Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Shadal: A Revii or Zakef on Noach?

Shadal emends a zakef katon to a revii on the basis of a ktav yad, and on the basis of what he knows to be the logic of trup. The pasuk is pictured to the right, from Mikraot Gedolot, with the zakef upon the word Noach.

Meanwhile, mechon-mamre's trup matches that of Shadal's emendation, or rather, Shadal's ktav yad:

וַיָּ֣בֹא נֹ֗חַ וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה מִפְּנֵ֖י מֵ֥י הַמַּבּֽוּל׃

What is the difference between the two? Well, one difference is that in manuscripts, a revii consists of a single dot (rather than a diamond shape), while zakef katon consists of two dots. So the difference is a single dot.

In terms of actual trup, both sequences are indeed possible, if we are to ignore semantics. The difference is rather in terms of how the pasuk divides. With a zakef in place on the word Noach, the first dichotomy of the half-verse ending in etnachta is on the word Noach.

Thus,
וַיָּ֣בֹא נֹ֔חַ וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה

with a zakef in the word Noach, would divide as follows:
וַיָּ֣בֹא נֹ֔חַ
וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה


The latter clause would then subdivide into:
וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ
אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה

This is somewhat weird, in how it severs the verb from the rest of the actors, and from the destination. We should expect to first separate off the destination they all went to, and then the various actors.
In contrast, with the revii in place, we have:
וַיָּ֣בֹא נֹ֗חַ וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה
subdividing into
וַיָּ֣בֹא נֹ֗חַ וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ
אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה


At this point, for a clause ending in tipcha, there are two trup marks which can subdivide it, and so the earlier one in the pasuk subdivides first, followed by the later one. These two trup marks are revii and tevir. So we have:
וַיָּ֣בֹא נֹ֗חַ
וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ

and then the latter clause will subdivide into:
וּ֠בָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו
אִתּ֖וֹ

and so on and so forth.

Update: See Lion of Zion where he discusses some of the manuscript evidence for one over the other.

3 comments:

Lion of Zion said...

for more on this, see here:

http://agmk.blogspot.com/2008/10/noah-revii-or-zakef.html

Lion of Zion said...

JOSH:

"Shadal emends a zakef katon to a revii on the basis of a ktav yad, and on the basis of what he knows to be the logic of trup."

according to shadal online, he "emends" it based on the ktav yad, but i don't see anything about the logic of trop.

to clarify, yes the revii makes more sense, but this is not what he writes

joshwaxman said...

thanks.
I agree partially, and disagree partially.
Shadal writes:
נח צ"ל ברביע, לא בזקף, וכן הוא בחומש כ"י על קלף עם תרגום שבידי.

He thus says נח צ"ל ברביע לא בזקף before noting that he has manuscript support for this emendation. This well might be because of other manuscripts which support it. But then why follow up with mentioning one specific manuscript he has? How would one extra unidentified manuscript help? I would prefer to read it as that it needs to be a revii for whatever reason -- and I would guess it would be the logic of trup or the pattern of trup, whether or not his particular trup theory accords to the one presented here -- and following up that logically-based emendation with a justification that indeed it appears in at least one manuscript.

But I will admit that one could interpret Shadal's words differently.

Kol Tuv,
Josh

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin