Decalogue pronunciation is influenced by cantillation

[ducky]

Hi,

1. In page 254 he writes: The letters א ה י are silent when appearing without a vowel underneath (or
following).

2. In page 235 he gives you the answer as he transliterates ותריאנה as vat-tir-'E-na.
The Y is not pronounced.
(By the way, there is a typo there. The "they feared" and the "they saw" switched places).

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About תענינה

1. Where are the two cases?
2. Why surprisingly?

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Last thing... an English question (I forgot to ask before)

I wrote above this sentence:
"If the letter Y that is in the middle of the word was pronounced, then it would have had a Sheva."

Is the part of: "it would have had..." correct? Or did I just scramble the words?

[bdenckla]

2. In page 235 he gives you the answer as he transliterates ותריאנה as vat-tir-'E-na.
The Y is not pronounced.

Good point, I should have paid attention to Jacobson's transliteration of וַתִּרְאֶ֙ינָה֙, since it is word #2 of 367 words from Jacobson's chapter 3 that I recently painstakingly entered and compared against my transcriptions of the "same" words in the Al-Hatorah edition of MAM!

(It is in my "not interesting" list because my transcription matches Jacbonson's. This page lists all of my testsuites.)



So I really don't know why Jacobson calls out the _E-kha and _E-ha words. I find it odd that he calls them out, for two reasons:

• To me, contrary to what he says, they ARE pronounced as written. I.e. rules are being followed, not broken.
• What makes them different from the _E-na words? (Perhaps he just forgot to mention the _E-na words, since they are less common than the _E-kha and _E-ha words.)

Putting segol aside for a minute ...

There are some ambiguities regarding final yod, and the rules to deal with those ambiguities can confuse readers in cases of NONFINAL yod.

The ambiguities regarding final yod stem from the fact that sheva is rarely if ever used on a final yod. So we don't have the presence or absence of sheva to guide us, the way we do with nonfinal yod.

So, there are, effectively, some rules to decide whether to infer a sheva on a final yod. These rules are based on what vowel precedes that final yod. For some vowels (qamats, pataḥ, ḥolam, shuruq) we infer a sheva on any final yod that follows them, forming a diphthong (two-vowel) sound, or something close to it (that's the small question of _i vs _j in IPA).

So, when we see a word like סוּסָ֑יו, we may be tempted to pronounce it su-SAYV because:

• The qamats-yod is close to the end of the word.
• The letter yod is rarely used as a mater lectionis for qamats.

Nonetheless, the qamats-yod in סוּסָ֑יו is only close to the end of the word, not at the end. And although yod is rarely used as a mater lectionis for qamats, it can be used as one. So, the actual pronunciation is su-SAV.

An interesting word is וַֽיַּישְּׁרֵ֥ם (2Chr. 32:30), because it has yod is used as a mater lectionis for qamats early in the word. To be clear, I transliterate this as vay-yash-sh^e-RÉM (note yash not yaysh).

So, that's my "take" on why Jacobson includes words ending in qamats-yod-vav in his section called "Some words are not pronounced as they are written" (page 277). I disagree with the title of that section, but I think I know what he's getting at. A too-wordy, but to me more accurate title would be "Some words are tricky because although they are following rules, it looks like they are not, if you accidentally apply final-yod rules to them."

Now, as to why he includes nonfinal segol-yod words in that section, I am still confused. Because unlike qamats-yod, which is pronounced differently finally and nonfinally, AFAIK segol-yod never appears finally. So it never even has a chance to be pronounced differently. So there's just no issue there. The letter yod without a vowel under or after it functions as a mater lectionis for segol. Period. That's it. Unless I'm missing something.

[bdenckla]

About תענינה

1. Where are the two cases?
2. Why surprisingly?

I find 2 cases of segol-yod followed by nund-qamats-he (nund = nun with dagesh):

• The word תַּעֲנֶ֑ינָּה in Judges 5:29 (ta-`a-!nen-na) (ta-`a-NEN-na)
• The word תִּרְאֶ֣ינָּה in Micah 7:10 (tir-!'en-na) (tir-'EN-na)

I shouldn't have called these cases surprising. I should have just called them rare. (My knowledge of dagesh is far too poor to judge what is surprising and what is not.)

[bdenckla]

Last thing... an English question (I forgot to ask before)

I wrote above this sentence:
"If the letter Y that is in the middle of the word was pronounced, then it would have had a Sheva."

Is the part of: "it would have had..." correct? Or did I just scramble the words?

Absolutely correct, and a tricky construction to get correct! From Googling, people seem to call this a "third conditional," i.e. a conditional of the third type. Of course native speakers like me don't really analyze our own language that way unless we are forced to in school. I do recall being taught some grammatical principles (like sentence diagramming) that I found pointless, but I don't recall being asked to categorize conditionals into types 1, 2, and 3. Maybe I was asked, but refused to do so, and that's why I don't remember.

[bdenckla]

An interesting word is וַֽיַּישְּׁרֵ֥ם (2Chr. 32:30), because it has yod is used as a mater lectionis for qamats early in the word. To be clear, I transliterate this as vay-yash-sh^e-RÉM (note yash not yaysh).

