Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

I am following my path אני הולך לשיטתי and express my  
doubts as to your chances for finding a satisfying explanation for  
all these anomalies. I am afraid that your assumption that one person  
placed the dagesh and the schwa, in unison. and this with a deep  
grammatical or phonological purpose in mind, even though conforming  
to the common wisdom, is untenable.
The dagesh, I believe, was placed there a thousand years before the  
schwa, by people of far greater authority than the NAQDANIYM. At the  
invention of the NIQUD the dagesh became obsolete and redundant, but  
the NAQDANIYM left it there out of respect for its antiquity.
The dagesh has nothing to do with the piel as such, but is merely  
following the xiriq. If the NIQUD is not as expected relative to the  
dagesh, then this means, I think, that the NAQDANIYM deviated from an  
older tradition.
Take, for instance, the words BAYIT, ZAYIT, TAYI$, etc.. The lack of  
a dagesh in them means, in my opinion, that this is not an "original"  
BINYAN.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 23, 2011, at 3:41 AM, Pere Porta wrote:

> If so, is there a guide, a backgroung guiding us onto when or in which
> conditions there is dagesh and when or under which conditions there  
> is no
> dagesh?