pronunciation of לנמל

[Ali Smith]

שלום!

אתמול הגעת לנמל התעופה.
Yesterday you arrived at the airport

Is לנמל in this sentence pronounced linmal or lenemal? I think it should be pronounced linmal, but my textbook says it's pronounced lenemal (see attachment). However, it should also be noted that they transliterated ראיתם as raitem instead of reitem, so I wonder if the author(s) can be trusted.

תודה רבה!

 

[Drink]

Your textbook is just giving you the colloquial pronunciations.

 

[JAN SHAR]

The rule of shwa applies, of course: when you have two shwas in succession, the first one changes into a khireq, unless the first letter is a guttural, in which case it changes into a patach

 

[Ali Smith]

But why does the second vowel in נָמֵל change in the construct form? The first one gets reduced, of course.

 

[Abaye]

Not sure about the reason, foreign words may find their unique way, yet as a mnemonic you can compare נָמֵל to זָקֵן, they share the same conjugations.

השפה העברית - נמל (נמלים)

 

[Ali Smith]

Yeah, the same thing happens there:

זָקֵן 'old man' becomes זְקַן־
נָמֵל becomes נְמַל־

I know why the first vowel gets reduced but I don't know why the second vowel 1. reduces and 2. changes.

 

[Drink]

It's a case of Philippi's law. Stressed short i in a closed syllable becomes a (except when it doesn't).

 

[Haskol]

To be honest, I think in colloquial Hebrew people who mostly say "lenamal" today.

 

[Drink]

To be honest, I think in colloquial Hebrew people who mostly say "lenamal" today.

I think they say lenamel, no? Maybe I'm not remembering correctly.

But regardless, this discussion is about historical vowels, not modern colloquial pronunciation.