Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com>]

Dear list,

in my struggle with Hebrew patterns I find a curious phenomenon or fact
with feminine nouns that consist of three root letters to which M- has been
preffixed (put before) and suffix -H has been added at their end.
And so,

-MAMLFKFH, kingdom (2Ch 9:19) -- מַמְלָכָה
-MEM$FLFH, rule, government (Mic 4:8) -- מֶמְשָׁלָה

-MILXFMFH, battle, war (Gn 14:2) -- מִלְחָמָה

I'm inquiring for the reason for this difference in the vowel of the
prefix: why A (patah) in the first, E (segol) in the second and I (hiriq)
in the third, the rest of the structure being exactly the same for all
three?
Is it a *custom* matter? Is there some good reason for this different
vowels? Does this different vowel imply some important differences in the
inner structure of the pattern and thus in the meaning of the resulting
word?

Kind regards from
-- 
Pere Porta
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Northeastern Spain)