Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Paul Zellmer <zellmer AT cag.pworld.net.ph>]

I think I must have fallen asleep in some class on phoneme variations
for shin!  I ran across a dagesh in the initial shin of $FM and did a
search on other cases.  I found 17 occurrences (there may be more, but
that's what I turned up).  Yet this variation is not noted in the
lexicons I consulted.  I also noted about ten other cases of
word-initial shin with dageshes, but I only looked closely at the $FM.
In all but three cases, the word follows an open syllable.  And in those
three cases, the preceding word ends with FH.

Is there some phonological "rule" resulting in the doubling of
word-initial shin after an open syllable?  Does this apply to other
sibilants?

Paul
--
Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
Ibanag Translation Project
Cabagan, Philippines

zellmer AT faith.edu.ph