Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Yaakov Stein wrote:
>
>> Here are two instances of a dagesh having apparently the sole purpose
> of marking the first letter of a word; specifically,
>> to warn against the moving of an U from the end of a word to the
> beginning of the next.
>> 1. ?????? ?????? ???????? ??????, Exodus 12:31, to prevent the reading
> QUM UC)U.
>> 2. ?????? ?????? ????????? ???-????? ???????, Deuteronomy 2:24, to
> prevent the reading QUM US(U.
>
> Isaac
>
> First, every time you embed Hebrew I get question marks.
>
> Second, if you already mention QUMU C)U in Exodus,
> you shouldn't forget the exact same expression in Genesis 19:14.
> On this expression MINHAT SHAI remarks that there are 5 similar
> dageshes after ) H W Y.

There are many more cases of conjunctive dagesh than 5.  The rules
regarding bgdkpt following vowels or )hwy is given in #399, of Yeivin's
book, with exceptions in #400.  I really recommend that you get Yeivin's
book if you want to learn about the Masora:
Yeivin, I. 1980. Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah. Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature.

On the main rule of the conjunctive dagesh (#399), Yeivin points out
that in some cases as in Ex 15:13, no vowel letter is used, nxyt bxsdk,
whereas in other cases the vowel letter is used to close a syllable
so that the next word takes a dagesh, as in Num 22:2, wyr) blq.

Yitzhak Sapir