[Avodah] Shva Na's etc.

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 06:38:46AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: R' Sholom Simon asked:
: >                           RSM asserted (orally, to me) that,
: > aderaba, the sound is exactly the same.  And then I asked the
: > same question: why did ben Asher choose one over the other in
: > various places.

First, just about RSS's post.

RSM says that in general. That the yud in a chiriq malei or the vav in
a colam malei also don't impact pronunciation.

RSM isn't just a chaver on Avodah, he is a rav nearly every O Jew who
eats meat relies on, and has a PhD in Semitic Languages. So, his opinion
would be treated seriously. However, we do need to note it's likely a
daas yachid.

...
: But that's not the case regarding shuruk (a vav with a dot in the middle)
: and kubbutz (three diagonal dots below a letter). This question, it seems
: to me, should be asked not of Ben Asher, but of the original author of the
: unvowelled text...

: I fear that the answer will have something to do with the written text
: being more malleable than I had been led to believe...

Well, even by R Meir's day we couldn't rely on our chaseiros and yeseiros.
But these things would be decided by sampling reliable sifrei Torah and
finding rov, not grammar rules. So there is some drift (and I do not
take the Rambam's iqar as insisting otherwise). But the Baalei Mesorah
would not be imposing the drift by fiat.

Like the famously odd "mishnah" in Soferim (6:4) in which we learn that
Ezra followed rov of the three sefarim found on Har haBayis and after 3
of the differences between them he ended up with a text that wasn't in
any. And that's the kosher text from which we ended up basing ours!

(Also, let's not forget that Ben Asher was only one family of Mesoretes.
Not everything we have is their work alone!)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 39th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                        reliable person?