Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

> But I can clearly see, from the examples that you and David Hamuel have
> given, that the graphic presence/absence of the dagesh alone can
> indicate words of different meaning.

Which is another way of saying that dagesh forte is phonemic, a fact 
which we have been trying to tell you the whole time. And which is why 
we have kept repeating to you that statements you kept making about the 
definite article such as

"if you remove the dagesh mark from the word in the <H:A/$OM"R> vs 
<HA/$.OM"R> no translational data would be lost."

are in error because dagesh forte is phonemic. Hence the phoneme /haC/ 
differs to /ha/.

Regards,
David Kummerow.