Re: Strange Hebrew plurals

On Aug 18, 2004, at 6:27 PM, David H wrote:
> Thanks! I didn't even know such a thing existed...but now my problem is
> identifying segolate nouns. I know most of them contain 3 consonants
> and
> two segols, but other's have a different vowel or some other
> odditiy...is
> there any way to identify if these are segolate?
Normal segolate nouns have one of the following three patterns:

C1 [E] C2 [E] C3  ( < C1 [a] C2 C3 )
C1 [o] C2 [E] C3  ( < C1 [u] C2 C3 )
C1 [e] C2 [E] C3  ( < C1 [i] C2 C3 )

([E]=segol; [o]=hholam hhaseir; [e]=tzeireh)

They're always accented on the first syllable.

There are also a few weird ones:

When C2 is /j/, the second vowel is /i/ (_bayit_ < *_bayt_ "house")
When C3 is /j/, it combines with the second vowel into /i:/ (_peti_
"fool")
When C2 is /w/, the first vowel is /O/ (_mavet_ < *_mawt_ "death")


-Stephen (Steg)
  "[would you like a] 'virgin'?"
      ~ what happens when you give silly English names
         to products in non-English-speaking countries

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