A
A-Type Vowel A class of vowel that has a characteristic "ah" sound. In Hebrew, these vowels are represented by the following nikkudot: Qamets (changeable long), Qamets Hey (unchangeably long), Patach (short), Chateph Patach (short/reduced).
Absolute State The normal status of a noun when uninflected by means of a construct relationship. The normal lexical form (in the singular) for a noun. Cp. Contruct State. The typical form of a noun found in a Hebrew lexicon is the absolute form. When used, the absolute form is independent of any other word (e.g., as in the construct state when a noun is tied to another noun in the absolute state).
Accent An articulative effort giving prominence to one syllable over adjacent syllables. Most Hebrew words are generally accented on the last syllable of the word. The "tonic" syllable is the syllable that receives the stress or accent; the "pretonic" syllable is the syllable before the tonic syllable, and the "propretonic" syllable is the syllable before the pretonic.
Accent Mark The many forms of accents characters added by the Masoretic scribes. Disjunctive accents mark a pause or break in the reading of the text and function something like commas, semicolons, and colons in English. There are 18 disjunctive accent marks you might see in the Masoretic text, the most important of which are Atnach and Silluq. Conjunctive accents connect two words in the text. There are 9 conjunctive accent marks you might see in the Masoretic text, the most important of which is the Munach.
Accusative Case Case refers to the grammatical function of a nounal. A nounal used as the direct object of a transitive verb is said to be in the accusative case. For example, John hit the ball. Cp. Nominative, Objective, Possessive, Genitive.
Active Voice Voice is a property of verbs that shows whether a subject acts or is acted upon by the verb. In the Active Voice, the subject is the doer of the action that is expressed by the verb.
Adjective A word used to modify a noun or pronoun. In Hebrew, adjectives agree with the word modified (concord). For more information, go here.
Adverb A word serving as a modifier of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a preposition, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence, and expressing some relation of manner or quality, place, time, degree, number, cause, opposition, affirmation, or denial.
Aleph-Bet Alphabet. The list of consonantal sounds depicted by conventional Hebrew glyphs or characters.
Anarthrous Without the article. In reference to a noun. Anarthrous nouns are generally translated in English with the indefinite article ("a, an"). However, some anarthrous nouns are qualitative and are often translated without an article.
Apodosis (a-POD-e-sis) n. The consequent or main clause of a conditional statement, for example: "I would faint unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD" [Psalm 27:13]).
Aposiopesis (a pa-see-oh-PEE-sis) n. "a becoming silent"; a sudden breaking off in writing or speech. A figure of speech where a thought is left broken off or unfinished... For example, "O, had I not believed to see the goodness of the LORD..." [Psalm 27:13]).
Article An article further modifies a noun making it either indefinite ("a" or "an") or definite ("the"). Unlike English, Hebrew has no indefinite article but does have a definite article (as a prefixive Hey).
Atnach An accent placed under the last word of the first half of a verse.
Attributive Adjective An attributive adjective follows a noun in Hebrew with which it agrees in gender, number, and definiteness.
Ayin Guttural An `Ayin Guttural verb has a guttural as its second basic consonant.
B
Biblia Hebrica Stuttgartensia The Biblia Hebrica Stuttgartensia (BHS) is the scholar's first choice for studying the Hebrew Masoretic text. Consider this text mandatory if you are serious about getting into the Hebrew Tanakh and want the scholarly apparatus (i.e., masoretic notes and textual criticism additions) required for doing research.
Begedkephat Six Hebrew letters (Bet, Gimmel, Dalet, Kaf, Pey, and Tav) may appear with or without a dot placed within them. This dot is called a "Dagesh Kal" (or Dagesh Lene).
Binyan / Binyanim There are several forms which a verb can take, these are given names taken from their sound in a paradigm verb: qal, niphal, hiphil, piel, pual, hithpael, etc. Collectively this is called the binyanim of the verb form.
BMP Letter When a conjunctive Vav precedes a Bet, Lamed, or Pey, it is formed as a Shureq rather than a Vav with sheva.
C
Causative In causative verbs the subject of the verb causes another entity to perform the action (e.g., the Lord caused the prophet to speak).
Changeable Vowels
Chateph Chateph Patach, Chateph Segol, Chateph Qamets
Chireq
Chireq Yod
Cholem
Cholem Vav
Clause
Comparison (adjectival)
Compound Half-Vowels The pronunciation of half-vowels is a quick vowel sound similar to an "eh" or "uh." The compound half-vowel (or compound sheva) is made by combining the short vowel of the "a" class, "e" class, and "o" class with the simple sheva.
