On Word Stress

An eagle-eyed instructor asked us recently about our use of stress-marking (the ‘oleh  א֫) we use for unexpected word stress, such as a non-final syllable (i.e., the penultima) in nouns or a final syllable (i.e., the ultima) in the Irreal Perfect (weqataltí). He noted what he thought was an incorrect marking of the Irreal Perfect forms on p. 67 and r-20, 23. In other words, he rightly understand that we intended the forms as Irreal Perfects, but since we had not marked the stress on the ultima, it would naturally be read as a Real Perfect. 

BBH_Grammar_p67

My response is that the lack of ultima stress-marking on weqatalti forms is intentional. E. J. Revell (Professor emeritus, NMC, University of Toronto), published a number of studies in the mid-80s on this issue. He concluded that the position of the stress on the so-called waw-consecutive form was not tied to the semantics of the form, but to phrasal prosody. We find his argument compelling. Thus, in our textbook we chose not to perpetuate what we think to be a ghost phenomenon.

The non-paradigmatic stress-marking in the textbook follows this principle: when copying an exact biblical text, we add stress-marking on any non-paradigmatic syllable (e.g., the ultima in weqataltí) IF it is so placed in the Masoretic Text. Otherwise, we maintain the paradigm marking (weqatálti) throughout, regardless of verbal semantics. 

We recommend the following scholarship on this issue:

Revell, E.J. 

1984. Stress and the Waw “Consecutive” in Biblical Hebrew. Journal of the American Oriental Society 104 (3): 437-44.

1985. The Conditioning of Stress Position in Waw Consecutive Perfect Forms in Biblical Hebrew. Hebrew Annual Review 9 277-300.

1987. Stress Position in Hebrew Verb Forms with Vocalic Affix. Journal of Semitic Studies 32 (2): 249-71.