Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jason Hare <jaihare AT gmail.com>]

Isaac,

These things make perfect sense when you go by the regular rules of
pointing. Did I understand you correctly when you said that you think
that dagesh is supposed to follow /i/ or /u/? That's not at all what
it's function is. In terms of pointing, both חֻמְצָה XUMCFH and
חֻמְּצָה XUM.CFH make perfect sense in their respective forms. Pi'el
and Pu'al both have doubled middle radicals, which explains the dagesh
in the latter form. It has nothing to do with the presence of kubuts
(U) but with the binyan. I don't see why you resist this idea so
strongly. It's almost like you want to stay separate in your ideas. It
might do you some good to invest time in reading a normative grammar
of Biblical Hebrew. Growing up speaking Israeli Hebrew does little by
way of explaining the minute pieces of grammar and the morphological
details that are so easily overlooked in the regular course of
education. Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew really do have a lot of
separation when it comes to matters of syllabification rules and
standard orthography, and it might do you some good in terms
understanding WHY if you would sit down with a decent grammar.

Regards,
Jason Hare

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 1:02 AM, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:
> John,
>
>  I am not sure if this is what you are looking for, but consider
> XUMCAH, (חֻמְצָה), 'acid', punctuated qubuc, schwa, qamac, but
> with no dagesh in the M, in spite of the KTIB XASER. Yet the pual
> form XUMCAH, (חֻמְּצָה), 'she was made sour' is also
> punctuated qubuc, schwa, qamac, but now with a dagesh in the M as per
> the rule.
> In any event, these are only formal games.
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University