunciation that made a distinction in pronunciation between consonants outside the תפכדגב group after a vowelless consonant or word-initial position was not widely followed in medieval Ashkenaz. Yequtiʾel describes a reading tradition in which there was a general tendency to weaken dagesh forte, especially when the letter had shewa (Yarqoni 1985, 113). There is evidence from transcriptions of Hebrew into Latin script in medieval France that letters with dagesh forte, according to the standard Tiberian vocalization, were not pronounced geminated (Gumpertz 1953, 5; Yarqoni 1985, 108–11). The marking of dagesh forte is, moreover, frequently omitted in medieval Ashkenazi prayer-books (Eldar 1978, 115–22), and is completely lost in modern Ashkenazi reading traditions (Glinert 2013, 192). This general weakening of gemination in Ashkenaz that had begun already in the Middle Ages would have eliminated the gemination that was distinctive of the extended Tiberian pronunciation tradition.

Notes

1  Our terms dagesh forte and dagesh lene go back to David Qimḥi (1160- 1235), who uses the Hebrew terms דגש חזק (dagesh forte) and דגש קל (dagesh lene) in his Mikhlol. The terms דגש חזק and דגש קל are used also by Yequtiʾel ha-Naqadan, who was active in medieval Ashkenaz in the second half of the thirteenth century. He does not mention David Qimḥi’s Mikhlol, which was written earlier, but it is possible that Yequtiʾel borrowed this terminology from Qimḥi (Yarqoni 1985, 105– 13).

2  Morag (1960, 207–8).

3  Bar-Asher (1987).

4  Bar-Asher (1987, 13–14).

5  Katz (1981, 32–36).

6  Morag (1960, 208–16).

7  Yeivin (1985, 361–63).

8  A few cases of a dagesh that appear in the BHS edition and were identified by Knauf (1979) as serving to distinguish meaning have recently been shown by Golinets (2013, 247–52) to be no more than specks on the parchment of the manuscript.

9  Yeivin (1985, 1119).

10  Data supplied by Shai Heijmans. OB = Old Babylonian, MB = Middle Babylonian.

11  In this manuscript initial ʾalef + long qameṣ, i.e. [ʔɔː], is represented by a single Arabic ʾalif. In Biblical Aramaic a long vowel is more widely tolerated in an unstressed syllable closed by a geminated consonant, e.g. Image ‘they enter’ (Dan. 4.4 qere); cf. also Syriac ʿāllīn (Nöldeke 1869, 457).

12  See in particular Florentin (1996) for examples of this phenomenon.

13  Ben-Ḥayyim (2000, 92).

14  Ben-Ḥayyim (2000, 92).

15  Ben-Ḥayyim (1957a-77 vol. 4, 8-9, vol. 5, 194, 2000, 260).

16  Florentin (1996, 231).

17  Florentin (1996, 234).

18  Florentin (1996, 218). This particular minimal pair is not attested in the Samaritan Pentateuch, but it can be inferred from the contrasting patterns used for the attested forms of the past and non-past, e.g. wyå̄bå̄du Image ‘and they perished’ (Num. 16.33) vs. tå̄bbåd Image ‘it becomes lost’ (Deut. 22.3).

19  Cf. Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ, long version, edition in volume 2 of this book, §II.L.1.7., short version, edition in volume 2 of this book, §II.S.2.0. A version of these exceptions appears also in the Hebrew Masoretic treatise published by Ginsburg (1885, 36-37).

20  According to the Hebrew Masoretic treatise published by Ginsburg (1885 ,37) the kaf in Image (Dan. 5.11) was made a plosive since ḥet and fricative kaf were difficult to combine due to the fact that they were similar in articulationImage

21  Kitāb al-Khilaf (ed. Lipschütz, 1965, 18-19).

22  According to Melamed (1948, 1) the purpose of the dagesh in Image (1 Sam. 1.6) is to disinguish this human activity (‘to irritate her’) from the meaning of the verb in Image ‘the God of glory thundered’ (Psa. 29.3), which refers to an action of God. This is a possible interpretation, especially since in such pairs of homophones the dagesh is typically put in forms relating to a human (see §I.3.1.3.). Ariel (2020), however, has argued that the motivation is phonetic rather than semantic, and I follow his view here.

