Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 9/4/07, George Athas wrote:

> If the shewa is silent within a word, why the need to mark some gutturals
> with a composite shewa, but not others? What is the governing factor there?

Gutturals underwent additional developments that other letters did not.
Consider the word [yispor].  With a guttural, [ya(amodh], the guttural first
influenced the preceding vowel which became "a", and then it "slid"
so that the vowel continued after the guttural: [yi(modh] > [ya(modh] >
[ya(amodh].  It may be for this reason that it became practice to mark
all the guttural's schewas appropriately.  However, other letters are also
marked in various cases, and in different traditions and manuscripts there
may be a more liberal policy of these markings.

On Dr Raoul Comninos's question:
> I have noted a number of theoretical posts on shewa, but have rarely
> found any concrete guidance, the form of which a student can take and
> actually use in pronunciation. Many seem to me to suggest that the
> conventional wisdom reflected in Hebrew grammars is wrong, but then
> offer no alternative.

What kind of guidance?  Telling whether the schewa is vocal or not? Or
on how to pronounce it?

Yitzhak Sapir