Biblical Hebrew Forum

[<cmeadows3 AT verizon.net>]

Hi John,

Sounds like and interesting project!

Gesenius doesn't address this specifically - nor Lambdin, Weingreen, or 
Jouon/Muraoka, although the J/M (my favorite) does give a brief discussion of 
the tendencies or resh to assimilated some (not always consistently) guttural 
features.

I think Peter's answer is the best - language doesn'f fit into neat rules - 
although some do better than others.

Consider the English verbs "sing", "bring", and "wing".  The different past 
tense forms "sang", "brought", and "winged" seem to defy logic!  One could do 
some digging and render several hypotheses regarding these - like the verb 
"wing" being obviously derived from the noun and thus likely a "newer" verb 
used more colloquially and thus having assimilated the simple "-ed" passive 
morpheme.  But still we are left with 3 seemingly isomorhic verbs which 
behave differently.

In addition the Masoretic rules are but one scheme (and a later one at that) 
intended to systematize pronunciation rules for a language which was spoken 
and had both dialectic variation and diachronic evolution.

So I guess the answer is "just because"!!

Good luck with your work.

Charles Meadows
Marshall University
USA