Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

dear pere,

the type of questions you have been asking relate to post-masoretic hebrew,
i.e. involves shoresh AND niqud. there is nothing wrong with this, except 
(as is becoming clear (for me) from recent correspondence) you are considering
a dialect consolidated over a very long time. so, i dont know 
if you can expect very clear-cut answers or a single logic behind the words.

my best shot is this: words with cere-segol are true nouns derived from
verbs, and allow the plural. they contain all 3 letters of a recognized
hebrew root. and stress on the 1st syllable

the small set of words with cere-cere may have originated from other word
constructions which do not allow the plural: teveth (the name of a month), and
tevel (there is only one...). they do not coincide with the three
letters of a recognized hebrew root (unless the late TBL=spice is included
as a root; even there, hebrew makes an exception and calls it TAVLIYN). 
and stress on the second syllable.

what these alleged "other constructions" were, i cannot imagine. as i 
fail to see agriculture in the semitic (lunar!) months, i can only 
imagine TEVETH to have an astronomical connotation - by the way,
so does TEVEL...

i also wonder why you consider those and not, for example, segol-segol.

best
nir cohen 



>>>> De: Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com>
Cópia: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Para: Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
Data: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:05:21 +0200
Assunto: Re: [b-hebrew] Tevel vs Evel
Dear b-hebrew listees,
I'm doing a comparison between several noun types in order to make some
systematization of their patterns.
I find nouns consisting of three root letters with tsere in the first and
tsere in the second.
And so, TBL, world (Ps 19:5) or TB+, Tebeth (a month of the year) (Est 2:16)
And I find nouns consisting of three root letters with tsere in the first
but with segol in the second:
)BL, mourning (2Sa 14:2)
SFR, book (2Sa 1:18)
$B+, tribe (Gn 49:10)
Can anyone provide a good reason of this different pattern?
I mean: not *"the Hebrew language is like this*", but, so to say, an
"internal" reason.
--Have nouns tsere-tsere a feature common to all them?
--Have nouns tsere-segol a feature common to all them, a common
denominator?
--Could we, given this and this and this root consonants, know in advance
which pattern (tsere-tsere or tsere-segol) the resulting noun would fit if
both vowel sounds are to be 'e'?
Friendly,
Pere Porta
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)