23  For the case for interpreting the dagesh in the forms Image and Image as orthoepic see Ariel (2020).

24  For the need to avoid coalescence in such contexts see the discussion in Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ, long version, edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.1.4.10.

25  Alvestad and Edzard (2009) have demonstrated how this principle can explain the distribution of the insertion of ḥaṭef vowels in verbs with initial ḥet in Tiberian Hebrew.

26  Edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.1.9.2.

27  Edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.S.3.0.

28 Image ‘Every case of בָּתִּים with two accents was given dagesh by Ben Naftali, I mean he pronounced it with force more than other cases (of the word without two accents)’.

29 ‘He did not pronounce other cases with the similar strength’ (Lipschütz 1965, 4; Eldar 1994, 77).

30 Ed. Lipschütz (1965, 4):Image

31  It was one of the principles of Muʿtazilite doctrine that the term ‘unbeliever’ could not be applied to a Muslim believer who had committed a grave sin. The latter, therefore, could be neither a believer nor an unbeliever, but in an intermediate state (manzila bayna manzilatayn); cf. Gimaret (2015).

32  See Baalbakki (2008, 132).

33  The Masorah Parva to I Chron. 28.11 contains the note: ה׳ תוין דגשי׳ בחוזק ‘There are five tavs that have strong dagesh’. It is not clear in which words these tavs occur apart from the tav in בִָּּׂ֨֜תָּיו in the 1 Chron. 28.11 (Dotan 1967, 15).

34 34 Ed. Busi (1984, 60):Image

35  The passage has the same adapted form also in Sefer Ṭaʿame ha-Miqra. Eldar (1984, 28) used this adapted version of the passage on the tav in his interpretation of the original Arabic version of Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ and this, therefore, led him to misinterpret the original. According to Eldar the al-dagesh al-kabīr ‘major dagesh’ of tav was not a fully geminated tav, but only a half-geminated one [tt]. The fully geminated tav [tt] is found in the word בַּתִּים. This argument is based on the assumption that the passage is excluding consideration of dagesh forte used to express gemination. In the passage on the grades of resh, however, the ‘major’ (kabīr) grade of the letter is said to be geminate resh with dagesh, as in (1 Sam. 10.24). This is evidence that the classification of the grades of strength of tav includes the full range of the realization of tav.

36  Long version, edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.1.7; short version, edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.S.2.0.

37  Ed. Jastrow (1897, 12–13): ImageImage

38  The plosive pronunciation of the tav after long qameṣ was regarded as anomalous by Ḥayyūj and he is quoted by Ibn Ezra in his Sefer Ṣaḥot (ed. del Valle Rodríguez 1977, 1: 289) to the effect that the qameṣ occurs to differentiate the word in meaning from בַּתִּים ‘baths’ (measure of capacity); cf. Charlap (1999, 121–22). The source of such a statement about the differentiating function of the qameṣ cannot be identified in the extant corpus of Ḥayyūj’s writings. It may be based on Ibn Ezra’s misinterpreation of the passage concerning the בגדכפת consonants and בָּתִּים in Kitāb al-ʾAfʿāl Dhawāt Ḥurūf al-Līn (ed. Jastrow 1897, 12–13) (José Martínez Delgado, personal communication).

39  Ed. Gumpertz (1958, 46): ImageImage

40  There are a few additional places where the printed version of BHS is correct, but some of the digital versions and BHQ have an erroneously marked dagesh; see Golinets (2013, 250-251) for details.

41  Rafe signs are marked in Ginsburg’s Massoretico-Critical Text of the Hebrew Bible (1894).

42  Yeivin (1980, 286-7), Blapp (2017, 17-19).

43  Long version, edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.3.2.2.: ImageImage

44  Yeivin (1980, 286–87).

45  Yeivin (1980, 286).

46  Some medieval Arabic sources report marginal cases of tashdīd (i.e. gemination) of consonants at the beginning of syllables in the recitation of the Qurʾān, e.g. Image yakhṭṭifu ‘it takes away’ (Q 2.20) (ed. Bergsträsser, 1934, 3). This would, presumably, reflect a similar orthoepic measure to ensure clear syllable division.

47 Image

48  Ed. Rittenberg (1862, 140a): ImageImage

49  Cf. Morag’s (1959, 220) description of the distribution of dagesh in Codex Reuchlinianus.

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