Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> >Shtaim means not "two," but "pair." The word was originally used in
> >constructus, such as "pair of smth," not stand-alone word. Constructus
> >(smihuth) moves accent, and reduces the first word (davar -
d'var-melech).
> >Similarly, shataim was reduced in constructus to shtaim. Thus schwa in
shin.
>
> I don't think so, particularly because shtaim has a different
> construct form:  shtei.  Unless you are talking about ancient
> etymology (obviously long before the Masoretes, Origen, or the
> consonental textus receptus).

Of course, it was shtei originally, as I pointed in the original reply.
And sure, I speak of ancient etymology. By the time of the Masoretes, shtaim
was already fixed as numerical, not as a noun for "pair."
The question was, why schwa na and dagesh in shtaim. I answered that: the
schwa is syntactical, from smihuth, and is thus unrelated to morphological
dagesh.

Vadim Cherny