[Avodah] Pronunciation of Va-ye-chi

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 10:19:12PM -0500, Zvi Lampel wrote:
: Therefore, a consonant with a sheva na (as in the sheva under the shin 
: if "Sh'ma Yisroel) is just indicating the opening of a syllable, and is 
: not a complete syllable itself. (There's no "closing" of the syllable it 
: began until the next vowel sound is closed by a consonant or the end of 
: a long vowel sound.

Lemaaseh, this isn't anatomically true.

I think the problem I'm having is simple. I'm speaking of syllable in
the phonetic sense of the word, since my exposure is via my sister's
education to be a speech therapist. (My bedroom doubled as old textbook
storage. I picked up some psychology that way too, from my mother's and
my other sister's books.)

This is how I understand the concept:

A syllable is a definite thing that has to do with articulation, not
language. You all are describing something else, which is why I'm asking
for the original jargon.

: I look at a Hebrew syllable as a sandwich--it starts with a consonant 
: sound (a sound made by the lips, teeth or tongue, etc., forming a 
: barrier), followed by a vowel sound (a sound initially shaped by, but 
: not blocked by, the mouth's components). If the vowel sound is long 
: (which means the mouth's components move into a more closing position), 
: that ending of the long vowel serves to close the syllable. If the 
: vowel  is short, a consonant closes the syllable.

The nucleus of a (phonetic) syllabus is a sonorant, meaning a vowel,
or a sonorant consonant like /r/ or /l/ (or a dipthong of vowels,
etc...). The latter you find in Yiddish, most readily in words with the
"-l" suffix. The "-tl" at the end of "Yentl" is using the /l/ the way
English would use a vowel. (Which is why English speakers often warp
the word into "yentel".) Polish uses a lot of sonoront consonants instead
of vowels, which is why their words look the way they do. (That, and
the number of sounds they use pairs of letters for once they went from
Cyrillic to Latin alphabet.)

Before the nucleus, a syllable has an onset consonant. Semitic languages
*require* one, which is why there is the letter alef. It is also why the
Yemenites are probably correct that the melupum at the start of a word
is read /wu/ not /uw/.

And after is the coda, if the syllable is closed. Hebrew somewhat favors
closed syllables, at least compared to Western languages, which is why
we have the patach genuvah in "Noach". Not as much as Aramaic, which is
why Aramaic uses fewer long vowels than Hebrew does.

You seem to be speaking of a grammatical concept of syllable, something
I hadn't heard of before. To my mind, a syllable is parallel to the
number of "beats" you say the word in, and saying that a given sound
sequence is a syllable in one language and not another didn't make any
sense to me.

So, besach hakol, I take RMP's post to be saying that I was correct that
the rules of sheva are really about syllables, but I was incorrect in my
definition of syllable.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
micha at aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
Fax: (270) 514-1507

: 
: >As I noted in previous years, the maamar that "vayhi" (or "vayhi
: biymei") introduced tzarah has a phonic resononance when you realize it
: sounds like "Vai hi!<
: 
: Is this maamar the alleged Chazal that the grammatically correct 
: pronunciation of vay'hi or vay'chi is with a sheva nach? I don't think 
: that's a valid conclusion.
: 
: Zvi Lampel
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
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: 

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's never too late
micha at aishdas.org        to become the person
http://www.aishdas.org   you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                      - George Elliot