4.10 Segholate Nouns

Many two-syllable words accented on the penult syllable are classified as Segholate nouns.

  • Did you notice that the words דֶּ֫רֶךְ and סֵ֫פֶר have the accent is on the first syllable?
  • Frequently, though not always, there are two Seghol vowels. נַ֫עַר (boy, youth) is a Segholate noun even though it doesn’t have any Seghol vowels.

PLURAL SEGHOLATE NOUN HINT: A plural word that has Vocal Sheva/Hateph under the first consonant and Qamets under the second, with the normal MP or FP ending could be a Segholate noun62

  • מֶ֫לֶךְ to מְלָכִים
  • סֵ֫פֶר to סְפָרִים
  • נַ֫עַר to נְעָרִים

  1. While Segholate nouns are pluralized this way, not every word plurazied this way is a Segholate noun. For example, דְּבָרִים is not Segholate↩︎