ccaannttiilllliizzeerr - sagreisshe reads the entire pentateuch and the five scrolls (ruth, song of...
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Cover Page 1
CCaannttiilllliizzeerr Distributional Analysis of Cantillation Marks
Author: Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
Developers:
Music Editors: Susan Owen, John Wheeler, John McMurtery
What imagination the scrupulous originators manifested in these creative pictographical representations. It is paramount to translate with precision this message transmitted with so much love.1
Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura
Cover Page
Cantillizer is copyright © protected under the LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License). This text is copyright © protected under the FDL (GNU Free Documentation License).
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Table of Contents 2
Table of Contents
Cover Page ...................................................................................... 1
Table of Contents ............................................................................ 2
Table of Figures .............................................................................. 3
1 Cantillation .................................................................................. 5
1.1 Vocalization ............................................................................................... 5
1.2 Semiotics ................................................................................................... 6
1.3 Versification ............................................................................................... 8
1.4 Hermeneutics ............................................................................................ 8
2 Architecture .............................................................................. 14
2.1 System .................................................................................................... 14
2.2 Database ................................................................................................. 14
2.3 Server ...................................................................................................... 14
2.4 Client ....................................................................................................... 14
3 Database.................................................................................... 15
3.1 Specifications, Requirements & Constraints ............................................ 15
3.2 Raw Data Input ........................................................................................ 16
3.3 Data Processing ...................................................................................... 17
3.4 Data Structure ......................................................................................... 20
4 Application ................................................................................ 33
4.1 Graphical User Interface .......................................................................... 33
4.2 Menus ...................................................................................................... 35
4.3 Configuration ........................................................................................... 36
4.4 Database Query ...................................................................................... 37
4.5 Syntactic Analysis .................................................................................... 41
4.6 Syntactic Pattern Recognition.................................................................. 45
4.7 Musical Analysis ...................................................................................... 47
4.8 Freeform Analysis .................................................................................... 63
4.9 Graphics .................................................................................................. 64
Appendix A .................................................................................... 68
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Table of Figures 3
List of Emendations ............................................................................................ 68
Appendix B .................................................................................... 69
Tools & Libraries ................................................................................................ 69
Appendix C .................................................................................... 70
Abbreviations ..................................................................................................... 70
Endnotes ........................................................................................ 71
Table of Figures
Figure 1-1 Cantillation Chironomy .................................................................... 7
Figure 1-2 Hierarchy of Disjunctive Signs ........................................................ 9
Figure 1-3 Hierarchy of Prosodic Signs .......................................................... 10
Figure 1-4 Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura................................................................ 11
Figure 1-5 Syntactic Structure of Cantillation Marks (A) ................................. 11
Figure 1-6 Syntactic Structure of Cantillation Marks (B) ................................. 12
Figure 2-1 System Diagram ........................................................................... 14
Figure 3-1 Aleppo Codex, Isaiah 9:6 .............................................................. 17
Figure 4-1 Cantillizer Main Screen (next page) .............................................. 33
Figure 4-2 Configuration Dialog Box .............................................................. 36
Figure 4-3 Search for Signs Dialog Box ......................................................... 39
Figure 4-4 Phrygian Mode Scale in C Major .................................................. 48
Figure 4-5 Other Prosodic Sublinear Signs .................................................... 49
Figure 4-6 Prosodic Appoggiature.................................................................. 51
Figure 4-7 Prosodic Melismata ...................................................................... 51
Figure 4-8 Harmonic Mode Scale in E Minor ................................................. 52
Figure 4-9 Other Psalmodic Sublinear Signs ................................................. 52
Figure 4-10 Psalmodic Appoggiature ............................................................... 54
Figure 4-11 Psalmodic Melismata .................................................................... 54
Figure 4-12 Blowing the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah ........................................ 55
Figure 4-13 Salomon Helperin Blowing the Yemenite Shofar (2006) ............... 56
Figure 4-14 Marc Chagall, The Capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (1956) ............................................................... 57
Figure 4-15 Psalm 137 “By the Rivers of Babylon” in E Minor ......................... 58
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Table of Figures 4
Figure 4-16 Synagogue at Gaza, Mosaic of King David Strumming the Harp (6th century CE) .................................................................... 59
Figure 4-17 Cadence of Psalm 137 with Ornament Resolution ....................... 62
Figure 4-18 Psalm 137, Verse 1, Syllabified .................................................... 63
Figure 4-19 Structure of Psalms 120, 124, 129, 130 ........................................ 66
Figure 4-20 Tree Diagram ................................................................................ 67
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Cantillation 5
1 Cantillation
The goal of the Cantillizer project is to extract and process cantillation data from the
Hebrew Bible for the purpose of studying the order in which cantillation marks occur.
The database holds cantillation information and provides display and statistics showing
the patterns or structure of cantillation marks.
1.1 Vocalization
Hebrew (like other Semitic languages) was originally and is still written without most
vowels.2 Sometime between Jerome (c. 347-420), the Dalmatian theologian and author of
the Latin translation of the Bible, and Saadia ben Joseph (892-942), aka Gaon, the Jewish
Egyptian philosopher and author of the Arabic translation, who testify respectively to the
absence and presence of vowels, three rival schools of vocalization arose, the
Babylonian, the Palestinian, and the Tiberian, with the last (and latest) eventually
prevailing.3 As the Jerusalem Talmud (written in Tiberias, 4
th century CE) and the
Babylonian Talmud (written in Sura, 5th
century CE) collected and organized different
oral traditions of biblical commentary, the three pointing systems synthesized diverse
local phonetic and musical phenomena.
Moreover, beginning in the second half of the eighth century amid political turmoil in the
caliphate of Baghdad, the Karaites, a schismatic Jewish sect, posed a grave threat to
rabbinical authority by opposing traditional biblical commentary in a back-to-the-text
movement. The besieged Tiberian rabbis fought back by creating a textual standard that
they called מסורה, the Masorah or ―tradition‖. The Palestinian school under ben Naphtali
(flourished c. 890-940, given name either Jacob or Moses), the Jewish scribe and
philologist, produced its own standard, but it has not survived, although many of its
readings are known through secondary sources.
Tradition attributes the vowels either to Sinaic origin or to Ezra, a priest and legal scribe
in the Great Synagogue (established under his jurisdiction c. 444 BCE). None however is
attested until the High Middle Ages, more than five hundred years after Hebrew had
ceased to be a native language (gradually replaced by Aramaic and other vernacular
tongues as the spoken languages of the Jews).
The authors of the Masorah have exerted more influence on the history of biblical
scholarship than all of the Talmudists and exegetes put together, for they in large part
determined what following generations of readers and philologists would understand as
the words of the Bible. In adding vowels to the text, eliminating polysemy by suppressing
homonymy, they essentially rewrote it. Since the Septuagint (translated from lost
sources c. 250-150 BCE) preceded the vocalized Masorah by a thousand years, its
readings must be regarded as at least as authoritative. Philo (c. 20 BCE-50 CE), the
Jewish Egyptian diplomat and philosopher, describes the circumstances of the Greek
translation:
He [Ptolemy II (c. 308-246 BCE), aka Philadelphus, king of Egypt], then, being a
sovereign of this character, and having conceived a great admiration for and love of the
legislation of Moses, conceived the idea of having our laws translated into the Greek
language; and immediately he sent out ambassadors to the high-priest and king of Judea,
for they were the same person. And having explained his wishes, and having requested
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Cantillation 6
him to pick him out a number of men, of perfect fitness for the task, who should translate
the law, the high-priest, as was natural, being greatly pleased, and thinking that the king
had only felt the inclination to undertake a work of such a character from having been
influenced by the providence of God, considered, and with great care selected the most
respectable of the Hebrews whom he had about him, who in addition to their knowledge
of their national scriptures, had also been well instructed in Grecian literature, and
cheerfully sent them.4
Much of this tale may be deemed apocryphal, but the authors of the Septuagint spoke
and wrote a language fairly close to Ancient Hebrew. The authors of the Masorah spoke
medieval Aramaic, and learned to read Mishnaic (c. 100-300 CE) and biblical Hebrew.
The vocalization of the Bible ignited a controversy that burned for more than five
hundred years, until the advent of moveable type5 allowed the advocates of the Masorah
to impose its readings definitively. The tradition of printing the Bible with vowels, while
almost all other Hebrew texts (including books and newspapers) lack them, is not a
quaint usage benevolently conceived on behalf of Diaspora Jewish readers less skilled in
the Hebrew language, but an ideological tactic to shrink the plethora of biblical variants
down to one unique vision. Indeed this seemingly innocuous practice amounts to
censorship. The actual Torah is manuscripted without vowels precisely because it is kept
in the synagogue between the hands of the rabbis, and shown to the layman only under
supervision. Modern Jewish women have fought for the right to touch the scrolls not
merely as a symbolic gesture, but in a legitimate demand to read the unadulterated text of
the Bible.
1.2 Semiotics
Cantillation refers to Jewish liturgical chant. In synagogue the קריאה stnahc ‖rotcel― לעב
from the unvocalized Torah and Hagiographa with the help of a prompter following in
a cantillated text. He reads the entire Pentateuch and the five scrolls (Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and Esther) in an annual rotation of weekly
passages on the Sabbath and holidays. The הליפת לעב ―precentor‖ psalmodizes from a
vocalized סדור ―psalter‖. On the Sabbath and holidays he sings psalms and songs from the
Bible, as well as other prayers and poems both ancient and modern. In the Middle Ages,
and as late as the twentieth century in certain Jewish communities, such as those of
Rome, Cairo, and Yemen, a signer cued the congregation to cantillation marks by means
of chironomy or hand signals. The חזן ―cantor‖ may double as lector or precentor in
addition to his role as soloist and/or choirmaster, depending on the size, wealth,
individual talents, and cultural traditions of the temple. Untold historical and
geographical variations in synagogal custom and organization are attested.
