Over Yom Tov, I saw a puzzling word in one of the piyutim. ArtScroll spelled it as:
kuf - cholam
shin - sh'va
tes - sh'va
My first guess at its pronunciation was "kosht", but then I thought that one sheva or the other was probably a sh'va na, and maybe even both. Can someone give me a clue? Just wondering. Thanks!
Akiva Miller
<<< Two successive are generally nach and na in that order, >>>
I remembered that rule, but "ko-shut" sounded wrong.
<<< except at the end of a word where they are both nach. >>>
That's the rule I was missing. I guess "kosht" was correct. Thanks!
And if two shvas are at the beginning of the word, they are na and nach, to form a syllable, am I right?
(I vaguely recall someone once mentioned a search program which would go through Tanach looking for patterns of vowels, ignoring the consonants. Sound familiar to anyone?)
Akiva Miller
kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
Over Yom Tov, I saw a puzzling word in one of the piyutim.
It's in "Yom miyamim huchas", in the second bracha of Musaf on YK.
"Ram kosht ma'abadecha"; my machzor translates it as "Exalted One,
Your deeds are truth".
ArtScroll spelled it as:
kuf - cholam
shin - sh'va
tes - sh'va
My first guess at its pronunciation was "kosht", but then I thought that
one sheva or the other was probably a sh'va na, and maybe even both.
Can someone give me a clue? Just wondering. Thanks!
Both sheva'im are nach, and it is pronounced "kosht". It's found in
Mishlei 22:21. It's a variation on "keshot" (as in "deHu Elaka keshot,
ve'oraiteih keshot..."), or "kushta" (as in "vezanin umefarnesin
linsheihon bekushta").
kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
And if two shvas are at the beginning of the word, they are na and nach,
to form a syllable, am I right?
I don't think that can happen, but if it did then I think the first one
would be nach, and the second na, so that they form a long syllable with
whatever follows the second sheva. Because sheva can never form a
syllable on its own.
R' Zev Sero wrote:
It's in "Yom miyamim huchas", in the second bracha
of Musaf on YK. "Ram kosht ma'abadecha"; my machzor
translates it as "Exalted One, Your deeds are truth".
Yep, right near the beginning, in the paragraph "Yom Miyamim". But I had seen it on Sukkos, and a few minutes ago I found it in Chazaras Hashatz for Shacharis of the first day of Sukkos, as the very first word of the third bracha (i.e., immediately after "BA"H Mechayeh Hamesim"). I guess its a more common word than I thought.
Both sheva'im are nach, and it is pronounced "kosht".
Thanks. But I just thought of another question: Why does the tes have a sh'va?
My understanding is that almost every word ends with an implicit shva nach which we don't bother to write. Occasional words end a little differently, but the only time we both to show the final shva nach is if the last letter was a khaf. Why are we putting a shva nach on a final tes in this case?
Akiva Miller
kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
Thanks. But I just thought of another question: Why does the tes have
a sh'va?My understanding is that almost every word ends with an implicit shva
nach which we don't bother to write. Occasional words end a little
differently, but the only time we both to show the final shva nach is
if the last letter was a khaf. Why are we putting a shva nach on a
final tes in this case?
Well, the machzor is easy to explain -- it's copying the pasuk.
But that just kicks the question to the pasuk: why does it have a shva?
My guess is that it's to draw attention to the unusual form of the word,
so that you don't think the shva under the shin should be a segol, as in
"nes lehitnoses mipnei koshet" (Tehilim 60:4).
A listmember who prefers to stay anonymous wrote this to me privately, and then asked that I send it to the list:
Why were you surprised at finding such a word? Though it has
a different meaning, you say it every week in Pitum Hak'tores:
"hakosht shneim asar." There are also consecutive sh'va'im
at the end of the words neird, v'yeird, vayishb, vayeisht,
yaft and others. In fact, third-person feminine singular past
tense ends with a double sh'va: achalt, shamart, yashant, etc.
In truth, every word which ends in a consonant ends in a
sh'va; it's just not written unless the word ends with two
unvoweled consonants.
When I read this, I literally laughed out loud at my foolishness. Many of these words are very common indeed! I had no idea why this one occurrence suddenly seemed odd to me.
And of course, R' Michael Poppers' examples of "tzachaqt" and "uvneift".
I was going to joke about some part of my brain working overtime and underpaid. But that might be close to the truth: Most parts of the siddur (including Bameh Madlikin and Pitum Haktores) are unfortunately so shgura b'fi that it is a challenge to pay attention to what I'm saying. But since I know that I'm never gonna finish the whole piyut anyway, I can afford to say a small piece of it clearly and accurately. And in so doing, discover the less-common vowel combinations.
Akiva Miller
kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
A listmember who prefers to stay anonymous wrote this to me privately, and then asked that I send it to the list:
Why were you surprised at finding such a word? Though it has
a different meaning, you say it every week in Pitum Hak'tores:
"hakosht shneim asar." There are also consecutive sh'va'im
at the end of the words neird, v'yeird, vayishb, vayeisht,
yaft and others.
The examples from the ketoret aren't really on-point, because they're
surely attempts to render foreign words in Hebrew, and thus shouldn't
be expected to follow rules. Which is why that "kosht" has nothing
to do with truth, any more than does the Jewish name for Constantinople,
"Kushta".
