[Avodah] Two dikduk questions

[Simon Montagu]

The only answers I know to your questions are rather vague. A better
place to ask might be the Yahoo "leining" group,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Leining/

On Jan 7, 2008 6:56 AM, Zev Steinhardt <zev at izev.com> wrote:
>
> I had two dikduk questions on the recent parshiyos that we just lained, and
> I was hoping someone could explain these odd dikduk cases to me.
>
> 1.  As most of us know, if a word that ends with two segols (kesef, degel,
> eretz) is placed at the end of a word (or by an esnachta), the first segol
> is changed to a kamatz (kasef, dagel, aretz).  Yet, in Parshas Shmos, there
> is a word at the end of the parsha, teven (5:7, 10, 12, 13) which is not
> changed even at the end of the parsha.  Is there some special reason that
> this word is not changed?

Some words do, some words don't. "Melech" is another example. I've
never seen any explanation for why.

>
> 2.  As a general rule, whenever a letter is preceded by a heh hayediah (a
> heh that defines a definite article), the first letter of the word received
> a dagesh (unless, of course, the letter is one of the five that don't take a
> dagesh).  However, in Va'era, there is a word, hatzefardi'im (7:29, 8:1, 3,
> 4 5, 7, 8, 9), where the dagesh is missing from the tzadi.  Interestingly,
> it is present in the singular form of the word (hatz'fardeah - 8:2), but not
> in the plural.  Does anyone know why this is?

As well as the five gutturals which as you say never take a dagesh,
various other letters often don't take a dagesh when they are pointed
with a sheva. These are vav, yud; mem, nun and lamed; the sibilants
sin, shin, samech and tzadi; and quf. The reason is apparently that
these consonants are longer or more emphatic in sound than others, and
naturally have a kind of "implicit dagesh".