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Cantillation 7
Figure 1-1 Cantillation Chironomy
Mehupakh
Revia
Pashta Merekha Tifkha
Little Zakef Atnakh
Great Zakef Sof Pasuk
Cantillation marks belong to a complex system of punctuation or textual annotation (the
dots, lines, and curves written above, below, within, and between Hebrew letters) that
convey a enormous amount of information with breathtaking economy as pertains to the
following:
1. Melody, modulation, and rhythm (cantillation).
2. Tonic accents, intonation and pauses (cantillation).
3. Metrical units (logical).
4. Syntactic relationships (logical).
5. Vowels (diacritical).
6. Homographs and phonetic shifts (diacritical).
Cantillation marks (referred to collectively as טעמים ―taste‖) perform the first four
functions, but are only attested in conjunction with pointing, the diacritical marks
(referred to collectively as נקודות ―dots‖) that perform the last two. All arose at the same
time (evolving in three rival schools over a period of five hundred years, c. 400-900), and
clear distinctions are seldom drawn among the characters (including digraphs and
homographs), their names (including synonyms), and their intertwined roles. Since a
thousand years of unrecorded harmonic and phonetic transformations separated the
punctuators from the authors of the Bible, cantillation and diacritical marks do not
accurately reflect historical phenomena of the biblical period, notes and vowels the rabbis
had never heard. They may however reflect the Jewish culture, music, and dialects of the
time and places in which they were written, medieval Sura (in Babylonia, modern-day
Iraq) and Tiberias (on the shores of the Sea of Galilee). They may also accurately
represent logical relationships (grammatical and metrical) actually present in the text.
In his notes to the publication and translation into French of the anonymous Yemenite
Hebrew grammar compilation Manuel du lecteur (1870), Joseph Derenbourg, the
Jewish French Orientalist and philologist, gives this colorful account of cantillation
marks:
Accentuation is like the first stuttering of an unconscious grammar, and would perhaps
never have undergone this development had it not been destined to compensate for
science, which had not yet been formulated. This incomparable punctuation may only be
understood as the expression of a tradition that had to materialize, for want of the ability
to call to its aid the exact observation of the organism of language.6
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Cantillation 8
Whatever their original role may have been, musical, syntactic, prosodic, or
phonological, cantillation marks constitute a series of data punctuating a linguistic text.
The signs are non-random in order, and their sequential patterns are easily discerned, if
not so easily interpreted.
1.3 Versification
Two systems of cantillation marks occur in the Masorah, referred to as psalmody
(Psalms, Proverbs, body of the book of Job) and prosody (prologue/epilogue of Job,
and the rest of the books). Moreover Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Yemenite cantors
interpret cantillation marks differently in their trope (musical phrasing conventions).
About ninety percent of the words in the Bible carry a cantillation mark, taking into
account that some polysyllables carry two signs, and considering makef (similar to a
hyphen) as a word separator. Hebrew is an oxytonic language, whose accent regularly
falls on the last syllable of an utterance. Almost all cantillation marks occur in the
stressed syllable, although half a dozen pre- or postpositive signs may, depending on the
manuscript, be reiterated in the accented syllable when they precede or follow it.7
1.4 Hermeneutics
1.4.1 Traditional Parsing
Samuel Bohl (1611-1639), the German Orientalist and philologist, divides cantillation
marks into five organizational levels8:
ro רסיק
Imperator
“Emperor”
xeR ro ךלמ
“King”
xuD ro הנשמ
“Duke”
semoC ro שילש
“Count”
suvreS ro תרשמ
“Servant”
Prose Psalm Prose Psalm Prose Psalm Prose Psalm Prose Psalm
Silluk Silluk Segolta Ole
Veyored
Revia Revia Geresh Little
Pazer
Munakh Merekha
Atnakh Great
Shalshelet
Atnakh Zarka Revia
Mugrash
Double
Geresh
Great
Shalshelet
Mehupakh Tarkha
Little
Zakef Pashta Tsinor Little
Pazer
Azla
Legarmeh
Merekha Azla
Great
Zakef Yetiv Dekhi Great
Pazer
Mehupakh
Legarmeh
Double
Merekha
Munakh
Tifkha Tevir Great
Telisha Darga Iluy
Munakh
Legarmeh Azla Mehupakh
Little
Telisha
Galgal
Galgal Little
Shalshelet
Tsinorit
The first four groups (violet, blue, red, and green) are disjunctive (indicating syntactic
breaks) or pausal, with members listed in descending order of hierarchical or structural
power, while the last (yellow) is conjunctive (indicating syntactic links) or non-pausal.
The following diagram illustrates the disjunctive system as it applies to half a verse.
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Cantillation 9
Figure 1-2 Hierarchy of Disjunctive Signs
In modern symbolic notation the above diagram might be represented as follows:
{Emperor (King1 [Duke1 <Count1> <Count2>] [Duke2 <Count3> <Count4>]) (King2
[Duke3 <Count5> <Count6>] [Duke4 <Count7> <Count8>])}
In practice, however, and contrary to modern nesting practices, cantillation marks hold
cumulative mandates, i.e. the emperor supersedes king 2, duke 4, and count 8, king 1
supersedes duke 2 and count 4, dukes 1 and 3 supersede counts 2 and 6 respectively. This
economy allows for eight signs instead of fifteen. The following table represents their
role as implemented in linear order:
Level 4 Level 3 Level 4 Level 2 Level 4 Level 3 Level 4 Level 1
Emperor
King King King
Duke Duke Duke
Count
Since the data are arranged sequentially, four members of an inferior rank are promoted
to preserve the ascending hierarchy, without respect to level and contrary to modern
nesting practices. Thus, level 3 king ≈ duke, and level 4 king/dukes ≈ count. Priority
between two signs of equal value (with no intervening sign of greater value) goes to the
first sign, except that priority goes to the last emperor, who governs the whole verse.9
In his Cantillation of the Bible (1957), Solomon Rosowsky, the Jewish Latvian cantor
and composer, elaborates on the relationships among prosodic disjunctive and
conjunctive cantillation marks in the Pentateuch.
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Cantillation 10
Figure 1-3 Hierarchy of Prosodic Signs
Dotted lines indicate the fealty of vassal lords to emperors and kings. Horizontal arrows
indicate the proxy of regents for kings and dukes in absentia. Solid lines indicate the
government of servants by lords.
Conjunctive signs are seldom deemed to play a structural role in the syntax of the
sentence or the meter of the verse. Attempts to reconstruct the music of the Bible tend to
hold that disjunctive signs beat the rhythm, while conjunctive signs carry the melody.
In his Treatise on the Accentuation of the Twenty-One So-Called Prose Books of the Old Testament (1887), William Wickes, the British Orientalist and philologist, calls
the elaborated classification ―fanciful and misleading‖, and defends the rabbinical
bipartition of disjunctive מלך or dominus ―master‖ and conjunctive משרת or servus
―servant‖. He nevertheless lists the former in an almost identical hierarchical order
(rather than, for example, alphabetically), while quibbling about a few signs that he
deems over- or underrated. No one seems to ignore the subordinations. Scholars disagree
in their analysis of those subordinations.
Derenbourg once again waxes poetic:
But the worried and restless spirit of these doctors [rabbis], endlessly bent over the sacred
text, divided and subdivided the words of each verse; the slightest nuances were spotted,
not only breaks were noted, but also links, and despite the rule, ―that a prince should not
be demoted to the level of a servant, nor should the latter be promoted to the level of a
ruler,‖ [quotation from translated source text] a veritable hierarchy was established, a
rather burlesque feudal system of accents, which entertained a few subtle savants of the
fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this scale the lower nobility was
confused with the lackeys, and accents such as telisha maintained their rank of master
with difficulty. Throughout the ongoing creation of new dignitaries, the small stroke,
straight or curved, placed above or below the line, tilted to the right or to the left, became
the insignia of new ranks. Finally the denominations overflowed and overran, whether
still more distinctions were made, or the nakdanim [punctuators] invented new names for
the same accents and afterwards new uses were sought for these innovations until then
unknown.10
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Cantillation 11
Perhaps cantillation marks once held meaning, musical, syntactic, prosodic, or
phonological. However, as Derenbourg shrewdly recognizes, by the Renaissance this
meaning had already broken down and been crushed under the burden of ever-increasing
expectations and ever-more-minute analysis. Cantillation marks had become, and remain
to this day, a semiotic system, with all the complex rules, exceptions, homonymy,
synonymy, polysemy, and ambiguity common to such systems, but emptied of all
semantic content. Today they constitute half a sign, signifier bereft signified.
1.4.2 Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura
Heedless of the syntactic and semantic distinction between disjunctive
and conjunctive signs, Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912-2000), the Jewish
French organist and musicologist, in her Musique de la Bible révélée
(1976), interprets cantillation marks as neumata, splitting them into
groups of sublinear and superlinear signs. The former determine the
notes of the diatonic scales, while the latter perform the ornamental
roles known as appoggiatura and melisma.
Figure 1-4 Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura
Cantillizer supports Haïk-Vantoura’s music theory, defined in 4.7 au-dessous.
1.4.3 Constituent Structure Analysis
Generative grammar, while also repudiating Bohl’s system, sees in cantillation marks
evidence of constituent structure analysis.11
Tree diagrams represent the syntactic
relationships of sentences, as in the following figure illustrating Genesis 6:22.
Figure 1-5 Syntactic Structure of Cantillation Marks (A)
The cantillation marks are then interpreted and manipulated in much the same way as
linguistic concepts such as sentence (S), noun phrase (NP), and verb phrase (VP), as
follows:
Atnakh governs the verse.
Tifkha 1 governs the subject and verb of the first independent clause.
Tifkha 2 governs the second independent clause and the subordinate clause.
Tevir governs the subject and predicate of the subordinate clause.
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Cantillation 12
Great Telisha governs the object of the first independent clause (antecedent of the subordinate
clause) and the verb phrase of the subordinate clause.
The system seems to break down in the tevir and great telisha nodes, as the following
analysis of the very similar verse Genesis 7:5 suggests.
