חילופי צירי-פתח בעברית המקראית

BH grammars describe the a/(i)e vowel interchanges in accented closed syllables as the "Phillipi Law". The Phillipi Law, however, refers to only some of these interchanges; in many categories (such as qittel/qittal) these word pairs are explained as forms of separate origin and not as allommorphs. The present study attempts to explain all a/e interchanges in Hebrew as the result of a vowel shift e → a affecting every short e vowel in Hebreww. Long e vowels, on the other hand, which were lengthened in accented syllables in pausal position of varying degrees, did not shift to a. Is is thus clear that this vowel shift took place after pausal lengthening had already occurred in Hebrew. In certain categories the original conditioning was retained: a in close juncture (and in construct state forms), as opposed to e in pausal (and absolute state) forms. In most categories, however, one of the two variants became universally predominant. The various Hebrew traditions differ in this: Origines' tranliterations show a predominant e vowel; an a vowel is especially strong in the Babylonian tradition; whereas the Tiberian tradition sports both vowels.