Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Peter,

You might check GKC 16g, which discusses when Baer places a metheg to the
right of the pathach, instead of to the left of the vowel pointing.
However, the case mentioned does not seem to match the example that you
give in Gen 1:21.


                                Yours,
                                Harold

>Can anyone enlighten me about some subtle variations in the positioning of
>metheg in the BHS text? These things are important as we try to convert the
>electronic Hebrew text and develop intelligent fonts for a new generation of
>computer study tools.
>
>1. According to Gesenius, metheg appears under a consonant to the left of
>any vowel, and this is certainly the most common case - encoded 75 by CCAT.
>It can appear in the middle of a compound shewa - encoded 35. But quite
>often (almost all cases are at the beginning of a word) it appears to the
>right of the vowel, and is encoded 95. I can't find any rule to determine in
>what environment the metheg is to the right rather than the left - note e.g.
>the contrast between HAXAYYAH and HAROMESET in Gen 1:21. Is there a rule
>which I have missed? Is there some difference in meaning between left and
>right metheg? Or is this simply free variation?
>
>2. Most often CCAT encodes metheg under an initial shureq as 95, which
>corresponds with the right metheg in the printed BHS. But sometimes (Gen
>2:12, 9:2,10 etc) this is encoded as 75, although the printed BHS looks
>identical. Is there a good reason for the difference in the (OTA) CCAT text?
>Is there a distinction, perhaps in L but not in printed BHS, which should be
>preserved? Or is this simply inconsistent transcription?
>
>Peter Kirk
>
>
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