Figure 1-6 Syntactic Structure of Cantillation Marks (B)
Atnakh governs the verse.
Tifkha 1 governs the subject and verb of the independent clause.
Tifkha 2 governs the subject and predicate of the subordinate clause.
This interpretation, moreover, gives no structural role to silluk, which does not even
appear in the tree diagrams, thus reducing the strongest of the cantillation marks to little
more than a pilcrow sign.
1.4.4 Distributional Analysis
Cantillizer retains none of these theories a priori, preferring to perform distributional
analysis. Instead of appealing to such diverse fields as music, grammar, prosody, or
phonetics, cantillation marks are seen as a coherent semiotic system worthy of study
independent of other disciplines. Distributional analysis determines the role of an element
in a system by studying its environment, i.e. its position relative to (preceding and
following) the other elements of the system. Repetitive patterns tend to appear in non-
random sets of sequential data, such as an alphanumeric code to be deciphered. This
structure, once discerned, defines the relationships of the discrete elements to one another
in the working of the system. For a full explanation and examples of how Cantillizer applies distributional analysis to cantillation marks, see 4 au-dessous.
Cantillizer is just one small possible use for distributional analysis and structural
linguistics in the study of the Bible. From the time of Saadia to that of David Kimhi
(c. 1160-1235), aka Radak, the Jewish Provençal philologist whose Book of Completion, edited and translated in 1952 by William Chomsky, was the standard
Hebrew grammar for six hundred years, Hebrew and Semitic philology led the world in
the fields of phonetics and morphology. Since 1812 the standard Hebrew Grammar is
the work of the German Orientalist Wilhelm Gesenius.
A complete, Unicode text-and-data display-and-analysis database tool containing the
whole Bible would perform distributional analysis of all characters, so-called letters,
vowels, dagesh and other diacritical marks, and cantillation marks, as well as
grammatical analysis of morphemes. (Syntactic and semantic analysis are also possible,
but would enlarge the scope and complexity of the project considerably.) A world-wide
commercial market for such a piece of software probably exists. It would be an
invaluable tool to Orientalists, musicologists, university and yeshiva students and
professors, seminarians, priests, cantors, and rabbis.
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Cantillation 13
Modern linguists use distributional analysis to determine the phonemes of a given
language by means of minimal pairs, such as bow and vow in English. No such minimal
pair is found in modern Castilian Spanish, where /b/ and /v/ are not distinct phonemes.
The same method is used to determine the syntactic categories of given language.
Assuming a written language in which the syntagmatic (linear language) axis runs
horizontally, lexical items that are interchangeable in the paradigmatic (or vertical) axis
play the same role, and therefore belong to the same part of speech.
There is no other valid method of determining the phonemes or parts of speech of a given
language.
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Architecture 14
2 Architecture
The system is designed as a web application.
2.1 System
Figure 2-1 System Diagram
Server
Client
Database
End-User
2.2 Database
2.2.1 Database Query
2.3 Server
2.3.1 Client-Server Query
2.4 Client
2.4.1 End-User Query
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Database 15
3 Database
Cantillizer holds that the interest of any semiotic system that consists of a fixed number
of discrete signs, such as natural human languages, mathematics, or musical notation, lies
not in the signs themselves, which are arbitrary, unmotivated, and conventional, but in
the complex relationships among the signs, which are logical and rule-based. Cantillizer discovers the logical rules of cantillation marks.
Cantillizer makes the following minimalist assumptions (observations) about
cantillation marks:
1. Cantillation marks are discrete signs, signifiers whose signified has been lost or forgotten.
2. Cantillation marks occur in conjunction (above, below, between) with the graphemes of a written
and oral text (the Bible) in a natural human language (Hebrew).
3. Cantillation marks occur in the same linear order as the text with which they coincide.
4. This sequential order, far from being random, is the key to the interpretation of cantillation marks.
The goal of Cantillizer is to perform systematic statistical and distributional analysis of
the order in which cantillation marks occur in the Bible.
3.1 Specifications, Requirements & Constraints
Specification Requirement Constraint
Sites http://www.sagreiss.org
http://cantillizer.sourceforge.net
LGPL license
GPL (and compatible
tools only)
100mb DB & application
on Sourceforge.
Operating
System
Online web application built primarily or exclusively
by means of open-source tools in a LAMP (Linux,
Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) environment..
Works well in Windows,
Linux, Mac OS.
Exports to spreadsheet
and/or to tab-delimited
text files.
Programming
Environment
Should be standard and
portable.
Programming
Language
Should be standard and
portable.
Database Some version of SQL is proposed, but not required. Should be standard and
portable.
Storage Raw data must be stored and accessed independently. If better data becomes
available, system must be
able to accept a complete
set of new raw data with
minimal changes.
Memory DB and processing should
be small enough to work
well on a laptop computer
in a standard RAM
configuration.
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Database 16
Specification Requirement Constraint
Language English (left-to-right). Should not require
Hebrew fonts or right-to-
left text direction
capabilities.
Database is composed of
alphanumeric characters
and structural rules in
machine code, so it is
language-neutral.
Interface could easily be
translated into Hebrew for
integration and
localization purposes.
Interface
Plug-In Could be created and
should be optimized for
porting as a plug-in to an
existing Hebrew Bible
reader or editor.
3.2 Raw Data Input
3.2.1 Aleppo Codex
The Aleppo Codex (c. 930), written in or around Tiberias (on the shores of the Sea of
Galilee) by Shlomo ben Buya’a under the direction of Aaron ben Asher (flourished first
half of tenth century), the Jewish scribe and philologist, was the earliest extant complete
vocalized Bible until 1947, when Syrian rioters burnt down the synagogue where it had
been housed and diligently copied for five hundred years, since its removal from
Jerusalem via Cairo. Jews managed to rescue about sixty percent of the manuscript and
smuggle it back to Israel. The source text for virtually all subsequent editions, the Aleppo Codex is the single most important document in the three-thousand-year history of the
Hebrew Bible.
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Database 17
Figure 3-1 Aleppo Codex, Isaiah 9:6
In his guidelines for biblical scribes Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204), aka Maimonides,
Rambam, the Jewish Spanish physician and theologian, writes of this text:
The scroll on which I relied on for (clarification of) these matters was a scroll renowned
in Egypt, which includes all the 24 books (of the Bible). It was kept in Jerusalem for
many years so that scrolls could be checked from it. Everyone relies upon it because it
was corrected by ben Asher, who spent many years writing it precisely, and (afterward)
checked it many times.12
The spiritual leader may be prescribing more than describing, but his words carried
enormous weight.
3.3 Data Processing
The raw data input is a file of the entire vocalized, punctuated, and cantillated Bible,
some ten million characters. Processing will reduce this to cantillation data only, some
two million characters.
Cantillizer obtained the best Unicode Aleppo Codex text currently published online,
available from:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/c/ct/c0.htm, where it may be freely and openly
downloaded:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/dlct.htm without any special permission, although a
small donation is requested. We have not and will not publish any of their data. Under the
doctrine of fair usage we have extracted a small portion (about 20%) of their data
(cantillation marks only) emended the order of some signs that are misencoded (despite
being correctly rendered in graphical browser representation), processed it, analyzed it,
and are publishing that emended and processed data, as well as the results of that
analysis, in a format utterly incompatible with that of the original source text.13
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Database 18
3.3.1 Data Conversion Algorithm
To convert input data:
1. Select Unicode notation from the following:
Unicode decimal (sorting advantages)
Unicode hexadecimal
Other
2. Select display font, such as Ezra SIL SR.
3. Create character map of Unicode (all signs in source text) to display font, and verify visually.
To create the character map, a list of every unique character in the text is created by
means of a One of Many function.
4. Convert data to selected Unicode notation.
3.3.2 Data Processing Algorithm
A good resource for checking signs, especially if we use some version of the BHS, is
available at the following site:
http://tanakhml2.alacartejava.net/cocoon/tanakhml/d21.php2xml?sfr=1&prq=1&psq=1&lvl=99
To process input data:
A batch file performs the following Find/Replace commands and keeps a numerical log
of substitutions/deletions.
1. Convert four consecutive spaces to stich dummy sign: space character + space character + space
character + space character > space character 39.
2. Convert verse ends to return character: ׃<BR> > 1475 + return character.
Delete all remaining line breaks: <BR>.
3. Convert book number:
Use the first two decimal digits of the file name (26 [= Psalms] in the example below) to extract
the data.
<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">email('c26f0')</SCRIPT> > </BNum><BNum ID="##">
This will create an error, which will have to be corrected semi-manually, in the first and last books
of the Bible.
4. Convert tome number:
Use the letter following the first two decimal digits of the file name (a [= 1] in the example below)
to extract the data.
<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">email('08a01.htm')</SCRIPT> > </TNum><TNum ID="##">
This will create an error, which will have to be corrected semi-manually, in the first and last tomes
of each book.
5. Convert chapter number:
Use the last two hexadecimal digits of the file name (f0 [= 150] in the example below) to extract
the data.
<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">email('c26f0')</SCRIPT> > </CNum><CNum ID="###">
This will create an error, which will have to be corrected semi-manually, in the first and last
chapters of each tome/book.
6. Convert verse number anchors: <A NAME="###"> </A> > </VNum><VNum ID="###">.
This will create an error, which will have to be corrected semi-manually, in the first and last verses
of each chapter.
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Database 19
7. Delete all characters (letters, vowels, punctuation), ampersand (&), and pound sign (#), but not the semicolon separator (;), except cantillation marks, makef (1470), pasek (1472), sof pasuk
(1475), and space character, i.e. retain the following numbers:
1425, 1426, 1427, 1428, 1429, 1430, 1431, 1432, 1433, 1434, 1435, 1436, 1437, 1438, 1439,
1440, 1441, 1443, 1444, 1445, 1446, 1447, 1448, 1449, 1450, 1451, 1452, 1453, 1454, 1469,
1470, 1472, 1475.