Koren treats this word as a ketiv/qere with ketiv ויישר֥ם (they put accents on ketiv) and qere וַֽיַּשְּׁרֵ֥ם. I.e., the qere gets rid of the possibly-confusing use of yod.

I wonder what their reason/justification for this is.

• It could be that they have manuscript basis for this. If so, I'd of course be curious, from what manuscripts.
• It could be that this is inherited from the printed tradition, i.e. from the 2nd Venice MG (2nd Rabbinic Bible).
• It could be that they found this extraordinary use of yod so likely to confuse that they made it a ketiv/qere. I am not sure whether their editorial policy allows such "discretionary" cases of ketiv/qere.

[ducky]

Hi,

So I really don't know why Jacobson calls out the _E-kha and _E-ha words. I find it odd that he calls them out, for two reasons:

• To me, contrary to what he says, they ARE pronounced as written. I.e. rules are being followed, not broken.
• What makes them different from the _E-na words? (Perhaps he just forgot to mention the _E-na words, since they are less common than the _E-kha and _E-ha words.)

Maybe the two cases he brought were put them as examples to teach about the rest of the forms.
I also don't know why to ignore other forms in this section.
 

So, when we see a word like סוּסָ֑יו, we may be tempted to pronounce it su-SAYV because:

• The qamats-yod is close to the end of the word.
• The letter yod is rarely used as a mater lectionis for qamats.

Nonetheless, the qamats-yod in סוּסָ֑יו is only close to the end of the word, not at the end. And although yod is rarely used as a mater lectionis for qamats, it can be used as one. So, the actual pronunciation is su-SAV.

For the sake of just reading, all that the reader needs to know is that if the letter is not vowel-pointed, then it is silent.
No need to think so much.
For example, the name מִיכָיְהוּ has a Sheva under the Y, and so it is pronounced.

An interesting word is וַֽיַּישְּׁרֵ֥ם (2Chr. 32:30), because it has yod is used as a mater lectionis for qamats early in the word. To be clear, I transliterate this as vay-yash-sh^e-RÉM (note yash not yaysh).

ויישרם is a Piel form.
The basic pointed form is: וַיְיַשְּׁרֵם = vay-yash-she-RÉM.
The Pointed form that we see is: וַיַּישְּׁרֵם = vay-yash-she-RÉM.
Same thing.
It is only, probably, for the reader not trying to pronounce the Y twice, because one is swallowed by the other.

So, that's my "take" on... in his section called "Some words are not pronounced as they are written" (page 277). I disagree with the title of that section, but I think I know what he's getting at. A too-wordy, but to me more accurate title would be "Some words are tricky...."

I think the same.
(Even though I didn't really read it all or focused too much in it. So maybe there is another point to this).

I find 2 cases of segol-yod followed by nund-qamats-he (nund = nun with dagesh):

• The word תַּעֲנֶ֑ינָּה in Judges 5:29 (ta-`a-!nen-na) (ta-`a-NEN-na)
• The word תִּרְאֶ֣ינָּה in Micah 7:10 (tir-!'en-na) (tir-'EN-na)

I shouldn't have called these cases surprising. I should have just called them rare. (My knowledge of dagesh is far too poor to judge what is surprising and what is not.)

I thought at first that you say there are two תענינה with Dagesh, and I didn't find them. But now it's clear.
These forms are indeed rare, and so I understand now the word "surprising".

The doubled N is:
1. The Na of the feminine plural.
2. The Na of the feminine objective pronoun.
So, the combination of the two Na suffixes, creates a Dagesh.

So, in this case, it is:
תענינה = they(f) answer her.
And תראינה would be: They(f) see her.

Absolutely correct, and a tricky construction to get correct! From Googling, people seem to call this a "third conditional," i.e. a conditional of the third type. Of course native speakers like me don't really analyze our own language that way unless we are forced to in school. I do recall being taught some grammatical principles (like sentence diagramming) that I found pointless, but I don't recall being asked to categorize conditionals into types 1, 2, and 3. Maybe I was asked, but refused to do so, and that's why I don't remember.

Really thank you for that.
I also hear people say V1, V2, V3...
But I don't remember this when I studied English (or maybe I was asleep).

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, as side notes.

Koren treats this word as a ketiv/qere with ketiv ויישר֥ם (they put accents on ketiv) and qere וַֽיַּשְּׁרֵ֥ם. I.e., the qere gets rid of the possibly-confusing use of yod.

I wonder what their reason/justification for this is.
It could be that they have manuscript basis for this. If so, I'd of course be curious, from what manuscripts.
It could be that this is inherited from the printed tradition, i.e. from the 2nd Venice MG (2nd Rabbinic Bible).
It could be that they found this extraordinary use of yod so likely to confuse that they made it a ketiv/qere. I am not sure whether their editorial policy allows such "discretionary" cases of ketiv/qere.

I don't know what manuscript writes that, or Why Koren "insist" doing so.
The book Minhat-Shay writes that there are some (a few) books that writes וישרם with one Y (but he says it should be with two).
He also mentioned Elia Levita, that in his book, he writes וישרם (with one Y), so I guess that he knew this form also. But Elia Levita explains that it should be with two Y's, and this is how he found that in the Masora books, and this is how it is written in the reliable books.