Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

To back up David Kummerow on this one, if you do some comparative 
linguistics, particularly with Arabic, it is possible that the gemination 
which is part of the Hebrew article is, in fact, an assimilation of lamed. 
That is, it could be that the Hebrew article is /Hal-/. The problem is, we 
have no way of being sure about this in Hebrew, because the article never 
appears on its own without articulating a substantive of some kind. However, 
the Arabic parallel is suggestive. The consonant /lam/ in Arabic is often run 
into the following consonant, producing an effective gemination of that 
consonant.



Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au