The Mapiq in some final 'He' letters in the Heb. bible indicates that these are a fully pronounced consonants . This can be concluded from Arabic forms such as "beha". Notice the vowelled ...ha. The final vowell Alif ( = Aleph ) is the marker of all 3.f.s. pronominal suffixes in Arabic. This can further be observed in the the qamatz under the 'He' in all 3.f.plural Heb. declensions : e.g.. "dodeyha" "suseyha" .
Since the Massoretes marked such forms with a Mapiq, they heard in their time the distinction in pronounciation between the regular 'He' at the end of a word, say, "Na(arah" (girl), and - on the other hand - "Lah(.)" (to her). Uri Hurwitz Wilmington VT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Berel, On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:35:30 -0400, Berel Beyer <berelbeyer at gmail.com> wrote: > Hello all, > > I wonder if I could impose upon you for help pointing me in the right > direction. I understand that there are people who claim that the > masoretes intended the mappiq he to be an orthographic distinction > rather than one of actual pronunciation. Can anyone point me to an > article (for a non-expert like myself) that summarizes the argument? I have seen that claim also, but have never seen any evidence to back it up. Until I see such, I think the most natural course is to take the mappiq at face value, and take it to indicate a pronounced [h] at the end of a word. -- William Parsons μη φαινεσθαι, αλλ' ειναι. _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