8. Delete all variants and annotations: (text), [text], and {text}.
9. Convert meteg + sof pasuk to silluk: 1469;1475 > 38.
Convert meteg[space character] to silluk. (There should be only a dozen or fewer, including
Genesis 35:22, Exodus 20:2, Deuteronomy 5:6. If there are many more, then there is a problem.)
According to another source, verses with two silluks are Gen 35:1, Exo 20:2, Deu 5:3, and Isa
44:4.14
We will correct this manually, if necessary.
Convert remaining metegs: 1469 > 37
Check for additional sof pasuks, and delete. There should be very few.
10. Convert makef (1470) to space character.
11. Delete [space character][space character]pasek (1472). This assumes that (as in my text of
Leningrad) that a space character always precedes pasek.
Space character prevents misidentification of digraphs. For example, munakh[space
character][space character]pasek indicates munakh followed by pasek punctuation (not
cantillation) after the next word, while munakh[space character]pasek indicates munakh legarmeh.
Makef needs to be checked for its effect on legarmeh signs (check munakh legarmeh visually), but
I doubt the first element of a legarmeh digraph can precede makef. If I am wrong about that, then
makef need not be retained in step 1.
12. Convert the following digraphs:
Great shalshelet (shalshelet + pasek): 1427;[space character];1472 > 33
Munakh legarmeh (munakh + pasek): 1443;[space character];1472 > 15
Azla legarmeh (azla + pasek): 1448;[space character];1472 > 14
Mehupakh legarmeh (mehupakh + pasek): 1444;[space character];1472 > 13
Check for remaining pasek characters and delete, if necessary. There shouldn’t be any.
13. Convert reduplicated pashta: 1433;1433 > 23
Check to see if reduplicated pashta is not encoded as azla: 1448;1433 or even 1448;1448.
Space character prevents misidentification of digraphs. Pashta[space character]pashta indicates
consecutive rather than reduplicated signs. Also for following step.
14. Repeat the preceding step for each of the following (Results will probably be null.):
Reduplicated segolta: 1426;1426 > ## (any unused number, i.e. >39).
Reduplicated zarka: 1454;1454 > ## (any unused number, i.e. >39).
Reduplicated great telisha: 1440;1440 > ## (any unused number, i.e. >39).
Reduplicated little telisha: 1449;1449 > ## (any unused number, i.e. >39).
Reduplicated dekhi: 1453;1453 > ## (any unused number, i.e. >39).
15. Delete remaining space characters.
16. Convert ole: 1451 > 36 and mugrash: 1437 > 28.
17. Convert remaining signs (including tifkha, single zarkha, single pashta etc., but excluding
tsinor and tarkha): #### > ##
18. Check for remaining ####: to ensure that all signs have been converted. Troubleshoot.
19. Convert semicolon separator (;) to position numbers: ; > </PNum><PNum ID="##">.
The ## has to be a serial number per verse, 1-nn.
This will create an error, which will have to be corrected semi-manually, in the first and last
positions of each verse.
20. Convert zarka (and reduplicated zarkha, if attested) to tsinor (and reduplicated tsinor) and tifkha to
tarkha in psalmodic books.
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Database 20
3.3.3 Notes on Aleppo Codex
There are a few differences between this text and the Leningrad codex:
Book and chapter data are given in Hebrew in the headings, not verse by verse. We will need to
translate and incorporate it. This might have to be done semi-manually. This operation might best
be performed on the intermediary 24 book files. It will be especially difficult in the Minor
Prophets book, which contains eight booklets.
Verse data is given in Hebrew. We will have to input Arabic verse numbers. This might have to be
done semi-manually. This operation might best be performed on the intermediary 24 book files. It
will be especially difficult in the Minor Prophets book, which contains eight booklets.
Word seems to interpret the space character preceding pasek as a non-breaking space character. I
doubt that BabelPad recognizes the difference, so this probably doesn't matter.
Word and FontPage seem to interpret line breaks as manual line breaks. I’m not sure what
BabelPad will do with this. We need regular line breaks at the end of verses, and nowhere else.
We may have to specifically define verse ends (especially in prose) as sof pasuk, which is OK.
There should be no exceptions. Step 1 or 2.
The text indicates stich breaks by four consecutive spaces (breaking and non-breaking depending
on the software used to read the file). In one of the earlier steps of the Data Processing Algorithm,
we will convert [space character][space character][space character][space character] to an unused
number (>38) that defines stich. This will have to be dealt with in the PNum property later. Step 1
or 2.
Delete {} and text between.
To obtain PNum property, convert data + semicolon to, for example,
<PNum ID="#">data</PNum> for each verse. That might be a little hard to write, but it should
work. Another option, of course, is to run the processed data through a spreadsheet converting
semicolon to column division.
The Data Conversion Algorithm is slightly different:
1. Open HTML file in browser.
2. Save as text.
3. Open text file in BabelPad.
4. Select All and Convert\Unicode to NCR (Decimal).
3.3.4 Data Definition
To define input data:
Many more musical properties need to be defined.
1. Define books as either prosodic or psalmodic (separating Job into three booklets).
2. Define books as Pentateuch, Prophets, or Hagiographa.
3. Define PNum property per sign per verse as PNum 01-nn.15
4. Define stichs by atnakh/ole veyored/silluk.
5. Define disjunctive and conjunctive signs.
6. Define prosodic and psalmodic syntactic value of signs.
7. Define sublinear and superlinear signs.
8. Define Degr property of sublinear and superlinear signs.
9. Define Rthm property of sublinear and superlinear signs.
3.4 Data Structure
The raw data input is a file of the entire vocalized, punctuated, and cantillated Bible,
some ten million characters. Processing will reduce this to cantillation data only, some
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Database 21
two million characters. The database retains an individual record of each of the two
million instances of the signs. The following properties are associated with each record.
3.4.1 Items & Properties
Cantillizer database contains the following data:
Datum Property Expression Description Remarks
Book BNum 01-41 Conventional cannon
of 39 books.
Book properties are defined in 3.4.4 au-
dessous.
The book of Job is divided into three
filees, the prologue and epilogue
(prosodic) and the body (psalmodic).
The body begins at 3:2, and the epilogue
begins at 42:7.
Class 1-3 Pentateuch,
Prophets, or
Hagiographa.
Conventional classification.
Type 1-2 Prosodic or
psalmodic.
Psalmodic: Psalms, body of Job,
Proverbs. All other prosodic.
Mode 1-2 Prosodic = Phrygian.
Psalmodic =
harmonic.
Defined per Type property, it
determines the display note value of the
Degr property of the tonic, and of all
other signs. (The Mode property is
defined in 4.7 au-dessous.)
Tonic 0-6 Defined per Mode
property.
For the moment tonic is always E? What
happens when it’s C/C' in prosodic, if
possible? Not sure if this needs to be a
separately defined property or embedded
in Mode.
Chapter CNum 001-nnn Conventional Hebrew
chapter number.
If more than one file is used to store
data, file names observe the following
five-character convention:
bbccc, where:
bb = BNum
ccc = CNum, if necessary.
Verse VNum 001-nnn Conventional Hebrew
verse number.
Stich a-n Defined by atnakh/ole
veyored/silluk. A few
other signs, revia,
segolta, also define
the stich. Algorithm
must be reverse-
engineered
Book, chapter, verse, and stich are
displayed as follows: Xyz ###:###a
(lead zero suppressed).
In psalmodic, revia and other signs mark
the stich. This algorithm will be reverse-
engineered.
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Database 22
Datum Property Expression Description Remarks
PNum 01-nn Position within the
verse (1st sign, 2
nd
sign, 3rd
sign, etc.)
The sign meteg is counted. The
signs mugrash + revia and
ole + merekha are counted as two
signs each. Position will be adjusted
in configuration selection (see 4.3.1
au-dessous).
In the display, position is not an
intrinsic property of sign, as
position of signs changes according
to View/Hide Conjunctive Signs and Verse/Stich Display.
ActvSubl 01-nn Rules define active
sublinear sign per
PNum property.
Necessary for superlinear sign
algorithms. Examples:
Preceding sign
Following sign
Active sublinear rules are defined in
3.4.3 au-dessous.
Sign SNum 01-nn Unique identifier. Sign properties are defined in 3.4.2
au-dessous.
SNum is essentially a random
serial number, although for the
moment it reflects hierarchy as
sorted by ProsSyn and PslmSyn
below.
Syn 1-2 Disjunctive or
conjunctive syntax.
ProsSyn 01-nn Syntactic value in
prosodic books.
PslmSyn 01-nn Syntactic value in
psalmodic books.
Some overlap of prosodic and psalmodic
is attested, e.g. pashta (Psalms 52:7,
103:1, 17), tevir (Psalms 103:46). A
null value (00) could be assigned in such
exceptional cases.
Case 1-2 Sublinear or
superlinear.
Degr16
0-6 Value of diatonic
scale degree.
Values of signs are expressed as a
formula relative to the tonic, which is
alone defined as an absolute value. The
tonic needs to be defined both in the
scale (0) and as a sign (silluk), here or in
the Mode/Tonic property:
TonicValu = 0
TonicValu x (0-6)
ActvSublValu y (0-6)
A few signs (such as silluk, munakh, and
galgal) may need to be assigned an
override (absolute) DispNote value.
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Database 23
Datum Property Expression Description Remarks
Rthm 96, 48, 24, 12,
08, 06, 03
Whole, half, quarter,
eighth, triplet,
sixteenth, thirty-
second notes.
DispNote 0-11 or MIDI
value per
Rthm.
Integer/MIDI notation
of the 12 notes of the
chromatic scale per
rhythm. For display
options see 4.7 au-
dessous
Determined by Mode and Tonic
properties of the book and Degr
property of the tonic and sign in
conjunction with the Rthm property of
the sign. May occasionally be
determined by an override value (such as
silluk, munakh, and galgal). MIDI
notation has the advantage of identifying
the octave.
