5 January 2021

Theory of Dagesh

 There are two kinds of dagesh, lene and forte. Their identity in form is one of the defects of the Masoretic system of punctuation, because they have two completely different functions. Dagesh forte, which corresponds exactly to Arabic shaddah ( ّ ), doubles the consonant in question:

וַנֵּלֶךְ vanneleχ, אֶשָּׂא ʾessā, אֵלֶּה ʾēlle מִמֶּנּוּ mimmennū

The presence or absence of a dagesh forte is phonemic, not determined by the context, and integral to the meaning of the word. It would be like writing haṁock for hammock, or piḷow for pillow. Dagesh lene, meanwhile, indicates a stop (hard) rather than a fricative (soft) pronunciation of the letters בגדכפת. Not all of these distinctions are realized in all pronunciations of Hebrew, but here they are in their ideal form:

בָּהָר bāhār vs. וּבֵין ūβēin

גֵּרוֹ gērō vs. וְגַם veɣam

דְּרֹשׁ deroš vs. עַד ʿað

כִּי vs. לָכֶם lāχem

פֶּן pen vs. לִפְנֵי liɸnēi

תֶּשִׁי tešī vs. אֹתוֹ ʾoθō

Unlike dagesh forte, dagesh lene has no phonemic relevance, and its presence or absence is almost always predictable from the surrounding phonetic context. The rule is: if a בגדכפת letter is preceded by a vowel (even sometimes across a word boundary), then it does not get a dagesh lene. And if it is preceded by nothing, a consonant, or a mute schewa, then it does.

These two phenomena should really have been designated by different signs. This is because the בגדכפת letters themselves are theoretically susceptible to taking either a dagesh lene or a dagesh forte, or both. Unlike the letters אהחער, which cannot take a dagesh forte except under the rarest of circumstances, there is no reason, phonetic or otherwise, why בגדכפת cannot be doubled.

Thus there is a distinction, not marked in the Masoretic orthography, between בגדכפת letters that have a dagesh lene and the ones that have both a dagesh forte and a dagesh lene. (There is no such thing as a letter that has only a dagesh forte, for a reason that will be clear shortly.) In the six examples I listed above—בָּהָר, גֵּרו ,דְּרֹשׁ, כִּי and תֶּשִׁי—the בגדכפת letters only have a dagesh lene.

But here are some words with a double-dagesh:

כַּבֵּד
הַגּוֹי
מִדַּם
מִכֶּם
אַפּוֹ
עַתָּה

And here is my question: how are these to be pronounced? A grammar of Hebrew will tell you to pronounce a geminated version of the ‘hard’ variant of the consonant. Thus kabbeð, haggōi, middam, mikkemʾappōʿattā. And this is, as far as I know, the pronunciation of every attested Jewish tradition, both modern and medieval. 

But it does not follow from the rules of dagesh-placement in Masoretic Hebrew. Consider what is actually taking place when a letter is carrying a dagesh forte. It can be resolved into two like this:

ַטַּ—>טְט

The first of the geminate pair bears a mute schewa, and the second carries the vowel that the written consonant had been punctuated with. It's really no different to Italian giammai or latte; or English midday, in that it’s just a case of two identical consonants succeeding each other with no intervening vowel. Soo far so good; now let’s resolve a geminate בגדכפת letter:  

ַּדַּ—>דְד

Remember that a dagesh lene cannot exist unless it is called for by the absence of a foregoing vowel. Therefore, as the first of these two consonants is presumably preceded by a vowel, it has a soft pronunciation. But the second consonant, preceded by a mute schewa, must take a dagesh lene, just like any בגדכפת letter that appears after a mute schewa. It is to be pronounced hard.

Thus we should ideally pronounce: כַּבֵּד kaβbed, הַגּוֹי haɣgōi, מִדַּם miðdam, מִכֶּם miχkem, אַפּוֹ ʾaɸpō, עַתָּה ʿaθtā.

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