[Mesorah] ham'chadesh, ham'vorach, ...

[Michael Hamm]

If I'm annoying anyone with my repeated dikduk questions, please let me 
know (off-list), and I'll curtail 'em, b'li neder.

Any piel or pual verb in present tense that starts with a mem-sh'va (as 
most of them do) and is preceded by a he hay'dia ("the"), such as 
"ham'chadesh", "ham'vorach", "ham'shubach", etc., and which appears in 
t'fila but not quoted from Tanach, the ArtScroll (S'farad, Hebrew-only) 
sidur writes without a dagesh in the mem, but with a sh'va-na line over 
it.  Why no dagesh?  And if no dagesh, why the sh'va na?

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