Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "wesley4christ " <wesley4christ AT blackplanet.com>
> This Rabbi seems to be dealing with Biblical Hebrew.  I was not sure at
first.  He categorizes all Hebrew consonants into four groups, with some of
the consonants fitting into more than one group.  (Root, Prefix, Suffix,
Infix)
>
> He also considers the Alphabet to have 28 consonants.  He counts seen and
sheen as two different consonants and then he adds in the final forms of the
five consonants that have final forms.

The final forms are certainly not "separate consonants"; the have the same
sound as the regular forms. They are simply a graphic development. The
ancient (paleo-) Hebrew script did not use final forms.
As far as Shin and Sin, they do have different sounds and are rarely
interchangeable, so they could be thought of as two separate consonants.
However they share a sign, and Hebrew tradition has always counted them as a
single letter.


>
> And finally, according to him, all of the consonants can be used in the
root of a word but 12 of the consonants can only be used in the root.  They
are gimel, dalet, zayin, he, het, samek, ayin, pe, sade, qop, res, and seen.

Well, He is certainly used outside of roots. Look at the definite article
("the") and all of the feminine forms.


>
> So I think that you have answered my question, but I was still wondering
about modern Hebrew.  Is it much different from Ancient Hebrew?
>

Look at my previous post.


Yigal