Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> >> But once you come to the realization that a shwa represents the lack
> >> of a vowel --- no more, no less --- everything because eaiser and more
> >> sensible.
> >
> >What vowel is lacked in nizcar? Interconsonantal schwa represents not a
>
> What do you mean, "what vowel is lack[ing]"?  There is no vowel.
> That's what lacking means.  (It's like the absurd question in _Catch
> 22_ about someone who never did something.  He is asked WHEN he didn't
> do it.  He is forced to answer that he always didn't do it....)

I understood you saying in the quoted message that each schwa represents a
vowel. Thus, the question, what vowel is represented by schwa in niphal?
Again, I do think that the vowel was there originally (nzacer*), but
certainly not at the time of the Masoretes.

Vadim Cherny