Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jason Hare <jaihare AT gmail.com>]

Meaning that if it is impossible for the dagesh to be inserted into
the consonant, then the vowel itself is lengthened to compensate for
the difference.

הַיֶּלֶד HAY.ELED /ha-yeled/
הָאָרֶץ HF)FREC /ha-arets/
הֶעָנָן HE(FNFN /he-anan/

Gutturals do not accept doubling. The vowel is lengthened under the
article ("compensatory lengthening"), normally to kamats [F] from
patach [A]. Before heh [H], chet [X], and ayin [(] with kamats in an
unaccented syllable, it is lengthened to segol [E].

Additionally, there are a set of consonants {S $ & Q N M L W Y} which,
when they carry a sheva [:] after the article, lose their dagesh. This
also applies to the vav-consecutive/conversive.

None of this alters the fact that the dagesh is an essential part of
the Hebrew article, as David and George have adequately put forth.
Just as الـ /al/ (the article in Arabic) doubles sun letters when it
precedes them, so the article in Hebrew naturally doubles the first
consonant of the word.

Arabic example: شمس shams (sun) > *الشمس *al-shams > الشّمس ash-shams
(the sun). This is represented by the doubling of the shiin with
shadda. The laam remains, but it is NEVER pronounced before a sun
letter.

The only difference is that in Hebrew the theoretical nun or lamed is
assimilated at is never seen. Arabic could have just dropped the laam
in these forms and left it as a basic assimilation, but they left it
there unpronounced.

I definitely agree with both David and George in their position. It's
the correct way to look at it.

Jason Hare


On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 12:55 PM, David Kummerow
<farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear John,
>
> You can't go putting forth examples such as the ones below as disproving
> the fact that the definite article in BH is /haC-/ before firstly
> understanding the phonetic conditioning surrounding the realisation of
> the /haC-/ morpheme. Please either accept that the morpheme /haC-/ has
> several phonologically conditioned allomorphs [haC-], [ha-], and [he-]
> or set forth a more convincing arguement as to why you assert that the
> definite article in BH is not /haC-/ but rather /ha-/.
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow