Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

David Kummerow wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> Well, you pick an example where the "base" parts are the same. Dividing 
> between a "base" morpheme and a "prefix" morpheme to answer you question 
> is entirely arbitrary, linguistically speaking. In any case, [ha$omer] 
> differs from [ha$$omer] with respect to the dagesh. The prefixed 
> morphemes are /ha/ and /haC/ (more correctly /haμ/, where μ stands for 
> mora). Again I assert that in this morpheme, removal of the dagesh 
> changes the morpheme, and hence its semantics, entirely. The principle, 
> therefore, that in BH the dagesh is phonemic -- and hence meaningful -- 
> is established. Whether a linguistic side effect of this is that some 
> verbal or nominal morphology solely differs with respect to this 
> morpheme is entirely secondary -- meaning that the answer to your 
> question regarding "bases", whether affirmative or negative, does not 
> really matter with respect to the phonemic status of dagesh. By removing 
> dagesh from /haC/, you remove the distinguishing phoneme from the 
> morpheme, hence there is significant meaning loss in doing so.
>   
The base parts are not the same graphically - as one has a dagesh, the 
other doesn't.
My diving the word is not arbitrary! The morpheme breaks I gave are not 
of my invention!
My question is about the "base" - weather you approve of it or not. So 
please don't tell me what questions to ask.

So my question is what it is: Does the addition of a dagesh(es) into the 
"base" of the word change the meaning the of "base" of the word?