The Eighth Principle: On the elucidation of the patterns of feminine nouns.

1. Know that nouns that appear in the feminine form are for the most part marked by a final he, with the letter before the he bearing a qamats, and the accent of the word falling on that letter with a qamats, as in: ṣedaqah (“righteousness”), ḥokhmah (“wisdom”), gezela (“robbery”), ʾakhilah (“eating”), simlah (“garment”), ʿavodah (“service”), melukhah (“kingship”), behalah (“terror”). In the construct state, the final he changes to tav, and the qamats changes to a pataḥ; but the other vowels do not change at all, except in those forms that follow the pattern paʿalah, such as ṣedaqah and berakhah (“blessing”). Thus, in the construct state one says ṣidqat Hashem (“the righteousness of the LORD,” Deut. 33:21) and birkat Hashem (“the blessing of the LORD,” Gen. 39:5). The kaf takes a light dagesh, in accordance with the rule of the letters begad kefat after a silent sheva in most cases; but with a pronominal suffix, as in birkato, the kaf is unaspirated (rafuyah), and likewise ṣidqato, and so forth.

2. The reason for this is that the first qamats changes to a sheva; therefore it is necessary to change the first sheva into a ḥiriq, as I wrote in the Sixth Principle. But the other patterns do not change, as in ḥokhmah → ḥokhmato, gezela → gezalato, ʾakhilah → ʾakhilato, and the like.

3. The general rule is this: the feminine he at the end of nouns has two identifying signs. The first is that a qamats always appears before it. The second is that the accent must fall on that letter which bears the qamats, that is, the word must be accented on the final syllable (milraʿ). If either of these two signs is lacking, then the he is not feminine, but is merely an added letter or a root letter. Thus in: qara laylah (“He called the light night,” Gen. 1:5), naḥalah Miṣrayim (“the brook of Egypt,” Num. 34:5), ʾarṣah Seʿir (“toward the land of Seir,” Gen. 32:3), and the like— in all of these the accent does not fall on the final syllable, and therefore the he is an added letter, not a feminine ending.

4. And those cases in which the final he is a root letter belong to the class of roots whose third radical is he (nḥei lamed-he), as I will explain in the Fourth Treatise, Principle Seven, Sections Two and Three. There I will give you rules by which you may distinguish a merely added he from one that is truly part of the root.