# להערב



## hadronic

המשטרה ביטלה הפגנה להערב. 
I understand it means "for tonight". Is it the normative way of saying it, or should it rather be לערב la'érev? 
I understand that one would say להארץ when talking about the newspaper, but here it seems weird to me in the case of הערב.


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## origumi

That's how we say it. להערב, להיום, להבוקר, maybe few more. "ה" means _this_ (rather then _the_) in these expressions.


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## DieHigh

We can roughly say that "לערב" means "for a night," while "להערב" means "for the night."

We use "להערב" (le-ha-erev) when talking about the approaching night on the same day that it is at the moment we speak. For example, if I said this setence on Monday morning, it'd mean that a demonstration had been planned for Monday night but the police canceled it. Using "לערב" (la-erev; not le-erev) would sound odd and create a sort of meaningless sentence because you just don't refer to any day in it.

In short, your sentence is correct.


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## Drink

DieHigh said:


> We can roughly say that "לערב" means "for a night," while "להערב" means "for the night."
> 
> We use "להערב" (le-ha-erev) when talking about the approaching night on the same day that it is at the moment we speak. For example, if I said this setence on Monday morning, it'd mean that a demonstration had been planned for Monday night but the police canceled it. Using "לערב" (la-erev; not le-erev) would sound odd and create a sort of meaningless sentence because you just don't refer to any day in it.
> 
> In short, your sentence is correct.



So would this be a good example of the correct usage of "la-erev"?: ביום ב' שעבר, נסעתי לירושלים לערב.


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## DieHigh

Drink said:


> So would this be a good example of the correct usage of "la-erev"?: ביום ב' שעבר, נסעתי לירושלים לערב.



It doesn't really make sense, I assume you wanted to say "ביום ב' שעבר נסעתי לירושלים בערב"? My explanation might was confusing.

Like, I can totally say "הכנת כבר את הארוחה *לערב*?" ("have you already cooked the meal for tonight?") without sounding strange, and "הכנת כבר את הארוחה *להערב*?" would sound correct too and mean the same thing (I'd say the second one is preferred). However, "המשטרה ביטלה הפגנה לערב" doesn't sound correct, even though both of the comparisons are pretty much the same. It can be really tricky, I think. I can't come up with rules for this...


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## Drink

DieHigh said:


> It doesn't really make sense, I assume you wanted to say "ביום ב' שעבר נסעתי לירושלים בערב"? My explanation might was confusing.



What I meant was "for the evening" (i.e. intending to stay there at least for the whole evening) not "in the evening". Maybe people don't say that in Hebrew.


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## DieHigh

Drink said:


> What I meant was "for the evening" (i.e. intending to stay there at least for the whole evening) not "in the evening". Maybe people don't say that in Hebrew.



Oh, you got it right then! People do say that and this is totally acceptable sentence. Have no idea why it didn't make sense to me at first, but now it does.


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## hadronic

I understand that there's no point in trying to find a rule here, but strangely, one says כיום ka-yom "nowadays" and not כהיום..


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## amikama

hadronic said:


> I understand that there's no point in trying to find a rule here, but strangely, one says כיום ka-yom "nowadays" and not כהיום..


Well, maybe it's because כיום begins with כ and not ל? 
There's also כעת (ka-et) "now / currently".


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## arielipi

amikama said:


> Well, maybe it's because כיום begins with כ and not ל?
> There's also כעת (ka-et) "now / currently".


It might be too far fetched but(!) lets view something,
leha'erev - the lamed is le, this doesnt meyadea the word;
on the other hand, la'erev - the lamed is la and it does meyadea the word.
more generally, when the letters are -e sound they dont meyadim the word, when theyre -a sound they do.


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> It might be too far fetched but(!) lets view something,
> leha'erev - the lamed is le, this doesnt meyadea the word;
> on the other hand, la'erev - the lamed is la and it does meyadea the word.
> more generally, when the letters are -e sound they dont meyadim the word, when theyre -a sound they do.



That does not explain why ke- + hayom doesn't make kehayom.