3.4.2 Cantillation Mark Properties
The metrical division of cantillation marks into prosodic and psalmodic signs (based on
the books of the Bible in which they occur), the syntactic distinction between disjunctive
and conjunctive signs, and the hierarchy of signs within each of these groups, are a priori assumptions necessary to the creation of the database. The goal of Cantillizer is to test,
confirm, refute, and refine these and other assumptions about cantillation marks. As the
system is implemented and tested, a loopback of information (or reverse engineering)
will take place. For example, the hierarchy indicated by the ProsSyn and PslmSyn
columns in the following table is based on traditional (non-distributional) analysis of
cantillation marks, methods by and large untested in statistical models enabled by
computer technology. Once more rigorous data is available through use of Cantillizer,
some signs may well be promoted or demoted depending on the results of distributional
analysis. More radical changes, including the rejection of the metrical (prosodic/-
psalmodic) and/or the syntactic (disjunctive/conjunctive) distinctions, are not to be ruled
out in advance. Cantillizer will most likely provide data that necessitates the
modification of the system.
The examples in the following table of cantillation marks display GIF images of the
Hebrew letter mem ( ) in 24 point Ezra SIL SR font. The names and even the forms of
the signs vary considerably in the literature, including but not limited to differences in the
Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions. Allographs are attested within the same font family:
MenuName Ezra SIL SR Ezra SIL
Zarka, Tsinor
Little Pazer
Darga
Transliteration is intended only to help readers of English recognize and pronounce the
names of the cantillation marks, and does not mean to imply anything about Hebrew
phonetics or orthography. The spelling kh represents the phoneme [x] as -ch in Bach.17
.
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Database 24
The abbreviations in the DispName column make some effort to account for
unvocalized Hebrew spelling, so vowels are most often suppressed.
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Database 25
Syn
Pro
sS
yn
Pslm
Syn
SN
um
(a-Z
)
Dis
pN
am
e
Me
nu
Nam
e
UT
F8 N
am
e
UT
F8
Dec
(14-)
UT
F8 H
ex
(05-)
Sig
n
Ali
n
Case
Deg
r
Rth
m
Issu
es
Disj 25 18 Atnk Atnakh Etnahta 25 91
Posv Subl TonicValu + 3 24
Disj 24 NA Sgol Segolta Segol 26 92
Post Supl ActvSublValu - 1
ActvSublValu
ActvSublValu - 1
08 Haïk-Vantoura claims that segolta is always preceded by zarka.
Conj NA 02 LtSl
Slsl
Little Shalshelet
Shalshelet
Shalshelet 27 93
Posv Supl ActvSublValu - 2
ActvSublValu - 2
ActvSublValu - 1
08 In musical configuration display and process shalshelet
Second and third values represent chromatic intervals (not diatonic
degrees).
Disj 23 12 GtSl
Slsl
Great Shalshelet
Shalshelet
Shalshelet 27;72 93;C0
Posv Supl ActvSublValu - 2
ActvSublValu - 2
ActvSublValu - 1
08 Lower syntactic value (less than revia, tsinor, little pazer) in psalmodic
books.
In musical configuration display and process shalshelet.
Second and third values represent chromatic intervals (not diatonic degrees).
Disj 22 NA LtZk Little Zakef Zaqef Qatan 28 94
Posv Supl ActvSublValu - 1 24
Disj 21 NA GtZk Great Zakef Zaqef Gadol 29 95
Posv Supl ActvSublValu - 1
ActvSublValu - 2
12
Conj NA 08 Trka Tarkha Tipeha 30 96
Posv Subl TonicValu + 2 24 Homograph of prosodic tifkha.
Disj 20 NA Tfka Tifkha Tipeha 30 96
Posv Subl TonicValu + 2 24 Homograph of psalmodic tarkha.
Disj 19 17 Rvia
GtRv
LtRv
Revia18 Revia 31 97
Posv Supl ActvSublValu
ActvSublValu - 1
ActvSublValu - 1
12
24
In musical configuration display and process great revia in prosodic and little
revia in psalmodic.
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Database 26
Syn
Pro
sS
yn
Pslm
Syn
SN
um
(a-Z
)
Dis
pN
am
e
Me
nu
Nam
e
UT
F8 N
am
e
UT
F8
Dec
(14-)
UT
F8 H
ex
(05-)
Sig
n
Ali
n
Case
Deg
r
Rth
m
Issu
es
Conj NA 01 Tnri Tsinorit Zarqa 32 98
Prep Supl ActvSublValu - 1
ActvSublValu + 1
12
Disj 17 NA Psta Pashta Pashta 33 99
Post Supl ActvSublValu + 1 24
Disj 17 NA Psta
RdPs
Pashta
Reduplicated
Pashta
Pashta 33;33
48;33
99;99
A8;99
Post Supl ActvSublValu + 1
ActvSublValu + 1
12 In syntactic configuration display and process pashta.
In musical configuration display and process reduplicated pashta.
Disj 16 NA Ytiv Yetiv Yetiv 34 9A
Prep Subl TonicValu + 5 24
Disj 15 NA Tvir Tevir Tevir 35 9B
Posv Subl TonicValu - 1 24
Disj 14 NA Grsh Geresh Geresh 3619 9C
Posv Supl ActvSublValu + 2 24
Disj NA 16 RvMg
GrMk
Revia Mugrash
Geresh Mukdam
Geresh
Muqdam
3720 9D
Prep Supl ActvSublValu + 2 24 In syntactic configuration display and process revia mugrash. Ignore following revia.
In musical configuration display and process geresh mukdam. Display
and process following revia as distinct sign.
Disj 13 NA DbGr Double Geresh Gershayim 38 9E
Posv Supl ActvSublValu + 2
ActvSublValu
ActvSublValu + 2
08
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Database 27
Syn
Pro
sS
yn
Pslm
Syn
SN
um
(a-Z
)
Dis
pN
am
e
Me
nu
Nam
e
UT
F8 N
am
e
UT
F8
Dec
(14-)
UT
F8 H
ex
(05-)
Sig
n
Ali
n
Case
Deg
r
Rth
m
Issu
es
Disj 11 NA GtPz Great Pazer Qarney Para 39 9F
Posv Supl ActvSublValu + 3
ActvSublValu + 2
ActvSublValu + 1
ActvSublValu
ActvSublValu
ActvSublValu + 1
ActvSublValu + 2
ActvSublValu + 3
03 In musical configuration fourth and fifth values are combined in one sixteenth note (06), if possible.
Disj 10 NA GtTl Great Telisha Telisha
Gedola
40 A0
Prep Supl ActvSublValu + 3
ActvSublValu + 2
ActvSublValu + 1
08
Disj 12 13 LtPz Little Pazer Pazer 41 A1
Posv Supl ActvSublValu + 2
ActvSublValu + 1
12
Conj 08 06 Mnkh Munakh Munah 43 A3
Posv Subl TonicValu + 4 24 May be determined by an override value (B) in DispNote property.
Probably not necessary.
Disj 09 NA MnLg
Mnkh
Munakh Legarmeh
Munakh
Munah 43;72 A3;C0
Posv Subl TonicValu + 4 24 In musical configuration legarmeh constructions display and process without pasek.
May be determined by an override value (B) in DispNote property. Probably not necessary.
Conj 07 04 Mhpk Mehupakh Mahapakh 44 A4
Posv Subl TonicValu + 5 24
Disj NA 10 MhLg
Mhpk
Mehupakh
Legarmeh
Mehupakh
Mahapakh 44;72 A4;C0
Posv Subl TonicValu + 5 24 In musical configuration legarmeh constructions display and process without
pasek.
Conj 06 09 Mrka Merekha Merkha 45 A5
Posv Subl TonicValu + 1 24 Higher syntactic value (greater than mehupakh, munakh) in psalmodic books.
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Database 28
Syn
Pro
sS
yn
Pslm
Syn
SN
um
(a-Z
)
Dis
pN
am
e
Me
nu
Nam
e
UT
F8 N
am
e
UT
F8
Dec
(14-)
UT
F8 H
ex
(05-)
Sig
n
Ali
n
Case
Deg
r
Rth
m
Issu
es
Conj 05 NA DbMr Double Merekha Merkha Kefula
46 A6
Posv Subl TonicValu - 1
TonicValu + 1
12
Conj 04 NA Drga Darga Darga 47 A7
Posv Subl TonicValu - 2 24
Conj 03 07 Azla Azla Qadma 48 A8
Posv Supl ActvSublValu + 1 24 Higher syntactic value (greater than mehupakh, munakh) in psalmodic books.
Disj NA 11 AzLg
Azla
Azla Legarmeh
Azla
Qadma 48;72 A8;C0
Posv Supl ActvSublValu + 1 24 In musical configuration legarmeh constructions display and process without
pasek.
Conj 02 NA LtTl Little Telisha Telisha Qetana
49 A9
Post Supl ActvSublValu + 1
ActvSublValu + 2
ActvSublValu + 3
08
Conj 01 03 Glgl Galgal Yerah Ben Yomo
50 AA
Posv Subl TonicValu - 1 24 May be determined by an override value (D#) in DispNote property. Probably
necessary only in prosodic mode.
Disj NA 19 OlVy Ole Veyored Ole 51;45 AB;A5
Prep Supl ActvSublValu + 3
ActvSublValu
12 In syntactic configuration display and process ole veyored. Ignore following merekha.
In musical configuration display and process ole veyored. Display and
process following merekha as distinct sign.
Conj NA 05 Iluy Iluy Iluy 52 AC
Posv Supl ActvSublValu + 4
ActvSublValu - 3
24 Iluy rises four degrees if the active sublinear sign is tarkha (G or lower), falls
three degrees if the active sublinear sign is atnakh (A or higher).
