Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 19/01/2004 11:45, Jason Hare wrote:

> Peter,
>
> There does not have to be a dagesh in the first lamed because of the VOCAL
> SH'VA underneath it. Remember that the letters $&CSQNMLWY do not /have/ to
> carry a dagesh when they have a vocal sh'va under them (reference page 107
> of Weingreen's grammar, note N.B. (1) at the top of the page: "The Dagesh
> Forte which is characteristic in the 2nd root-letter is sometimes absent in
> certain forms. The second example B.iQ."$ happens to be one of these verbs,
> when the medial root-letter Q is vowelless, i.e. when it has a shewa: the
> 3rd pl. Perf. B.iQ.:$W. is found as B.iQ:$W. [with a rafe above the Q], the
> doubling of the medial root-letter having been ommitted for euphony...."
> ...
>  
Thank you, Jason. I had not seen this rule so explicitly. You are 
probably right.

But the question remains, is the remaining sheva silent or voiced? I 
always assumed that in forms like B.IQ:$W. the sheva was silent, and the 
dagesh was dropped to correspond to this lack of vocalisation. If it is 
voiced, how can I decide whether sheva is voiced or not in any word of 
this pattern? If it is silent, does that imply that the sheva in HAL:LW. 
is also silent, which would surely imply that the word is pronounced 
with just one long L sound?

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/