Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

You are right, אצבע ECBA (see Ex.8:15), 'finger', for instance, is  
with a dot in the letter B, but this means, I think, that the reading  
at the time the dgeshim were introduced (possibly a millennium prior  
to the invention of the nikud), was ICBA or ACBA. The segol is  
possibly a visual compromise between a cere and a xirik, the same way  
the xatap-patax is a compromise between a schwa and a patax.
The same holds true, I think, also for אשכל E$KOL, 'bunch,  
cluster', (see Song of Songs 1:14, and also Deut. 32:32 for the  
plural form A$KLOT), and the אשכר E$KAR of Ps. 72:10.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On May 7, 2012, at 11:42 AM, Pere Porta wrote:

> a dagesh follows a segol