Disj NA 14 Dkhi Dekhi Dehi 53 AD
Prep Subl TonicValu + 2 24
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Database 29
Syn
Pro
sS
yn
Pslm
Syn
SN
um
(a-Z
)
Dis
pN
am
e
Me
nu
Nam
e
UT
F8 N
am
e
UT
F8
Dec
(14-)
UT
F8 H
ex
(05-)
Sig
n
Ali
n
Case
Deg
r
Rth
m
Issu
es
Disj NA 15 Tnor Tsinor Tipeha 54 AE
Post Supl ActvSublValu - 1
ActvSublValu + 1
12 Homograph of prosodic zarka.
Disj 18 NA Zrka Zarka Tipeha 5421 AE
Post Supl ActvSublValu - 1
ActvSublValu + 1
12 Homograph of psalmodic tsinor.
Haïk-Vantoura claims that zarka is almost always followed by segolta.
NA NA NA NA
Gaya
NA
Gaya
Meteg 69 BD
Posv Subl TonicValu 24 In syntactic configuration meteg is ignored.
In musical configuration display and process gaya, equivalent in value to
silluk (tonic).
Disj 26 20 Sluk Silluk22 Meteg 69 BD
Posv Subl TonicValu 24 Tonic may be determined by an override value (E) in DispNote property.
Probably not necessary.
NA NA NA NA NA Maqaf 70 BE NA NA NA NA NA
NA NA NA NA NA Paseq 72 C0 NA NA NA NA NA
NA NA NA NA NA Word Break ? ? NA NA NA NA NA
NA NA NA NA NA NBSP 0160 00A0 NA NA NA NA NA
NA NA NA NA NA Stich Break ? ? NA NA NA NA 24 Dummy sign to indicate stich breaks. Should be ignored in Posn property.
In syntactic configuration display || (2 horizontal bars).
In musical configuration display // (2 slashes on the top line of the staff).
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Database 30
3.4.3 Active Sublinear Sign Arguments
At each position in the verse, one sublinear sign is considered active. This argument is
necessary for the calculation of superlinear sign arguments (see 3.4.2 au-dessus). The
ActvSubl property defines the active sublinear sign per PNum property.
A sublinear sign is always active in the position it occupies. The following rules apply to
positions occupied by superlinear signs:
The preceding sublinear sign is considered active by default.
In position 1 of the verse (if it is not occupied by a sublinear sign), the preceding (and active)
sublinear sign is considered to be the last sublinear sign (almost always silluk) of the preceding
verse.
The following sublinear sign (usually gaya) is considered active. (This rule will not work,
as Aleppo does not always have gaya as the first sign in the verse.
Following a sublinear sign corresponding to more than 1 note values (such as double merekha),
the last note value is considered active.
3.4.4 Books of the Bible Properties
Men
uN
am
e
BN
um
Dis
pN
am
e
Cla
ss
Typ
e
Rem
ark
s
Genesis 01 Gen Pent Pros
Exodus 02 Exo Pent Pros
Leviticus 03 Lev Pent Pros
Numbers 04 Num Pent Pros
Deuteronomy 05 Deu Pent Pros
Joshua 06 Jos Prph Pros
Judges 07 Jud Prph Pros
1 Samuel 08 1Sa Prph Pros
2 Samuel 09 2Sa Prph Pros
1 Kings 10 1Ki Prph Pros
2 Kings 11 2Ki Prph Pros
Isaiah 12 Isa Prph Pros
Jeremiah 13 Jer Prph Pros
Ezekiel 14 Eze Prph Pros
Hosea 15 Hos Prph Pros
Joel 16 Joe Prph Pros
Amos 17 Amo Prph Pros
Obadiah 18 Oba Prph Pros
Jonah 19 Jon Prph Pros
Micah 20 Mic Prph Pros
Nahum 21 Nah Prph Pros
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Database 31
Men
uN
am
e
BN
um
Dis
pN
am
e
Cla
ss
Typ
e
Rem
ark
s
Habakkuk 22 Hab Prph Pros
Zephaniah 23 Zep Prph Pros
Haggai 24 Hag Prph Pros
Zechariah 25 Zec Prph Pros
Malachi 26 Mal Prph Pros
1 Chronicles 27 1Ch Hgph Pros
2 Chronicles 28 2Ch Hgph Pros
Psalms 29 Psa Hgph Pslm
Job (prologue) 30 Job Hgph Pros Chapters 1-3:1 are accessible from the Books of the Bible drop-down menu only through the All 8 Prosodic Hagiographa item.
Job (body) 31 Job Hgph Pslm Chapters 3:2-42:6
Job (epilogue) 32 Job Hgph Pros Chapter 42:7-17 is accessible from the Books of the Bible drop-down menu only through the All 8 Prosodic Hagiographa item.
Proverbs 33 Pro Hgph Pslm
Ruth 34 Rut Hgph Pros
Song of Songs 35 SoS Hgph Pros
Ecclesiastes 36 Ecc Hgph Pros
Lamentations 37 Lam Hgph Pros
Esther 38 Est Hgph Pros
Daniel 39 Dan Hgph Pros
Ezra 40 Ezr Hgph Pros
Nehemiah 41 Neh Hgph Pros
3.4.5 Known Problems
The Decalogue (Exodus 5:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21) attests two systems of cantillation
marks, often referred to as upper (or Babylonian) trope and lower (or Palestinian) trope.
Either/both are retained. (I haven’t looked at this at all.)
The following signs may be reduplicated: segolta, zarka (Isaiah 2:15, 26:5), great telisha (2 Kings
17:24), little telisha (Genesis 48:7, Deuteronomy 21:13, Jeremiah 11:10, Esther 6:13), tsinor,
and dekhi. If so, proceed as with pashta in 3.3.2 au-dessus.
Prepositive signs (such as geresh and dekhi) tend to get reversed with the following sign in the
conversion to Unicode decimal notation.
The Internal Silluk
There should be only a dozen or fewer occurrences of the internal silluk, variously listed
as:
Genesis 35:1 (Aleppo)
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Database 32
Genesis 35:22 (BHS)
Exodus 20:2 ff. (Aleppo & BHS)
Deuteronomy 5:3 (Aleppo)
Deuteronomy 5:6 ff. (BHS)
Isaiah 44:4 (Aleppo)
Most or all of these passages seem to be cases of double punctuation.
David Robinson and Elisabeth Levy comment:
Meteg is used to mark the secondary tone, reminding the reader to give its vowel full
pronunciation. In BHS meteg is also used sometimes to help the reader distinguish a short
o from a long a. An identical mark is used for the punctuation character Silluq. In fact
several of the accents do ―double duty‖ in this way, but there is always a clear algorithm
to distinguish their use […]
Silluq is the strongest disjunctive accent, the equivalent of a modern full stop. It is written
as a vertical bar under the tone syllable of the last word in a sentence. In appearance it is
exactly the same as meteg. In the vast majority of cases, silluq is written under the word
immediately before sof passuq (:) so it is usually redundant as a punctuation mark. But
the Masoretes made good use of it in a few cases where they disagreed with the sentence
divisions they had inherited from earlier rabbis. In Gen 35.22, for example, the end of the
verse is doubly accented. The earlier rabbis had not placed a sof passuq between ―and
Israel heard it‖ and ―the sons of Jacob were twelve‖, although the structure of the
narrative clearly requires one--it seems likely that this was a rather delicate means of
passing over an unpleasant subject by minimising its emphasis. The Masoretes were not
free to insert a sof passuq, and they obediently pointed the text in the form they had
received it, but also inserted silluq at the end of ―and Israel heard it‖ to indicate that there
should have been a verse division at that point. Similar emendations of the traditional
verse structure are to be found in Ex 20.2ff and Deut 5.6ff. With these exceptions silluq is
always the last accent on a word. Any mark which appears before it is to be ignored for
the purposes of punctuation.
This beautiful commentary seems cogent, but unfortunately the authors do not specify
their ―clear algorithm‖. One such rule might obtain, according to Helmut Richter: ―Meteg
vs. Silluq. Silluq (as part of Sof Pasuq) occurs only as last mark before the colon-shaped
Sof Pasuq whereas Meteg is never the last cantillation mark in a word.‖
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Application 33
4 Application
The best approach is to create a system of Configurations that in turn determine the
display, find, search, sort, analysis, pattern recognition, and graphics parameters. Users
select a configuration (or use the default syntactic configuration) and then make queries
without having to use too many different radio and toolbar buttons. The configuration,
which may be changed at any time, determines which menus and buttons appear in the
toolbars and dialogs or which objects and items are enabled. (For details on configuration
see 4.3 au-dessous).
In all three configurations Cantillizer integrates the metrical distinction between
prosodic and psalmodic books of the Bible (see 4.8.2 au-dessous). Most users (traditional
Bible students) require the default configuration, observing the syntactic (disjunctive/-
conjunctive) distinction, while other users, musical (sublinear/superlinear or case
distinction) and freeform (no distinction between signs beyond prosodic/psalmodic), will
seldom change configuration, once they have made their selection.
Development schedule:
1. Create database and interface to accommodate all three configurations.
2. Create capabilities for syntactic configuration, the default configuration.
3. Test thoroughly and rigorously. Great shalshelet, merekha, and azla should be slated for extensive
testing to confirm hierarchy.
4. Adjust database according to data returned in syntactic configuration, if necessary.
5. Add capabilities to enable musical configuration.
6. Test thoroughly and rigorously.
7. Adjust database according to data returned in musical configuration, if necessary.
Given the complexity of musical configuration, it may be prudent to postpone implementation of
freeform configuration indefinitely.
8. Add capabilities to enable freeform configuration.
9. Test thoroughly and rigorously.
10. Adjust database according to data returned in freeform configuration, if necessary.
4.1 Graphical User Interface
4.1.1 Main Screen
Use the Cantillizer menus and toolbars to define data sources, select display settings,
query database, sort results, perform analyses (syntactic, musical, or freeform), recognize
patterns, and create graphics.
