Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Charles Grebe" <cgrebe AT briercrest.ca>]

תודה רבה  Randall,
This is helpful. Page 53-4 of Jouon-Muraoka discuss this "shewa medium" if 
anyone else wants to read about it.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=Zhjd_m5hIeIC&lpg=PA52&vq=shewa&dq=Jouon%20Muraoka&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q=shewa&f=false

It's interesting that I've read malkai מלְכֵי, ethxem אתְכֶם, etc. for years 
and never noticed that it violated the shewa rule I learned in first year 
Hebrew! :)

Charles Grebe
Briercrest College and Seminary
Sask, Canada


> vayyixtov Karlos
> > In Genesis 33:11, the word "my blessing" (birchatay) does not have a
> dagesh lene in the caph. I assume that this must be because the shewa
> is
> vocal and therefore the hireq under the bet must be long and the first
> syllable must be open. Is that correct or is there another reason why
> the dagesh lene would be missing?>
> 
> 
> shalom Karlos,
> 
> The phenomenon you refer to has a name, which is not so important, and
> was
> probably caused by the vaguries of time, where different features
> extended
> themselves through the language at different times.
> 
> For the name, one may refer to the shva under the resh as neither shva-
> naH
> nor shva-na`, but shva meraHef. The xaf shows that the shva has sound,
> but
> the syllable 'bir' is closed, showing a silent shva. So it is 'between
> the two'.
> The shva is vocalized, making the previous syllable only partly closed,
> and/or the 'i' vowel only partly long/short.
> This whole connected syllable/shva phenomenon is a sub-phonemic
> feature, meaning that it does not carry meaning, but it is part of
> correct speech. (Subphonemic refers to things like the aspirated [p(h)]
> sound
> in English "pill" versus the unaspirated [p] in English "spill")
> 
> For chronology, it means that two processes happened at different times
> and had different trajectories.
> 1. full suffixed noun *barakati > *brakati > *braxati
> 2. while construct  *barakat > *barkat/birkat
> Incidently, this is consistent thorughout the MT and not just the
> verses you
> quoted. The suffixed noun has -xa-t-, and the construct has -kat.
> 
> Something similar occurs with words like melex 'king' (*malk-)
> *malk-kem  >  *malk-xem "your-guyses king"
> *malakeykem > *malaxeyxem > mal-xexem "your-guyses' kings"
> 
> A reference grammar will discuss this, try Jouon-Muraoka and look under
> 'shwa-medium' or some such.
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Randall Buth
> 
>