"Vayishb" is indeed a strange word, the only one I can think of that
ends in a beit (rather than a veit); one would expect it to have been
"vayishbeh". Similarly, one would have expected "veyeird" and "vayeird"
to have been "veyirdeh" and "vayirdeh"; they're strange exceptions to
the norm.
In fact, third-person feminine singular past
tense ends with a double sh'va: achalt, shamart, yashant, etc.
Yes, but that's a form common enough to form its own rule. The word
we're discussing is still odd.
See my rules of reading Hebrew, which I posted in this forum a couple of years ago. The Tiberian rules of vocalization (as opposed to the "Palestinian" or Babylonian) require a vowel of some sort under/over every consonantal letter that is pronounced. The absence of a vowel (including the shva sign) would indicate that the consonantal letter is not pronounced. That is the way the Tiberian punctuation indicates silent letters, such as the sin in Yissokhor or the yod in the third person masculine singular pronominal ending for plural nouns (which is not pronounced -oyw) or the second person masculine singular pronominal ending for plural nouns (which is not pronounced -eikho).
Seth Mandel> Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:21:18 -0400> From: zev@sero.name> To: mesorah@aishdas.org> Subject: Re: [Mesorah] Kosht> > kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:> > > Thanks. But I just thought of another question: Why does the tes have> > a sh'va?> > > > My understanding is that almost every word ends with an implicit shva> > nach which we don't bother to write. Occasional words end a little> > differently, but the only time we both to show the final shva nach is> > if the last letter was a khaf. Why are we putting a shva nach on a> > final tes in this case?> > Well, the machzor is easy to explain -- it's copying the pasuk.> But that just kicks the question to the pasuk: why does it have a shva?> My guess is that it's to draw attention to the unusual form of the word,> so that you don't think the shva under the shin should be a segol, as in> "nes lehitnoses mipnei koshet" (Tehilim 60:4).> > > -- > Zev Sero Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's> zev@sero.name interpretation of the Constitution.> - Clarence Thomas> _______________________________________________> Mesorah mailing list> Mesorah@lists.aishdas.org> http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/mesorah-aishdas.org
R' Seth Mandel wrote:
The absence of a vowel (including the shva sign) would
indicate that the consonantal letter is not pronounced.
That is the way the Tiberian punctuation indicates silent
letters, such as the sin in Yissokhor or the yod in the third
person masculine singular pronominal ending for plural
nouns (which is not pronounced -oyw) or the second person
masculine singular pronominal ending for plural nouns (which
is not pronounced -eikho).
A frequent exception to this rule is the final letter of a word, which is pronounced even though there is no vowel on it. I supposed this exception is explained away by saying that there is an implied shva nach which we don't bother to write. Then we need an exception to the exception, to write the shva when there's a shva on both of the last two letters.
New (but related) question: I noticed that in the great majority of these two-final-shva words (including kosht nayrd and achalt) the last consonant has a dagesh. Is there some sort of rule that a dagesh on a shva shows that the shva is a shva na? Or maybe I'm confusing this with something about two consecutive shvas.
Akiva Miller
kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
New (but related) question: I noticed that in the great majority of these two-final-shva words (including kosht nayrd and achalt) the last consonant has a dagesh. Is there some sort of rule that a dagesh on a shva shows that the shva is a shva na? Or maybe I'm confusing this with something about two consecutive shvas.
Yes, there is such a rule, but there's also a rule that a dagesh can't
appear at the very end of a word. These words break that rule. There's
another rule that a sheva na is always the beginning of a syllable, and
therefore can't possibly exist at the end of a word; that rule, as far as
I know, has no exceptions, because it's part of the very definition of
sheva na. Therefore the sheva at the end of these words is nach, even
though there's a dagesh. (I wonder whether these dots aren't really
degeshim at all, but mappikim, such as one gets in a final heh, and their
function is to indicate that the letter is pronounced.)
I don't think there's any rule that a dagesh kal can't appear at the end
of a word.
Also, to respond to a previous post:
"Vayishb" is indeed a strange word, the only one I can think of that ends
in a beit (rather than a veit); one would expect it to have been
"vayishbeh". Similarly, one would have expected "veyeird" and "vayeird"
to have been "veyirdeh" and "vayirdeh"; they're strange exceptions to the
norm."
One of the forms of Hebrew verbs is called the "jussive" form (also called
the "shortened" form of future, or third-person imperative). The form
appears in two major contexts - when you want someone that you're talking
about in third person to do something (as in "May rain not fall down on
our succah"), and as the form that appears after vav hamehapeich. It
looks like the future, but in some cases, it's slightly different: The
final heh drops (as in "yehi ratzon", "vayishb", "veyird", "yitzef",
etc.); and in hifil of ayin-vav verbs, the final vowel changes to a tzere
from a chirik (yakeim (Shmuel Aleph 1:23), not yakim).
Kol tuv
Ben
P.S. An interesting "exception" to the "no dagesh chazak at the end of the
word" rule is "vayichad Yitro", which looks like a dagesh chazak.
However, ibn Ezra there points out that the word is really "vayichd
Yitro", and the chet just got a patach because it's so hard to pronounce a
guttural with a shva like that, but it is really a dagesh kal.