Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

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Charles Loder
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Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:17 am

Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Charles Loder »

I've been compiling a spreadsheet of occurrences of qamets qatans. If anyone is interested is interested in helping, you can edit the sheet.

I'm working on a project to programmatically syllabify biblical Hebrew words, but the qamets qatan always proves to be an issue. For starters, the metheg is not always used consistently. Also, it is easier to pattern match the text without the ta'amim. The plan is to match occurrences of the patterns that contain a qamets qatan and replace the regular qamets with the qamets qatan unicode character. This way there will be a semantic distinction between the two types making it easier to distinguish between closed and open syllables.

Most lexical forms that get a qamets qatan are either II-w verbs and qûtl type nouns.

Any help is appreciated!
ralph
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by ralph »

A) the rule for Kamatz Katan is different in modern Hebrew pronunciation than for Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. (Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation just has one Kamatz so not relevant to question of Kamatz Katan)..

B) Chumashim in our time, have more metegs in them than ancient manuscripts. Nobody knows who added in the metegs!

C) I am not aware of a digitized version of Tanach publicly downloadable, with all the metegs that Chumashim have. Bible.ort website is an online one with all the metegs.
(Chumash is the 5 books usually a reference to it in book form , a publication, but can just refer to the 5 books. When I say Chumash I'm have more metegs I'm referring to the publications .. Jewish publications. Artscroll, Hertz, soncino, feldheim etc).

To elaborate on "A", the rule .. I understand that in modern Hebrew pronunciation, it is worked out grammatically. Whereas in Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation it is about if a Kamatz is in a closed unaccented syllable. It has been a while since I looked into this but it may be that if it needs to know where the syllables are then it may be dependent on whether the shwa is vocal(shva na) or silent(shva nach). Because a vocal shva begins a syllable, and a silent shva ends a syllable. And the shva rule if in detail, is bizarre. Feldheim is a Jewish publication that has the Tanach with vocal shva marked in bold, and Kamatz Katan marked in bold.

Feldheim use Ashkenazi rules for determine shva.. and of course Sephardi rules for determining Kamatz Katan. (Since Ashkenazi doesn't have Kamatz Katan). The rules are very similar with minor exceptions. And I doubt there are cases where that influences a Kamatz Katan such that a publication marking Kamatz Katan would have a difference between Sephardi and Ashkenazi on Kamatz Katan. For Ashkenazi pronunciation every Kamatz is pronounced oh it wouldn't make a difference.

With the right regexes you can match Hebrew with diacritical marks. Eg match Hebrew letter followed by sequence of diacritical marks. You might have that anyway even without trope markings e.g. if matching words with dagesh and vowel marks cos that could involve a letter followed by two diacritical marks.

Be interested to know what database and rules and programming language and programming library, you use for your determining the Kamatz Katan.

Thanks
Ralph Zak
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Jason Hare
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Jason Hare »

Charles Loder wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:51 am Most lexical forms that get a qamets qatan are either II-w verbs and qûtl type nouns.
And infinitive constructs with suffixes (like בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ bəšoḵbəḵā or כְּשָׁמְעוֹ kəšomʿô). This happens a lot to establish a temporal framework for narratives.
Jason Hare
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The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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Charles Loder
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Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:17 am

Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Charles Loder »

Jason Hare wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 6:15 am
Charles Loder wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:51 am Most lexical forms that get a qamets qatan are either II-w verbs and qûtl type nouns.
And infinitive constructs with suffixes (like בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ bəšoḵbəḵā or כְּשָׁמְעוֹ kəšomʿô). This happens a lot to establish a temporal framework for narratives.
yeah...those may be near impossible to target as I'm not working with lexical information, only character strings. But I may have to consider this for a later time. Right now, everything is processed on the client side (see https://charlesloder.github.io/hebraisch-umschrift/ for an example of the havarot package). If I can secure some funding for server space, I may be able to run everything through a POS-tagger. I'll have to research if there is anything like that for biblical/liturgical Hebrew
Charles Loder
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Charles Loder »

ralph wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 3:37 am A) the rule for Kamatz Katan is different in modern Hebrew pronunciation than for Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. (Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation just has one Kamatz so not relevant to question of Kamatz Katan)..

B) Chumashim in our time, have more metegs in them than ancient manuscripts. Nobody knows who added in the metegs!

C) I am not aware of a digitized version of Tanach publicly downloadable, with all the metegs that Chumashim have. Bible.ort website is an online one with all the metegs.
(Chumash is the 5 books usually a reference to it in book form , a publication, but can just refer to the 5 books. When I say Chumash I'm have more metegs I'm referring to the publications .. Jewish publications. Artscroll, Hertz, soncino, feldheim etc).

