Pending moderation
Hi,
I don't understand the meaning, pronunciation ⁊ grammatical structure of the following:
אֶקְטְפֶנּוּ לִי
The first word probably is an inflection of לִקְטוֹף ('to pluck, to pick'), maybe with future tense involvment.
Is נּוּ a suffix ?
There are two instances of שווא , which is silent and which isn't ?
Which stress pattern applies ?
Primary stress is on the penultimate syllable (beginning with פֶ), isn't it ?
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/erev-shel-shoshanim-evening-roses.html
New insight allows me to answer my question as it should be answered:
1.
In Hebrew future tense, initial א indicates first person singular.
2.
Buy and large, final נוּ often represents 'it' or 'we', the latter makes little sense here, though.
3.
לִי simply means 'for me'.
Thus we have
אֶ-קְטְפֶ-נוּ לִי ~ ((I) (will pluck) (it)) (for me).
'I will pluck it for myself' stroke me as odd, and now we know why.
Buy the way, any Hebrew beginners who love and practice songs should contact me.
Maybe we can set up a truly philosophical non-commercial quality site for Hebrew.
That is what I would expect in this context. The problem is that the suffix for male third person object is either הוֹ (-ho) or וֹ (-o). For the feminine it's הָ (-ha). נוּ does exist, but it's a first person plural. So the only way, as a native speaker, that I can interpret this phrase is "I will pluck us for myself". It's essentially אקטוף (I will pluck) + נו. Semantically it is strange so I'm not sure.
As for the shva'im, in a sequence of two shva'im, the the first is nah and the second is na‘. However, at the end of a word, both are nahim. This only happens with some suffixes. For instance, אָמַרְתְּ is pronounced /amart/.
Surprise, surprise, an echo originating in the past. Nice to hear from you.
Concerning the sentence in question, it's probably more intricate than what I presented above.
Currently, my theory is as follows:
What is actually sung or meant may well be
אֶקְטְפֶחֵהוּ,
where הוּ is alternate for hebrew masculine pronominal verb suffix type 1 וֹ.
Listening to דליה לביא's rendering of this song in very slow speed, I always wondered what the hell immediately followed after the פֶ.
What about that ?
(In any case, there's something immediately following פֶ which is not [n], but rather [x], [χ] or [ħ], followed by [ɜ].)
Just to inform you that I finished my post.
Another theory:
In biblical Hebrew at least, there is the following *imperfect* verb form with so-called נ-suffix נּוּ :
יִלְכְּדֶ֫נּוּ
The meaning is 'he will capture HIM', according to my sources.
Generally, the נ-suffix indicates 3rd person singular masculine.
Thus in the sung it may as well be אֶקְטְפֶנּוּ.
So there are several potential explanations to the infamous אֶקְטְפֶנּוּ.
What I don't understand, that even native speakers can't deliver a clear and short answer, or so it seems.
'I'll pluck US for me' is not an acceptable solution.