[Mesorah] Pronunciations that change

[Akiva Miller]

Dov Bloom wrote:

> Tirtzach has a sof-pasuk, and therefore gets the pausal form with a
kamatz!
and
> A change in the teamin, even for the same verse, drags along a change in
the nikud.

For a long time, I was pondering whether this might happen in English (and
presumably other languages), or is it something unique to Lashon Hakodesh.
Do words change their pronunciation simply because of the words around
them, or their location within a sentence?

The simplest example of this phenomenon, which even unscholarly folk can
grasp, is how words change pronunciation when they are at the end of a
phrase or sentence. Everyone knows that eretz and aretz are identical in
both meaning and grammar, as are gefen and gafen. The only difference is
that you use one in the beginning or middle, and the other at the end.

I'm sure Rabbi Mandel and others will be quick to point out that this
change is not imposed prescriptively as a "rule". Rather, it is simply how
the language is spoken naturally. Perhaps young children need to learn this
"rule" explicitly in the classroom, but to anyone older than that, if
anyone would try mixing them up, it would just sound weird. Another good
example is the "rules" about sh'va na and sh'va nach. The Anglophone mouth
is trained to have no problem saying "bracha" as two syllables, but a
native Hebrew speaker puts a slight pause after the "b" almost
instinctively (despite having no trouble pronouncing "shtayim").

Compare the statement "You went there!" with the question "You went there?"
Clearly the te'amim differ, but I'm not sure about the vowels. Someone more
learned than I might be able to point to some subtle vowel shifts, but I'm
looking for an example in English that is as blatant as eretz/aretz.

It took me a couple of years, but I did find such a case. A word whose
pronunciation changes merely because of the pronunciation of the word
*after* it, yet its meaning and grammar are totally unaffected. And to make
it even more blatant, not only does its pronunciation change, but its
spelling changes too.

The word is "a". As in "a book" or "a house", but "an apple" or "an
office". The "n" is appended in any case where the next word's
pronunciation begins with a vowel sound. (I specify "vowel sound" and not
just "vowel", because the sound is the determining factor: "a utensil" and
"a ouija board", but "an hour" and "an x-ray".)

If anyone has other examples, please share. Thanks!

Akiva Miller
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/mesorah-aishdas.org/attachments/20200702/b9fa42ed/attachment-0001.htm>