To elaborate on "A", the rule .. I understand that in modern Hebrew pronunciation, it is worked out grammatically. Whereas in Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation it is about if a Kamatz is in a closed unaccented syllable. It has been a while since I looked into this but it may be that if it needs to know where the syllables are then it may be dependent on whether the shwa is vocal(shva na) or silent(shva nach). Because a vocal shva begins a syllable, and a silent shva ends a syllable. And the shva rule if in detail, is bizarre. Feldheim is a Jewish publication that has the Tanach with vocal shva marked in bold, and Kamatz Katan marked in bold.

Feldheim use Ashkenazi rules for determine shva.. and of course Sephardi rules for determining Kamatz Katan. (Since Ashkenazi doesn't have Kamatz Katan). The rules are very similar with minor exceptions. And I doubt there are cases where that influences a Kamatz Katan such that a publication marking Kamatz Katan would have a difference between Sephardi and Ashkenazi on Kamatz Katan. For Ashkenazi pronunciation every Kamatz is pronounced oh it wouldn't make a difference.

With the right regexes you can match Hebrew with diacritical marks. Eg match Hebrew letter followed by sequence of diacritical marks. You might have that anyway even without trope markings e.g. if matching words with dagesh and vowel marks cos that could involve a letter followed by two diacritical marks.

Be interested to know what database and rules and programming language and programming library, you use for your determining the Kamatz Katan.

Thanks
Ralph,

This is the project that I've been working on for syllabification — https://github.com/charlesLoder/havarot. It's written in TypeScript. See especially /src/utils/removeTaamei.ts for where I rebuild the string w/o taamei but keep track of the taamei, then used in qametsQatan.ts.
Isaac Fried
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Isaac Fried »

Jason writes
And infinitive constructs with suffixes (like בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ bəšoḵbəḵā or כְּשָׁמְעוֹ kəšomʿô). This happens a lot to establish a temporal framework for narratives.
When I read in public I invariably read בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ as Be$AKBKA with a soft K.
Where did the extra O come from? How did a qamets become an O? Sounds to me like yiddish.

Isaac Fried, Boston University
www.hebrewetymology.com
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Jason Hare
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Jason Hare »

Isaac Fried wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 8:59 pm Jason writes
And infinitive constructs with suffixes (like בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ bəšoḵbəḵā or כְּשָׁמְעוֹ kəšomʿô). This happens a lot to establish a temporal framework for narratives.
When I read in public I invariably read בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ as Be$AKBKA with a soft K.
Where did the extra O come from? How did a qamets become an O? Sounds to me like yiddish.

Isaac Fried, Boston University
www.hebrewetymology.com
If you don't believe in dagesh, then I have nothing to tell you about kamats katan.

Jason
Jason Hare
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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Charles Loder
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Charles Loder »

Isaac Fried wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 8:59 pm When I read in public I invariably read בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ as Be$AKBKA with a soft K.
Where did the extra O come from? How did a qamets become an O? Sounds to me like yiddish.
The whole issue of the Qamets Qatan (the /o/ sound) and the Qamets Gadol (the /ā/ sound) is a little bit wonky.

For starters, the Tiberian Masoretes pronounced every qamets vowel sign the same—as [ɔ] an open-mid back rounded vowel.

In the Sephardic reading tradition, which Modern Hebrew pronunciation is more-or-less based off of, the qamets vowel sign is normally pronounced as[a]. When this vowel sign appears in closed, unaccented syllables, instead of [a], it is pronounced more like [o].

In בְּשָׁכְבְּךָ, the syllable שָׁכְ is closed and unaccented, thus the [o] sound.

That's the gist, but there is more that can be said.
Isaac Fried
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Isaac Fried »

Charles writes
For starters, the Tiberian Masoretes pronounced every qamets vowel sign the same—as [ɔ] an open-mid back rounded vowel.
Maybe yes, maybe no. I am very careful about claims on the ancient pronunciation of Hebrew. The fact is that spoken Hebrew pronounces the patah and the qametz, and all the hatephim the same way, and that the language works flawlessly this way.

Isaac Fried, Boston University
www.hebrewetymology.com
Refael Shalev
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Re: Qamets Qatan Spreadsheet

Post by Refael Shalev »

Hi Isaac,

In modern hebrew you'll hear many that pronounce אני יכתוב under אני אכתוב and the language works flawlessly this way either, so אכתוב is misspelling or what?
Refael Shalev
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