Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Charles Grebe <cgrebe AT briercrest.ca>]

Thanks Pere.

I looked at the examples with the long "a"/qamets. They all lack a dagesh 
lene in the kaph sofit which, as Donald noted, would indicate that the 
preceding shewa is either vocal or medial, and therefore the syllable is 
open, etc. I think that explanation holds nicely.

It's interesting to consider the infinitive construct, however. Standard 
grammars note that the "o" vowel, usually marked with a holem in the inf 
construct, shortens to the short "o" qamets-hatuph when a suffix is added. 
They then state, for example, that

"The first syllable is usually a half-closed syllable and shewa is medial 
shewa; therefore, dagesh lene is not written in the letter following, as 
might be expected." (Allen Ross, Introducing Biblical Hebrew, p 177)

So here we have a half closed syllable that retains the short "o" as opposed 
to the cases above that have a half closed syllable with the long "a". I 
assume that what is going on here is that the Masoretes are encoding an oral 
tradition which is how they "knew" that the inf const is pronounced with a 
short "o". They weren't inventing rules, they were writing down a 
pronunciation system. I suppose the "o" vowel is retained, even in this half 
closed syllable, because of its importance in identifying the inf construct 
which is marked by the long "o".

Charles Grebe
Briercrest College and Seminary
Caronport, SK, Canada



From: Pere Porta [mailto:pporta7 AT gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2012 12:50 AM
To: Charles Grebe
Cc: Donald Vance; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 2 Sam 7:3 qamets or qamets-hatuph

We have to carefully distingish two cases:

1. In nouns
2. In verbs

Case 1. In nouns:

There are three noun kinds (*) that keep the qamats of the basic noun when 
they take the -K suffix:

Look for some examples at Ps 55:23; 1Sm 9:10; Gn 40:19

Here it is a qamats and sounds as vowel "a".


(*) If you wish to know the detailed list ask me (offlist?)

Case 2. In verbs.

There are two different cases:

A. The 3rd person singular masculine of "normal" verbs + K. Look for samples 
in 1Sm 24:11; 2Sm 18:31; Pr 3:30.
It keeps the qamats of the basic verb form and therefore it sounds as vowel 
"a"

B. Infinitives + suffix K
Here we have a qamats-hatuph and therefore it sounds as vowel "o". Look at Ex 
23:20 or at 1Sm 25:29

Kind regards from

Pere Porta
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Northeastern Spain)