[Avodah] Shva Na's etc.

[Akiva Miller]

.
R' Micha Berger's post had some typos. With his permission, I'm putting the
original in parentheses and the corrections in brackets:

> I found it easier to remember sheva rules by recasting them into
> rules about syllables.
>
> A sheva (nach) [na] under a letter is the vowel of a syllable.
>
> A sheva (na) [nach] means the consonant is closing the syllable;
> i.e. we just finished a "consonant-vowel-consonant" syllable

This is exactly my understanding of these two shevas. A sheva na is like a
regular vowel. It is a major defining characteristic of a "syllable". But a
sheva nach is a null value, empty of sound, signifying nothing.

But these thoughts led me to a strange calculation.

If the sheva na is a regular vowel and can create a syllable, then isn't
chataf patach even more certainly so?

Tonight, in Tehillim 92, we will say the word "poalei" twice. How many
syllables are in this word? I would say three: "po" (peh cholam), "a" (ayin
chataf-patach), and "lei" (lamed tzere yod). And the accent is on the first
of these.

That means that the accent is neither on the final syllable, nor the
next-to-last. What is this word? Is it mi'l'eil or mi'l'ra? How do we
categorize it?

I once asked someone more knowledgeable than me, and his answer was that
for this purpose, "The chataf-patach counts as a sheva. This word has only
two syllables. It is mi'l'eil."

He seemed to mean that the first syllable is "poa". I was stunned, and
walked away, disabused of the idea that I knew what a syllable is...

Or, just as likely, that I don't know how to pronounce a chataf-patach
correctly. In which case I *certainly* don't know how to pronounce a sheva
na properly...

Akiva Miller
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