Why do you say
חברה, but חיילת?
I've been asked this question by my friend Mike, in the
middle of work between reading some e-mail, grabbing some coffee, and running to
some meeting... office life, you know.
A well-known thing about Hebrew (and Semitic
languages in general) is, that there is certain number of word "meters" (משקלים),
which help forming different words from the same root, e.g.:
from [
א
ד
ם ] we
form
אדם
(man),
אדמה
(soil, ground),
אדום
(red); from [
א מ ן ]
we derive אמן
(Amen),
מאמין
(believing, believer),
אמונה (faith,
believe), from [
כ ת ב
] come מכתב
(letter),
לכתוב
(to
write), כתובה
(marriage contract), and so on.
While teaching about the mishkalim (meters), Hebrew
teachers also often teach that female form or plural forms of the noun are
created "by adding suffixes". This is not quite accurate.
Suffix (the word ending) is a good sign of plural of feminine
form; but it's not how the word is formed. Usually certain vocalization
change is required in the word itself. Moreover, different meters (mishkalim)
form different female form, and may come up with different ways to create plural
(to remind you, we have separate masculine and feminine plural in Hebrew.)
Look at the schema and words below, and compare:
Table 1
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[_] A [_] E [_]
 [_] [_] E [_] A
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is missing (m) /
is missing (f)
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Table 2
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[_] A [_._] A [_]
[_] A [_._] E [_] E T
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There is a clear pattern for each table,
isn't it?
There is a lot of scientific yada-yada explaining why in all
those words in the left column the Kamatz leaves its place replaced by
Schwa... But from practical standpoint, it's useful to remember the simple rule:
Words with pattern
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[_]
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[_]
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[_]
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derivate according to the following schema:
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[_]
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[_]
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[_]
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masculine single |
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[_]
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[_]
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[_]
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feminine single |
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[_]
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[_]
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[_]
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masculine plural |
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[_]
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[_]
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[_]
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feminine plural |
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In a similar way we can deduce a rule for the
mishkal
in the second column above (words like חייל
and גנן):
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[_]
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[_._]
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[_]
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derivate like this:
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[_]
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[_._]
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[_]
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masculine single |
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[_]
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[_._]
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[_]
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feminine single |
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[_]
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[_._]
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[_]
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masculine single |
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[_]
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[_._]
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[_]
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feminine plural |
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So, making long story short, we have not just explained "why
the difference", but also introduced you to the world of Hebrew meters
or mishkalim. To make the names of mishkalim pronouncable, they are
usually referred by the root K-T-L, like this:
About the words chaver, chaser, zaken, gadel
we say they belong to mishkal Katel.
Words chayyal, dayyal, gannan, kattav, dayyan - all
belong to mishkal Kattal.
Mishkal is important. For adjectives and present parcitiple
it defines derivation by number (single/plural), gender (masculine/feminine),
forms possessive form of the word.
Stressed syllables; segolate nouns
Typically the masculine form is the simplest, it provides the
base. The stress is on the last syllable (chayal, ganan,
chaver.)
In the feminine form ending with -e[_]et (like, ganenet,
chayelet, kattevet) the stress is on the
syllable before the last. Those are so called pseudo-segolate nouns.
What are real segolate then? Those are words like
מלך (melekh)
or ספר (sefer)
you probably remember from your Hebrew school. For segolate nouns is typical to
have the stress on the syllable before the last, while most of
the words in Hebrew have stress on the last syllable.
The Gutturals and the Chatafs.
You've probably noticed that ultra-short Chataf-Patach instead
of the Schwa in the words חברה, חסרה. The Schwa that should be
there changes to Chataf-Patach (which basically means, "a little bit of vowel") due to the presence of guttural letter Chet. If
you ever heard how the guttural sounds are pronounced, it will be probably
enough of explanation: it's not really convenient to pronounce a guttural
consonant without following vowel.
Even though today most Israelis had lost the guttural
pronunciation of Chet, the rule is still there.
Learn the words
The words we saw in this lesson are pretty common, so you
might know them already; but still, let's memorize them anyway.
It's really important to not just memorize the word, but also
how you derive the other forms of that word.
Next lesson
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