bgdkft letter follow silent shva example

[susan@tbaoakland.org]

This is making me crazy!

I know, in general, that a bgdkft letter following a shva nach (silent shva) will take the dagesh. And I know that there are exceptions, for instance when dealing with a construct form of a word such as in birchot - the middle chaf does not take the dagesh. So far, so good. I also know that a shva under a letter following a shuruk at the start of a word is considered by most to be shva nach. But I cannot figure the word urchush spelled shuruk-resh with shva-chaf with kubutz-shin. וּרְכֻשׁ

Anyone have an explanation? I have looked so hard my head is spinning. Thanks!

[księżycowy]

Unless Drink comes along in the meantime, I'll try to hunt down an answer in my grammars.

Could you give me a little more context though? I assume this is Biblical Hebrew.

[Baldanders]

This is what some may call shva merahef (the same some you excluded in using the word "most" when you wrote "considered by most to be shva nach"), which the other exceptions you listed above are another case of.

It is a shva that is pronounced as zero vowel but otherwise has all the characteristics of a shva na, including the fact bgdkft letters following it do not take dagesh.

[susan@tbaoakland.org]

Yes, Biblical Hebrew and, naturally, I have been stewing about this for awhile and can’t find the reference. Then tonight I was finding several other examples. What about ham-vo-rach? Is that the same reasoning for it being a vet instead of a bet? Thanks!

[susan@tbaoakland.org]

To Golv, Thanks for the explanation. I guess I need to read up on that shva - I had read about it on these threads but I don’ have a handle on it yet. Do you have a source for me to learn more? Appreciate it!

[susan@tbaoakland.org]

Ok, I just found an article on forum.wordreference.com/threads/why-is-dagesh-missing-after-shva-nach.3387174/ that seems to explain it although I’m not positive I understand the explanation!

My purpose in wanting to know is so that I can anticipate whether a dagesh should be there or not rather than just looking at and memorizing the nekudot for Torah reading. If I understand the rules it makes learning a portion much easier. For instance, I don’t generally have to memorize whether is will be paroh or faroh since I can tell from the word before it.

So if anyone has a simpler explanation of sha merachef, that would be lovely. Appreciate the help so far.

[księżycowy]

Ah, I see Golv gave a good start. (Sorry about forgetting about you. )

I'll see if I can make anymore sense of this, but I can say that I usually don't worry much about the schwas, so I'm not sure I'll be much help.

And maybe Golv or Drink can help (more).

[Baldanders]

Sorry about forgetting about you.

That's okay, I don't visit as often anymore and Drink is probably a lot more knowledgeable about Hebrew phonology than me anyway.

@susan: since shva merahef fits all criteria of shva na but pronunciation, you could determine the status of bgdkft following a shva if you know it supersedes a vowel in the basic form of the word (in which case you can think of it as shva na, and the rule of bgdkft after shva nah isn't violated). There are still some more exceptions as the user utopia noted in the thread you linked to in words like מרבד and the KATLUT pattern, which you simply have to remember.

[księżycowy]

Yeah, considering I read Biblical Hebrew in a simplified Modernish style, I don't know that much about phonology either.

[Drink]

If I understand your question correctly, the piece of information you're looking for is this:

If a word starts with a shva (which as you know, would be a shva na) followed by a bgdkpt (which would not have a dagesh because of the shva na), then if you add a prefixed particle, the shva will never become a shva nach, but only a shva merachef, and thus, there will never be a dagesh.

For example, if you have רְכֻשׁ, adding the ו you get still have וּרְכֻשׁ, and if you have מְבֹרָךְ, adding the ה you still have הַמְבֹרָךְ.

The only exception to this is the Qal infinitive with ל, which regularly adds a dagesh. For example, כְּתֹב and בִּכְתֹב, but לִכְתֹּב.

In short: Prefixes can never change the second letter of a word, with the one exception above.

[susan@tbaoakland.org]

Thank you to all of you for your explanations. I am very appreciative. I will chew on these answers and see if I can find a way to have them make sense for me in a way that I can actually use them. Back to the Chumash now to find examples of these things and try to make it work. Again, thank you!

Susan