Figure 4-1 Cantillizer Main Screen (next page)
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Application 34
CantillizerCantillizer
AzlaDargaDouble MerekhaGalgalIlluyLittle ShalsheletLittle TelishaMehupakhMerekhaMunakhTarkhaTsinorit
UltimatePenultimateAntepenultimatePreantepenultimatePreterpreantepenultimate
SearchSort by Verse/
Hierarchy
AtnakhAzla LegarmehDekhiDouble GereshGereshGreat PazerGreat ShalsheletGreat TelishaGreat ZakefLittle PazerLittle ZakefMehupakh LegarmehMunakh LegarmehOle VeyoredPashtaReviaRevia MugrashSegoltaSillukTevirTifkhaTsinorYetivZarka
File Edit View Format Tools Window Help
Show/Hide Conjunctive
Signs
Verse/Stich Display
No verses displayed. No disjunctive sign displayed.
Export to Excel
No conjunctive sign position displayed. No patterns displayed.No conjunctive sign displayed.
Charts & Graphs
Pattern/Verse
Display
AtnakhDargaDekhiDouble MerekhaGalgalGayaMehupakhMerekhaMunakhSillukTarkhaTevirTifkhaYetiv
AzlaDouble GereshGereshGeresh MukdamGreat PazerGreat ReviaGreat TelishaGreat ZakefIlluyLittle PazerLittle ReviaLittle TelishaLittle ZakefOle VeyoredPashtaReduplicated PashtaSegoltaShalsheletTsinorTsinoritZarka
Display Statistics as
Integer/Percentage
1st postpositive2nd postpositive3rd postpositive4th postpositive5th postpositive
Books of the Bible
Find
All Prosodic BooksAll Psalmodic BooksAll PentateuchAll ProphetsAll Prosodic HagiographaGenesis (Pentateuch)ExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshua (Prophets)Judges1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 KingsIsaiahJeremiahEzekielHosea (Minor Prophets)JoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachi1 Chronicles (Hagiographa)2 ChroniclesPsalmsJob (psalmodic)ProverbsRuthSong of SongsEcclesiastesLamentationsEstherDanielEzraNehemiah
Show/Hide Superlinear
Signs
Pattern Recognition
Disjunctive Signs Conjunctive Signs Conjunctive Sign Position Sublinear Signs Superlinear Signs Superlinear Sign Position
AnalyzeConfiguration
Chapter
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Application 35
The above image was created in such a way as to show the full menu contents. The actual
GUI should contain three toolbars, the Cantillizer toolbar, the Syntactic Analysis
toolbar, and the Musical Analysis toolbar. Configuration selection determines which of
the last two toolbars is enabled. The two analysis toolbars may be two halves of the same
physical toolbar, as space allows.
4.1.2 Cantillizer Toolbar
Books of the Bible drop-down menu
Chapter drop-down menu
Configuration button (opens Configuration dialog box)
Find Verses button
Search for Signs button (opens Search for Verses dialog box)
Sort Data by Verse/Hierarchy toggle button
Previous button
Next button
Analyze button
Display Statistics as Integer/Percentage toggle button
Pattern Recognition button
Pattern/Verse Display toggle button
Charts & Graphs button (possibly disabled in this version)
Print button
Export to Tab-Delineated Text File button (necessary for export to music editor)
4.1.3 Syntactic Analysis Toolbar
Disjunctive Signs drop-down menu
Conjunctive Signs drop-down menu
Conjunctive Sign Position drop-down menu
Verse/Stich Display toggle button (not relevant to and confusing in musical configuration)
Show/Hide Conjunctive Signs toggle button
4.1.4 Musical Analysis Toolbar
Sublinear Signs drop-down menu
Superlinear Signs drop-down menu
Superlinear Sign Position drop-down menu
Show/Hide Superlinear Signs toggle button
Display Letter Notes/Fixed-Do/Signs radio buttons
4.2 Menus
A fairly simple, console-style GUI is probably sufficient, making use (primarily or
exclusively) of toolbar buttons. The menu bar menus may be informed as necessary.
Conventions for commands, tools, utilities, and their shortcuts/hotkeys should be
observed to the extent possible.
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Application 36
4.2.1 File
4.2.2 Edit
4.2.3 View
4.2.4 Format
4.2.5 Tools
4.2.6 Window
4.2.7 Help
Documentation will probably be the final version of this document in PDF format.
4.3 Configuration
Cantillizer fully supports two different interpretations of cantillation marks, the
traditional rabbinical syntactic and semantic theory based on the historical distinction
between disjunctive and conjunctive signs, and the music theory of Suszanne Haïk-
Vantoura based on the empirical case distinction between sublinear and superlinear signs.
In addition Cantillizer supports freeform analysis, which makes no such distinction
between signs. Each of these configurations observes the metrical distinction, treating
signs in the prosodic and psalmodic books differently. Configuration may be changed at
any time.
In the toolbar, press the Configuration button to open the Configuration dialog box
and set your preference for analysis.
Figure 4-2 Configuration Dialog Box
ConfigurationConfiguration
Syntactic analysis (disjunctive/conjunctive)
Freeform analysis
Musical analysis (sublinear/superlinear)
Perform:
OK
4.3.1 Syntactic Configuration (default)
The Disjunctive Signs and Conjunctive Signs drop-down menus are enabled upon selection
of books. Only signs occurring in selected books are enabled.
The Show/Hide Conjunctive Signs button is enabled.
The Conjunctive Sign Position drop-down menu is enabled upon selection of a conjunctive
sign. Only those positions in which the selected sign occurs are enabled.
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Application 37
The Analyze and Pattern Recognition buttons take into account the syntactic (disjunctive/-
conjunctive) distinction.
The following information appears in the status bar: No verses displayed (toggle stichs), No disjunctive sign displayed, No conjunctive sign displayed, No conjunctive sign position displayed, No patterns displayed.
The Position property is adjusted to exclude meteg and to count geresh mukdam + following
revia and ole veyored + following merekha as one sign each.
4.3.2 Musical configuration
The Sublinear Signs and Superlinear Signs drop-down menus are enabled upon selection of
books. Only signs occurring in selected books are enabled.
The Show/Hide Superlinear Signs button is enabled.
The Superlinear Sign Position drop-down menu is enabled upon selection of a superlinear
sign. Only those positions in which the selected sign occurs are enabled.
The Analyze and Pattern Recognition buttons take into account the musical (sublinear/-
superlinear) or case distinction.
The following information appears in the status bar: No verses displayed (toggle stichs), No sublinear sign displayed, No superlinear sign displayed, No superlinear sign position displayed, No patterns displayed.
4.3.3 Freeform Configuration
Syntactic configuration parameters (sign names and values) may also apply to freeform
configuration.
The All Signs drop-down menu is enabled upon selection of books. Only signs occurring in
selected books are enabled.
The Analyze and Pattern Recognition buttons take into account all prosodic or psalmodic
signs without distinction.
The following information appears in the status bar: No verses displayed (toggle stichs), No sign displayed, No patterns displayed.
The Position property is adjusted to exclude meteg and to count geresh mukdam + revia and
ole + merekha as one sign each.
4.4 Database Query
4.4-4.6 au-dessous assume that the syntactic (disjunctive/conjunctive) distinction obtains.
For more information on musical and freeform analysis, see 4.7 and 4.8 au-dessous.
4.4.1 Find Verses
To search database & display data:
1. In the Books of the Bible drop-down menu, click to select a biblical book or group of books in
which to search and display data.
Press Ctrl to multi-select, Shift to select range. You may select either prosodic or psalmodic
books only.
2. Press the Show/Hide Conjunctive Signs toggle button to show conjunctive signs.
3. Press the Verse/Stich Display toggle button to view stich display.
Verses are divided into stichs (a, b, c, d) by ole veyored or atnakh.
4. Press the Search button to display data.
The number of verses and stichs displayed appears in the status bar.
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Application 38
Assuming the options Show Conjunctive Signs and Stich Display, Cantillizer returns data
as follows:
X Stichs Position 1 Position 2 Position 3 Position 4 Position 5 Position 6
SoS 6:1a 27 Yetiv 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:1b 27 Yetiv 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:2a 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:2b 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:3a 16 Mehupakh 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:4a 12 Azla 16 Mehupakh Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:4b 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:5a 16 Mehupakh 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 15 Merekha 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:5b 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:6a 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:6b 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
By default data is sorted in ascending order by book (as in the Books of the Bible
menu), chapter, verse, and stich.
[Color scheme is wrong. Workspace and data should appear in some standard DB format.
A color distinction. between conjunctive (superlinear) (gray?) and disjunctive (sublinear)
signs only is necessary. ProsSyn and PslmSyn (defined in 3.4.2 au-dessus) are
necessary in display so that user understands sorting. ProsSyn, PslmSyn, and
DispName should be non-proportional font so that columns are fixed width]
4.4.2 Search for Signs
TBD
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Application 39
Figure 4-3 Search for Signs Dialog Box
Search for SignsSearch for Signs
Disjunctive Signs
AtnakhAzla LegarmehDekhiDouble GereshGereshGreat PazerGreat ShalsheletGreat TelishaGreat ZakefLittle PazerLittle ZakefMehupakh LegarmehMunakh LegarmehOle VeyoredPashtaReviaRevia MugrashSegoltaSillukTevirTifkhaTsinorYetivZarka
Disjunctive Signs
Disjunctive Signs
Disjunctive Signs
Disjunctive Signs
Books of the Bible
All 21 Prosodic BooksAll 3 Psalmodic BooksAll 5 Pentateuch (prosodic)All 8 Prophets (prosodic)All 8 Prosodic HagiographaGenesis (Pentateuch)ExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshua (Prophets)Judges1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 KingsIsaiahJeremiahEzekielHosea (Minor Prophets)JoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachi1 Chronicles (Hagiographa)2 ChroniclesPsalms (psalmodic)Job (psalmodic)Proverbs (psalmodic)RuthSong of SongsEcclesiastesLamentationsEstherDanielEzraNehemiah
Disjunctive Signs
Find Verses
Find Patterns
Exact sequence
And
And
AndOrWithout
And
OrWithout
In the Books of the Bible drop-down menu press Ctrl to multi-select, Shift to select
range. You may select either prosodic or psalmodic books only.
