The eighth principle. An elucidation of nouns from the class whose third radical is he (naḥei lamed-he) that come without any additional letter at the beginning, and that end with a feminine he.

1. Know that there are additional nouns from this class that appear with a feminine he at the end. Some of them have the first radical with a qamats, such as safah, manah; and some with a tsere, such as me’ah, pe’ah. All of them change to a sheva at the beginning, according to their rule.

2. However, nouns of the class whose middle radical is quiescent that come in these two patterns do not change at all. For example, from qamah and tsarah, in the construct state one says qamat and tsarat, and in the plural qamim and tsarim; the qamats does not change. Likewise those with tsere from this class: one says tsid, shiv, tsidah, shivah; and in the construct state tsidat, as in shivath ʿavdekha (“the return of your servant,” Gen. 44:31); the tsere does not change. The reason for this is that verbs whose middle radical is quiescent always require a full vowel to indicate the quiescent root vav that follows the qamats, and therefore they do not change. But in words such as safah, maneh, peʾah, and meʾah, where the full vowel in the first radical does not serve to indicate a quiescent letter, they do change, and one says sefat, peʾat, and so forth. Remember this, for it is an important rule. I will speak further about this in the class of geminate roots in the Eleventh Principle, Fourth Section, and those with a root he at the end I will explain in the following principle.