# Formation of נָבִיא noun



## artaxerxe

Hi everybody,

I'm a very beginner to Hebrew. 
From what I understand, in a normal situation, each consonant should have a vowel itself if it doesn't denote a vowel itself - as it happens in a few cases.

The word which I gave you seems to me that breaks this rule. Can you explain me why and when this happens, as a general rule? I think I saw this kind of situations with a few other words.

Thanks,
Andrei M.


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## artaxerxe

To clarify: י (yod) is normally not to be pointed with vowel because it is "bounded" to i vowel before. But what about א? I hope the question is clarified.


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## Drink

With some exceptions, the last letter of a word does not need to take a vowel. Take נָפִיל for a more typical example. In the case of נָבִיא, the א is normally silent at the end of a word, so you can actually see it as either a silent consonant or as part of the vowel. When א has its own vowel, it is not silent, but pronounced as a glottal stop, such as in the plural נְבִיאִים. But in many words it simply acts as a vowel, such as in רֹאשׁ and רִאשׁוֹן.


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## origumi

A consonant may have a vowel or not. If no vowel - in mid of word you'd see a schwa (see Wikipedia) under the letter, at end of word not (with few exceptions). This schwa can be for zero vowel or for very short thru short "e" vowel, depending on the situation.

In pre-Biblical Hebrew there were probably no vowel letters (see Wikipedia for "abjad"). In Biblical Hebrew and later there are "matres lectionis" (see Wikipedia) - consonants (originally) that can also denote a vowel, for example yod for "i", waw for "o" / "u", with many exceptions such as yod for "a". The matres lectionis letters are yod, waw, alef (also "he"?).

Mater lectionis may be written there or not, depending on the text period, vowel length, specific situation, tradition, personal taste. In modern Hebrew you'd see many yod and waw as matres lectionis but alef is added freely usually only for foreign words.


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## artaxerxe

Thank you, Drink and Origumi.


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## aavichai

The א is actually a regular (heard)  consonant exactly like ב or ש...
When it acts as a vowel, it is not from the same reason of the י and ו

When you see a א as a vowel it means that it is a consonant that became silent. In this case נביא it bc it is at the end of the word.
Also in the words ראש ראשון מצאתי
Every one of this א's was heard and it was sounded like a little cough (sort of).
But through time it became silent.
So it is just a regular consonant like they said here נפיל. The א is exactly as the ל in נפיל.

Sorry for the poor english. Hope that i explain it good enough.


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## artaxerxe

Thanks Aavichai!


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## origumi

aavichai said:


> Also in the words ראש ראשון מצאתי
> Every one of this א's was heard and it was sounded like a little cough (sort of).
> But through time it became silent.


Are you sure about the ראש words? The alef is usually regarded there as a mater lectionis, see for example אם קריאה – ויקיפדיה.


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## Drink

origumi said:


> Are you sure about the ראש words? The alef is usually regarded there as a mater lectionis, see for example אם קריאה – ויקיפדיה.



It depends how far back you go. In pre-biblical times the א in ראש was certainly a consonant at some point, but in biblical times it was certainly already dropped. Compare כוס, which is spelled without an א even in Genesis, even though it too used to have a consonantal א.


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## aavichai

Im sure about the ראש
If you go to classic arabic for example you see that the word is r-א-s
They have the Alif with Hamza on it which tell us to pronounce the א as a consonant.
So you say raאs (head) like you say kalb (dog).

And that is also in hebrew
The word was raאsh with Shva on the א (zero vowel)

Then they stop pronouce the א and it became a vowel - Rash.
But the vowel was long and there for there was canaanite shift to turn the rash into rosh as we know the word.

So there is a historic difference between the vowels of י and ו (in some cases) and the vowel of alef which is not realy a vowel but a letter that became silent


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## aavichai

Drink said:


> It depends how far back you go. In pre-biblical times the א in ראש was certainly a consonant at some point, but in biblical times it was certainly already dropped. Compare כוס, which is spelled without an א even in Genesis, even though it too used to have a consonantal א.


I dont thik that  כוס is used to be with an Aleph even thogh in arabic it has the aleph just like the Rosh.

Bc sometimes the aleph is just added to create three letter root.
Rosh is ראש in arabic and ugarit
But כוס is כאס in arabic but just כס in ugarit whitch is way closer to hebrew.
So it was actually without rooted א and therefore the hebrew didnt use it for the  כוס.


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## origumi

Seems you're correct about ראש. Although Akkadian, Amharic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Moabite, lost the alef as a consonant, its traces are tangible in more conservative languages like Arabic, Ge`ez, Ugaritic, also Tigre and Tigrinya. Not sure about Phoenician - I guess it's like Hebrew in this regard.


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