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From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@saber.towson.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 18:07:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Addendum on Prof Tabory's comments on Cantillations

This is to answer Bernard Horowitz (V30n3) who asks why there are 6
cantillations that are not placed on the accented syllable.  All but one
of the cantillations was correctly explained by Prof Gilboa. Allow me
therefore to add the 6th and give a reference.

This is discussed in Mordechai Breuer's book LAWS OF CANTILLATIONS in
various footnotes. As already indicated the basic idea is that placing
these 5 cantillations on the proper syllable would cause confusion. As
Prof Gilboa has stated....

TELISHA KTANA/GEDOLA were originally both circles and hence only their
position distingished them Similarly MAPACH/YETIV and PASTHAH/KADMAH
have the same form and are only distinguishable by their position.  The
ZARKAH has the same form as the TZINORITH in the cantillations on Job,
Mishlay and Psalms. The Tzinorith is basically an embellishment (not a
cantillation) placed on open syllables before the main accent and
therefore the Zarkah is placed at the word end.

The correct explanation for the segol is the following: The notation for
SEGOL is 3 dots--if you placed it in the middle of a word it might
confuse the pronunciation of the word above it particularly if the word
above it has many dots in its punctuation.

Russell Hendel; Phd ASA; Math; Towson;RHendel@Towson.Edu;
Moderator Rashi Is SImple
http://www.shamash.org/rashi