[Mesorah] lavetach

[Michael Hamm]

Why is it "lavetach" not "l'vetach", and so for many other words?  (E.g., 
"kazos".)

(Someone on this list, some time ago, said that when a vav hachibur has a 
kamatz, it's because the next syllable of the word is stressed, and the 
word is one of a pair with the preceding word.  Words like "lavetach" and 
"kazos"  also seem to have the second syllable stressed, but the idea of 
"one of a pair" doesn't make sense with prefixes other than vav hachibur. 
So there must be something else going on here.  (Nor is it the case that 
_every_ time a word has its first syllable stressed and has k-, l-, b-, or 
v- prefix added, that prefix gets a kamatz, as cursory inspection will 
show.))

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
msh210 at math.wustl.edu                Fine print:
http://www.math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html