Conjunction
Conjunctive Vav
Consonants
Construct Relation A construct relation is formed by stringing two, three, or four nouns together. The final noun in the construct relation is in the absolute state unless it has a pronominal suffix. The other nouns are in the construct state. A construct relation cannot have more than four nouns. Sometimes a maqqef connects the nouns.
Construct State A noun in the construct state depends upon a noun following it to complete the idea. Often vowels change in nouns in the construct state because the noun in the construct state is considered to be part of the noun in the absolute state and the farther away a vowel is from the accented syllable the stranger it can behave.
D
Dagesh
Dagesh Chazak Dagesh forte. A dagesh forte is a dot placed in a Hebrew consonant that serves to double the consonant. Any Hebrew consonant except the gutturals can take a dagesh forte.
Dagesh Kal Dagesh lene. A dagesh lene is a dot placed in a Hebrew consonant that serves to give the consonant a harder sound. Only six consonants can take a dagesh lene. These are bet, gimmel, dalet, kaf, pey, and tav.
Defective Writing
Definite Article A definite article is translated as "the" and is used to specify a particular individual or representative of the class defined by the noun.
Demonstrative Adjective
Demonstrative Pronoun
Diphthong A diphthong is a cluster or combination of vowels acting as a unit and producing a unique sound. From the point of view of word division, a diphthong represents a distinct syllable in Hebrew.
Divine Name
Doubly Weak Verbs
E
E-Type Vowel
Energic Nun
F
Final Forms of Letters
Full Vowels The designation full vowel refers to vowels that receive complete phonetic value in pronunciation as opposed to the half-vowel. There are two types of full vowels - long and short.
Furtive Patach
G
Geminate Verbs
Gender
Genitive Case
Guttural Letters Due to the fact that the gutturals do not have strong pronunciations they often cause vowels to change.
H
Hiphil
Hitpael
Hollow Verb
Hophal
I
I-Type Vowel
Imperative
Imperfect
Infinitive Absolute
Infinitive Construct
Infix
Inseparable Prepositions
Interrogative Particle
Interrogative Pronouns
Irregular Verb
J
Jot
Jussive
K
Ketav Ashuri
Ketiv
Khemniphats
L
Labials
Lexical Form
M
Macron
Mappiq
Maqqef
Masorah
Masoretic Text
Matres Lectionis
Meteg
Mile'h The accent on the next to the last syllable of a word.
Milra' The accent on the last syllable of a word.
Mode
Mood
Morpheme
Morphology
Munach
N
Niphal
Nikkudot
Nominal
Nominal Sentence
Nouns
Number
O
O-Type Vowel
Object Marker
Objective Case
Open Syllable
Optative Mood
P
Paleo-Hebrew
Paradigm
Parallelism
Parsing
Particle
Participle
Paseq
Pasuk
Passive Voice
Pause The last word in a sentence (marked by an accent called a silluq), or the last word in the first major division of a sentence (marked by an accent called an athnach), is said to be "in pause."
Patach
Perfect Tense
Personal Pronouns
Pictogram
Piel
Person
Plural Nouns
Pointing
Predicate
Predicate Adjective
Predicate Participles
Prefix
Preposition
Pretonic Reduction
Pronoun
Propretonic Reduction
Pual
Q
Qal
Qamets
Qamets Chatuph
Qere
Qibbuts
Quiescent
R
Radical
Rashi Script
Reflexive
Relative Clause
Relative Pronoun
Root
Rule of Sheva
S
Script
Segol
Segolate
Sentence
Septuagint
Sheva
Shureq
Sibilant
Silluq
Sofit Letter
Sof Pasuk
Stative Verb
Stem (Root) The noun or verb base formed by the addition of derivational affixes to the root. In Hebrew, the term is used to designate verb forms that express certain kinds of action and voice; the major Hebrew verbal stems are qal, niphal, piel, pual, hithpael, hiphil, and hophal.
Substantive
Suffix (sufformative)
Syllabification
T
Targum
Temporal Clause
Tetragrammaton
Theme Vowel
Tittle
Transliteration
Tri-radical Root
Tsere
U
U_Type Vowel
Ugaritic
Unchangeable Vowel
V
Vav Conjunctive
Verb
Virtual Doubling
Vocal Sheva
Voice
Vowel A speech sound made by not blocking the oral part of the breath passage. In Hebrew syllables a vowel always follows a consonant, never precedes it (except for a furtive patach or in the case when a Vav conjunction precedes a "BMP" letter (as a Shureq)).
W
Weak Verbs
Word Order
Y
Yiqtol An imperfect verb with no conjunction attached (usually future in meaning).
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