Let's do more on the SH'VA that starts out NA and then gets NACHed, but doesn't cause the DAGESH in the following letter (one of BET, GIMEL, DALET, KAF, PEI, and TAV) to be restored. The following way of explaining the situation is based on a fax from YL, but it isn't a certainly that he would approve on the way it is presented here. (But maybe he will.) Let's use a word from the end of Parshat Sh'lach, which is also the third passage of the SH'MA. ...U'Z'CHARTEM ET KOL MITZVOT HASHEM... (Bamidbar 15:39) The conjunctive VAV would ordinarily be voweled with a SH'VA. But the ZAYIN already has a SH'VA and you can't have a word starting with two SH'VAs. So the VAV changes to a SHURUK, which under other circumstances is considered a major vowel, but not in this kind of situation. It behaves like a minor vowel would, and takes the ZAYIN/SH'VA to itelf, to complete a "closed syllable". And, in doing so, the SH'VA changes from NA to NACH. UZ-CHAR-TEM are the syllables of the word now. Not U'Z'CHAR-TEM. Following a SH'VA NACH, the CHAF should get its DAGESH back. But it doesn't, because the SH'VA is not a "real" SH'VA NACH. It is a SH'VA NA that was changed into a SH'VA NACH. It sounds like a SH'VA NACH. But it does not restore the DAGESH to the following BEGED KEFET letter. Some people call this SH'VA a SH'VA M'RACHEIF - let's render
that as a SH'VA that can't make up its mind what kind of SH'VA it is, and
displays the NACH property of closing off a syllable and not adding any vowel
sound to the letter under which it is. But it behaves like a SH'VA NA in that a
BEGED KEFET letter that follows it has no DAGESH. It seems that DIKDUK purists
don't recognize a third SH'VA, but explain it in a similar way, saying that this
NACH was changed from a NA and does not behave like a purebred SH'VA NACH - as
explained earlier. [The Parshat Korach Homepage]
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