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## hadronic

arielipi said:


> It might be too far fetched but(!) lets view something,
> leha'erev - the lamed is le, this doesnt meyadea the word;
> on the other hand, la'erev - the lamed is la and it does meyadea the word.
> more generally, when the letters are -e sound they dont meyadim the word, when theyre -a sound they do.



You entirely missed the point here, and reversed causes and consequences.
The postulat is: prepositions "be, le, ke" + ha (definite article)  = ba, la, ka.
ha'erev IS definite. So why doesn't  le+ha'erev yield la'erev (with the meaning "for tonight", not only "for the evening").

We're only left to postulate that ha'erev has been entirely lexicalized as is, and as such, just concatenates to prepositions without further changes.
In a way, it ressembles French with "pour aujourdhui" (for today) , where "aujourd'hui" comes from "au jour d' hui" =  at-the day of today". That "pour au-"  (for at the)  doesn't cringe at any Frenchman's ears.


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## DieHigh

Drink said:


> That does not explain why ke- + hayom doesn't make kehayom.



Basically when a word that's attached to one of the בכל"מ letters and is מיודעת (meyudaat), the בכל"מ letter gets the words' ה' הידיעה sound—which in this case is *ä*—rather than adding the ה' הידיעה itself.

So yes, the _la-erev and la-ha-erev _issue is rather strange. Either it has a proper linguistic explanation or it's just a "this is how it works" matter.


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## origumi

amikama said:


> Well, maybe it's because כיום begins with כ and not ל?


We can say something like: אתמול, כהיום, ירד גשם.

It wouldn't work with ב  and irrelevant with מ.


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## Drink

origumi said:


> It wouldn't work with ב



Could you not say something like "להשתמש בהיום"?


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## origumi

I don't think להשתמש בהיום means anything beyond "להשתמש ב"היום (_= to use the term "היום"_) where היום is a quotation rather than being used naturally.


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## Drink

origumi said:


> I don't think להשתמש בהיום means anything beyond "להשתמש ב"היום (_= to use the term "היום"_) where היום is a quotation rather than being used naturally.



Then how would you say something like "Use today to finish the report."?


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## origumi

Drink said:


> Then how would you say something like "Use today to finish the report."?


I don't think anybody says להשתמש בהיום with that meaning. The verbose תשתמש/השתמש ביום הזה and alike are more reasonable.


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## arielipi

hadronic said:


> You entirely missed the point here, and reversed causes and consequences.
> The postulat is: prepositions "be, le, ke" + ha (definite article)  = ba, la, ka.
> ha'erev IS definite. So why doesn't  le+ha'erev yield la'erev (with the meaning "for tonight", not only "for the evening").
> 
> We're only left to postulate that ha'erev has been entirely lexicalized as is, and as such, just concatenates to prepositions without further changes.
> In a way, it ressembles French with "pour aujourdhui" (for today) , where "aujourd'hui" comes from "au jour d' hui" =  at-the day of today". That "pour au-"  (for at the)  doesn't cringe at any Frenchman's ears.


do not confuse english with hebrew, in hebrew for tonight and for the evening are the same.


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## hadronic

No. For tonight is להערב leha'érev. For the evening is לערב la'érev. 

...


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## arielipi

hadronic said:


> No. For tonight is להערב leha'érev. For the evening is לערב la'érev.
> 
> ...


theyre exactly the same in hebrew.


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## hadronic

It's not. Cf. earlier examples, if you happened to have read that thread.

<<removed>>


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## arielipi

well, they are to me. and yes, i have "happened to read the thread"


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## hadronic

What do you mean by "they are to me" ?
The examples were from Drink, confirmed by DieHigh.


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## arielipi

The way I perceive them. The way I think of those examples. To me, they are equivalent.


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## hadronic

Are you saying that להערב and לערב are equivalent and interchangeable in any context ?
Or maybe you think that "for tonight" and "for the evening" are equivalent in English ?
Actually, I don't understand where you see any equivalence, in neither language.
"For tonight" means "for the evening of today".
"For the evening" means "for the evening of *any given day*".


