[Mesorah] karva shenas hasheva

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 10:04:00AM -0400, Benjamin M. Kandel wrote:
: In any case, it is pretty clear that within the system of the baalei
: mesorah from Teveriah, there is no shva na after a tenua "gedola".  Ibn
: Ezra says so explicitly in Tzachos (I can get the exact reference if
: you're interested), and so does Ben Asher himself (in Dikdukei HaTeamim). 
: The rule of having a shva na after a tenua gedola was first mentioned by
: Radak and adopted by many later grammarians, but earlier ba'alei dikduk
: don't mention it.

There was no concept of tenu'ah gedolah, no theory to make a rule about
or to deny, until the Radaq imported it from Arabic grammarians. That's
not to say that the Mesoretes would consider the model wrong, in the
sense of not describing the norm. Just that it models the reality in a
way they wouldn't have thought of.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha