my soul
neshamah shel-lee

so is the shin menukad

with a shvah-nach,
or
with a shva-nah?

it has a komatz
komatz is a tenuah gedolah

it turns intop a shvah
by neesh-mah-see

komatz is a tenuah gedolah
hence
shin must have a shvah nah
like rabbi zalman henau
according to the radak

- rabbi moreh zaken leifer
flatbush
passover 5771

xyz

xyz

The Radak says the t'nu'ot ge'dol'lot, and t'nu'ot ke'tan'not, define what is and is not a shvah-na and shvah-nach.

Some people mistakenly thing that a t'nu'ah is a sound pattern, and can not define what is and is not a shvah-na and shvah-nach by analysis of context. Of course, this is an incorrect understanding of what is a t'nu'ah.

According to the view of Rabbi (Shlomo) Zalman (of) Henna (Henau), a shvah-na and shvah-nach can in deed be defined by analysis of context.

As Prof. Aron Dotan of Tel Aviv University (retired) told me explicitly, "everything is in the nikkud".

Rabbi Zalman Henna defines a shvah-nah as a shvah which follows a t'nu'ot ge'dola, and shvah-nach as a shvah which follows a t'nu'ah ke'tan'nah.

Here is his chart from Henna's book, "Yesod HaNikkud".

How would this translated into a routine in MS VOLT to create a shvah-na automatically from an ordinary shvah which is defined as a shvah-na?

GSUB1

t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, all nikkud glyph group, all taamim glyph group, meteg glyph group | t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, all nikkud glyph group, all taamim glyph group, meteg glyph group, shvah_na1

GSUB2

t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, all nikkud glyph group, all taamim glyph group | t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, all nikkud glyph group, all taamim glyph groupp, shvah_na1

GSUB3

t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, all nikkud glyph group | t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, all nikkud glyph group, shvah_na1

GSUB4

t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, all nikkud glyph group, all taamim glyph group, meteg glyph group | t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group, hebrew letters glyph group, shvah_na1

Special thanks to John Hudson

(Is this correct, John?)

This set of GSUBs assumes that you have defined 5 glyph groups:

1. t'nu'ah ge'dola glyph group = the five members of Henna's set from above:
a) komatz gadol
b) chirik gadol (chirik followed by a yuhd)
c) tzeray, tzaray yuhd
d) shuruk (kubutz)
e) cholam, cholam nistar

2. all hebrew letters glyph group
all the Hebrew letters and their matches

3. all nikkud glyph group
all the nikkud

4. all taamim glyph group
all the taamim

5. meteg glyph group