[Avodah] Shva Na's etc.

[Michael Poppers]

In Avodah V37n42, R'Micha wrote "the Gra's" and then -- forgive me,
R'Micha, but that's the way I perceived your comments -- harped on the tree
and ignored the forest by noting, 'I don't think Hebrew is supposed to have
any consonant blends, including the /br/ you would end up with.

Maybe I should write it "b'rakhos", rather than "berakhos", but I wouldn't
write "brakhos", that just seems wrong.' and 'BTW, RMP, what would you do
with "v'hoda'os"? /vh/ doesn't blend; you
can't say vav and hei without a vowel in between. (I guess you can fully
combine them into a single aspirated /wh/, given a waw instead of a vav.)'
The main point is that a sh'va na' begins a syllable; the ancillary point
is that it can never be a syllable unto itself and therefore should never
be pronounced in a manner which would cause confusion with a vowel that can
be a syllable unto itself.  Precisely how one should then pronounce a sh'va
na' may depend on the consonant it's gracing, on whether that consonant has
a dageish, and perhaps on the following consonant; but just because the
"vav" consonant with a sh'va na' does not smoothly continue into the
following consonant does not, at least to me, mean that a beis w/ a sh'va
na' cannot smoothly continue into a reish (likewise, and this is why I
quoted the GRA acronym, a gimel followed by a reish); and (in case this was
not clear before!) while I really was addressing pronunciation and not
orthography, I'm happy that R'Micha and I can agree that transliterating a
sh'va na' with an "e" can lead to mistakes (see the ancillary point above).

Gut Voch
and all the best from
*Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA
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