Tiberian Dagesh Lene

Abstract In the previous installment of Textus , Yehonatan Wormser acutely argued that so-called dagesh lene in standard Tiberian tradition was pronounced as a geminate consonant, effectively neutralising distinction between and forte . This he did by invoking “principle economy” comparing to shewa well drawing evidence from Karaite transcriptions non-standard manuscripts. I argue his claim is not supported evidence: manuscripts do reflect mainstream tradition, but rather late development; principle economy does apply cases complementary distribution. Wormser’s analogy also addressed.