[Mesorah] kikar / kikar

[Dov Bloom via Mesorah]

Excellent question by Sholom Simon (kikar shmot 25:39 with a patach,
shmot 37:24 with a kamatz). Both verses have near identical syntax and
structure and teamim

Background: kikar with a patach is the common variant: I count 17
times in tanach (kikar kesef, kikar zahav, etc, not counting kikar
lehem eretz hakikar - geographical terms). Only twice of those 17 are
mishkan related, but many are mikdash related.
kikar with a kamatz I count 9 times (same as before , kikar as a
weight of metal , not a loaf of bread or a geographic location), 5 of
those mishkan related.

I could find no massoretic comment on this variance (didn't do an
exhaustive search, but a cursory one in Messorah Gedola of the printed
mikraot gedolot by Frensdorf, and in the keter style Mikraot gedolot
of BarIlan).

Yisrael BenDavid wrote a whole book on the appearance of pausal forms
(eretz is non pausal, aretz with a kamatz is pausal, usually found
with etnachta/sof pasuk, the Mesorah has a list of such forms of
certain words with a zakef). BenDavid showed conclusively to my mind
the these kind of pausal forms appear with other teamim also. The
trick is to connect these morphological-pausal-forms with a syntactic
need for a pause. This I think no one has done yet for every pausal
form in tanach. I think BenDavid tried to do this in many cases, but
couldnt conclusively do so in every case of the hundreds he brought.

So, is this a pausal form? or am I wrong grammatically?

If so it is one of a not-small group of unexplained pausal forms.

But I think this variant is not necessarily a pausal form. Examples
from today's reading:
All from shmot: 38:25 kamatz on an etnach (expected)  38:24 on a zakef
( closes 6 words, maybe a pausal)
38:27 the word kikar occurs 3 times: kamatz on an etnach (expected) ,
patach on a taam mechaber - conjuct accent(expected) , and a third
time on the final mercha before sof-pasuk  we find a kamatz (not
expected according to my pausal - nonpausal analysis)

I thought maybe the difference should be smichut or not : kikar-zahav
should be usually a patach, and kikar standing alone should be a
kamatz, but that doesn't explain all of the  49 occurrences in tanach
of kikar/hakikar/vekikar/.

So thank the forum for following my rambling, and I say to Sholom:
good question. I have just broadened the question for you.

On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 1:52 AM, Sholom Simon via Mesorah
<mesorah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:
> The psukim at 25:39 and 37:24 are almost identical.
>
> The first word, in each, is kikar (zahav tahor...).  In both cases, there is
> a tevir under the second kaf.
>
> But in the former, the second syllable has a patach; and in the latter, is
> has a kametz.  I can't find any mention of this in my tikkun.
>
> Thoughts, anybody, as to why this is so?
>
> Good shabbos!!
>
> -- Sholom
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mesorah mailing list
> Mesorah at lists.aishdas.org
> http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/mesorah-aishdas.org



-- 
Dov A Bloom