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## arielipi

Laerev and lehaerev are to me equivalent in hebrew. Yes, interchangeable. Maybe not in all places but most. See my first post here this thread.


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## hadronic

This one ?
> It might be too far fetched but(!) lets view something,
> leha'erev - the lamed is le, this doesnt meyadea the word;
> on the other hand, la'erev - the lamed is la and it does meyadea the word.
> more generally, when the letters are -e sound they dont meyadim the word, when theyre -a sound they do.

Where does it state that la'erev and leha'erev are equivalent in Hebrew ?


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## arielipi

I knew I forgot something, the he though does meyadea.
I'm saying now if it wasnt clear before, it is my view that they are equivalent


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## hadronic

So let's assume that they mean the same. It was not my point. 
The question  was, why le+ha is not merging into la in that particular word. 
Like are you saying that I can choose to say either  la-davar or le-ha-davar ("to the thing") interchangeably as it pleases me? 

.....


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## arielipi

Yes... You could say that using the unmerged version suggests a higher mood, somewhat like doubling, the the best


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## hadronic

the the best, there isn't such a thing in English. 

Anyone confirms that it's OK to not merge le+ha ?


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## bazq

hadronic said:


> the the best, there isn't such a thing in English.
> 
> Anyone confirms that it's OK to not merge le+ha ?



I tend to agree that when "-ה" is used as a demonstrative (הבוקר, הערב, היום, הלילה etc) there is no merger with "-ל".
When "-ה" is a definite article, the merger is obligatory. This is true for Modern Hebrew of course. 

There's another example for the first phenomenon: when a proper name includes the definite "-ה" like the daily newspaper "הארץ".
In this case you can hear both "להארץ" and "לארץ" (la'arets).


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## arielipi

hadronic said:


> the the best, there isn't such a thing in English.


But in hebrew we do say it like that with stresses


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## hadronic

bazq said:


> There's another example for the first phenomenon: when a proper name includes the definite "-ה" like the daily newspaper "הארץ".
> In this case you can hear both "להארץ" and "לארץ" (la'arets).



I brought up this example in my first post 

So clearly, you say that merging is mandatory. So why is arielipi saying that "le-ha-davar" is permitted ?


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## arielipi

זה נועד להראות התלהבות או הדגשה מיוחדת לידוע.
הבת מצווש כהדבר ה-הטוב/ה-טוב ביותר שיש עד היום.


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## bazq

hadronic said:


> I brought up this example in my first post
> 
> So clearly, you say that merging is mandatory. So why is arielipi saying that "le-ha-davar" is permitted ?



Oh, sorry if I missed you mentioning it.

Anyway, in unmarked sentences the merge is mandatory. I believe ariel referred to a very marked sentence like "le-ha-davar" (to THE thing).
For instance, you can hear: הוזמנתי להמסיבה! ("I was invited to THE party" , the party is presumed to be epic).
So technically, he is right, though obviously this is a "marked - unmarked" situation.


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## hadronic

We have 3 things:
- leHA'erev :  for THE evening  (that one you shouldn't miss, but could be on any given day)
- leha'erev :  for tonight / for this evening (no emphasis intended)
- la'erev : for the evening (could be on any given day)

From this, I gather that contrarily to what arielipi said, they're all pretty distinct and particular and their usage, and in any case, they are NOT interchangeable as per one's whim.


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## arielipi

Laerev alone suggests this evening.


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## hadronic

Just like in English. "For the evening", in the absence of further indication, by default means "for this evening". 
I said "for the evening (could be on any given day)". This includes today.
la'erev does not only means "for this evening". Leha'erev does.


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## Drink

I just came across in this week's parsha "כהיום הזה" (Genesis 39:11): וַֽיְהִי֙ *כְּהַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֔ה* וַיָּבֹ֥א הַבַּ֖יְתָה לַֽעֲשׂ֣וֹת מְלַאכְתּ֑וֹ וְאֵ֨ין אִ֜ישׁ מֵֽאַנְשֵׁ֥י הַבַּ֛יִת שָׁ֖ם בַּבָּֽיִת׃


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