Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Brak <Brak AT neo.rr.com>]

Sorry for the delay in responding - it was my B-Day. :)

George Athas wrote:
> I can just see this thread spinning out of control and plummeting to the 
> earth. Let's get it back on track.
>
> Does anyone have anything further to offer in response to John Stevens' 
> original questions:
>
>   
> > I was wondering, does the presence/absence of the dagesh alone change
> > the meaning of the word in any way?
> >     
Thank you George, for lassoing the topic back on point. :)


David Kummerow 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-/.
>   
I'm still at a lost as to why my question isn't making sense. I am 
talking about needed data to translate words.
You state that the vowel change is a result of the adding of the dagesh. 
I am not disputing that. There being cases where the dagesh is supposed 
to be there when its not, is due to some special occurrence which will 
cause some other change in the word. I will not dispute that neither. 
But such "behind the scene" items are not of a concern to me. The reason 
being that in instances where the dagesh is being added (at least in the 
examples thus far) another change (such as a vowel mark) is occurring. 
Kind of like a footprint in the snow. So if the dagesh graphically 
removed from the word there is no data loss, as its footprint (aka vowel 
mark) is still present. The purpose of the examples I gave was to show 
that there are cases where the presence/absence of the graphic dagesh 
goes in contradiction to the rule you gave. What is going on "behind the 
scenes" doesn't change the fact that the end graphic product is what it is.

Jason Hare wrote:
> It's not the presence of a dagesh that can change a word. It is the
> form of a word that determines whether or not a dagesh is required for
> WRITING. This is an orthographical issue.
>   
.......
> This is why we have to write ?????? )AT.FH and not ????? )ATFH
>   
.....

I'm not debating what you are saying isn't true - but its has no 
application to my actual question.
In your example of <)AT.FH> which means masculine singular 2nd person. 
If you graphically remove the dagesh you would have <)ATFH>. Now is this 
a new word? Is it now canine neuter 4th person? lol
So by just having <ATFH> you would know that its masculine singular 2nd 
person.



So what I am asking for is an example where you have two words which are 
GRAPHICALLY identical except with the dagesh mark(s) where the word will 
have a different meaning due to the dagesh mark.

If it will make things easier, lets add the criteria of only dealing 
with the base morpheme of a word. So are there any instances in the 
Biblical text where a dagesh added to the base morpheme alone changes 
the meaning of the base morpheme?

So back to the popular example:

<H:A/$OM"R> vs <HA/$.OM"R>:
<$OM"R> = Qal Participle Masculine Singular
<$.OM"R> = Qal Participle Masculine Singular

So in the above example the presence/absence of the graphic dagesh in the 
base morpheme has no affect on the meaning of the morpheme - as they are both 
Qal Participle Masculine Singular.

Are there any cases where the presence/absence of the graphic dagesh in the 
base morpheme affect the meaning of the base morpheme?


B"H
John Steven