The Disjunctive Signs menu is enabled upon selection of books. Selection of a sign
enables the Exact sequence drop-down menu and opens/enables another Disjunctive Signs drop-down menu. Selection of another sign opens/enables the corresponding And
drop-down menu. User should be able to select at least five or six signs.
In syntactic configuration (default) the Disjunctive Signs drop-down menu appears. Only signs
occurring in selected books are enabled.
In musical configuration the Sublinear Signs drop-down menu appears. Only signs occurring in
selected books are enabled.
In freeform configuration the All Signs drop-down menu appears. Only signs occurring in
selected books are enabled.
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Application 40
The Find Verses and Find Patterns buttons are enabled upon selection of signs. Press
either the Find Verses or the Find Patterns button.
For best results select at least 2 or 3 signs. Select either the Exact sequence or the And item.
To find multiple occurrences of the same sign per verse, select the same sign more than once. Select either the Exact sequence (for consecutive occurrences) or the And (for all multiple occurrences) item.
The Exact sequence drop-down menu occurs only once. If you select this (default) item, no And drop-down menus will appear below. If you unselect it, they will appear.
4.4.3 Sort Data
Use the Cantillizer toolbar to define data sorting options. In the text that follows, the
term hierarchy refers to ProsSyn and PslmSyn defined in 3.4.2 au-dessus.
To sort data by hierarchy of signs:
1. Perform data search, as in 4.4.1 au-dessus.
2. In the toolbar, press the Sort by Verse/Hierarchy toggle button to sort data in descending order
by hierarchy of signs per column from right to left. (Tiebreaker is ascending order by book,
chapter, verse, and stich.)
Cantillizer sorts data as follows:
X Stichs Position 1 Position 2 Position 3 Position 4 Position 5 Position 6
SoS 6:3a 16 Mehupakh 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:4a 12 Azla 16 Mehupakh 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:5a 16 Mehupakh 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 15 Merekha 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:5b 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:1b 27 Yetiv 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:2a 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:6a 28 Pashta 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:1a 27 Yetiv 17 Munakh 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
SoS 6:2b 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:6b 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
SoS 6:4b 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
3. Click any column header to toggle between ascending and descending (default) order by hierarchy
of signs in that column.
4. Repeat as desired for additional columns. Sorting is nested, i.e. previous sorting is retained.
5. Press the Sort by Verse/Hierarchy toggle button to clear sorting and revert to ascending order
by book, chapter, verse, and stich.
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Application 41
4.4.4 Compare Signs
add feature, compare distribution of 2 signs.
only syntactic config
only disjunctive signs (?)
only following sign of greater value (recursive!?!)
1,7 x 500 = 50%
1,8 x 250 = 25%
1,9 x 250 = 25%
2,8 x 1 = 10% (10% same)
2,9 x 9 = 90% (25% same)
= 35% similar distribution of 1 and 2
This algorithm must eventually be used to reverse engineer sign hierarchy, moving
backwards from verse break to stich break (caesura)...
Also move forward from verse beginning, 1st sign is value 1, second sign is value 2, third
sign is value 3, until recurrence of 1st sign, then recommence...
Final sign hierarchy algorithm:
value = average value of following sign of higher value -1.
Typical example, from the Song of Songs:
pashta, little zakef, tifkha, atnakh, pashta, little zakef, tifkha, silluk
Values:
Silluk = 5
Atnakh = 4
Tifkha = 3.5 ([5+4]/2-1
Little zakef = 2.5
Pashta = 1.5
4.5 Syntactic Analysis
Statistics are provided per book and per user-defined group of books. Use the Cantillizer toolbar to define data processing and statistics options.
4.5.1 Disjunctive Statistics
To obtain disjunctive statistics:
1. Perform data search, as in 4.4.1 au-dessus, selecting the Hide Conjunctive Signs option.
2. In the toolbar, press the Analyze button to display statistics.
3. Press the Integer/Percentage Display toggle button to view percentage display.
Occurrences of sign x following or preceding sign y are displayed as a percentage of total
occurrences of sign x..
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Application 42
Statistical analysis provides the following data for the selected book or books:
Number of occurrences of each disjunctive sign following and preceding each disjunctive sign.
The following table illustrates such a display of statistics for five common signs:
Sign 28 Pashta 31 Tifkha 33 Little Zakef 36 Atnakh 37 Silluk
Occurrences # # # # #
Environment Follows Precedes Follows Precedes Follows Precedes Follows Precedes Follows Precedes
28 Pashta # # # # # # # # # #
31 Tifkha # # # # # # # # # #
33 Little
Zakef
# # # # # # # # # #
36 Atnakh # # # # # # # # # #
37 Silluk # # # # # # # # # #
Verse break # # # # # # # # # #
Default sorting is in ascending order of hierarchy. Data may be sorted in ascending or
descending order by the frequency of any (or all cumulatively) of the
Follows/Precedes columns by clicking the desired column header.
4.5.2 Conjunctive Statistics by Sign
To obtain conjunctive statistics by sign:
1. Perform data search, as in 4.4.1 au-dessus, selecting the Show Conjunctive Signs option.
2. In the Conjunctive Sign menu, click to select the sign whose statistics you wish to obtain.
3. Press the Analyze button to display statistics.
The name of the selected conjunctive sign appears in the status bar.
Statistical analysis provides the following data for the selected book or books:
Number of occurrences of the selected conjunctive sign in each position preceding each
disjunctive sign.
The following table illustrates such a display of statistics for munakh:
Preterpreantepenultimate Preantepenultimate Antepenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Disjunctive
# # # # # 37 Silluk
# # # # # 36 Atnakh
# # # # # 35 Segolta
# # # # # 34 Great
Shalshelet
# # # # # 33 Little
Zakef
# # # # # 32 Great
Zakef
# # # # # 31 Tifkha
# # # # # 30 Revia
# # # # # 29 Zarka
# # # # # 28 Pashta
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Application 43
Preterpreantepenultimate Preantepenultimate Antepenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Disjunctive
# # # # # 27 Yetiv
# # # # # 26 Tevir
# # # # # 25 Geresh
# # # # # 24 Double
Geresh
# # # # # 23 Little
Pazer
# # # # # 22 Great
Pazer
# # # # # 21 Great
Telisha
# # # # # 20 Munakh
Legarmeh
Default sorting is descending order by column from right to left. Data may be sorted in
ascending or descending order by the frequency of any (or all by nested sorting) of the
columns by clicking the desired column header.
4.5.3 Conjunctive Statistics per Disjunctive Sign
To obtain conjunctive statistics per disjunctive sign:
1. Perform data search, as in 4.4.1 au-dessus, selecting the Show Conjunctive Signs option.
2. In the Disjunctive Sign menu, click to select the sign whose statistics you wish to obtain.
3. Press the Analyze button to display statistics.
The name of the selected disjunctive sign appears in the status bar.
Statistical analysis provides the following data for the selected book or books:
Number of occurrences of each conjunctive sign in each position preceding the selected
disjunctive sign.
The following table illustrates such a display of statistics for atnakh:
Conjunctive Preterpreantepenultimate Preantepenultimate Antepenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Disjunctive
17 Munakh # # # # # 36 Atnakh
16
Mehupakh
# # # # # 36 Atnakh
15 Merekha # # # # # 36 Atnakh
14 Double
Merekha
# # # # # 36 Atnakh
13 Darga # # # # # 36 Atnakh
12 Azla # # # # # 36 Atnakh
11 Little
Telisha
# # # # # 36 Atnakh
10 Galgal # # # # # 36 Atnakh
Default sorting is descending order by column from right to left. Data may be sorted in
ascending or descending order by Conjunctive or by the frequency of any (or all by
nested sorting) of the columns by clicking the desired column header.
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Application 44
4.5.4 Conjunctive Statistics by Sign per Position & per Disjunctive Sign
To obtain conjunctive statistics by sign per position & per disjunctive sign:
1. Perform data search, as in 4.4.1 au-dessus, selecting the Show Conjunctive Signs option.
2. In the Disjunctive Sign menu, click to select the sign whose statistics you wish to obtain.
3. In the Conjunctive Sign menu, click to select the sign whose statistics you wish to obtain.
4. In the Conjunctive Sign Position menu, click to select the desired position:
Ultimate (last before disjunctive sign)
Penultimate (last but one before disjunctive sign)
Antepenultimate (last but two before disjunctive sign)
Preantepenultimate (last but three before disjunctive sign)
Preterpreantepenultimate (last but four before disjunctive sign)
Only those positions in which the selected sign occurs in the selected books are enabled.
I don’t think the occurrence of six consecutive conjunctive signs is attested.
5. Press the Analyze button to display statistics.
The name of the selected disjunctive sign, and the name and position of the selected conjunctive
sign appear in the status bar.
Statistical analysis provides the following data for the selected book or books:
Number of occurrences of each conjunctive sign in each position surrounding the selected
conjunctive sign in the selected position and preceding the selected disjunctive sign.
The following table illustrates such a display of statistics for munakh in the ultimate
position preceding atnakh:
Conjunctive Preterpreantepenultimate Preantepenultimate Antepenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Disjunctive
17 Munakh # # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
16
Mehupakh
# # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
15 Merekha # # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
14 Double
Merekha
# # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
13 Darga # # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
12 Azla # # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
11 Little
Telisha
# # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
10 Galgal # # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
Default sorting is descending order by column from right to left, excluding the
disjunctive sign and the selected conjunctive position. Data may be sorted in ascending or
descending order by the frequency of any (or all by nested sorting) of the columns by
clicking the desired column header.
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Application 45
4.6 Syntactic Pattern Recognition
Pattern recognition is provided per book and per user-defined group of books. Use the
Cantillizer toolbar to define pattern recognition settings.
4.6.1 Disjunctive Patterns
To perform disjunctive pattern recognition:
1. Perform data analysis to obtain disjunctive statistics, as in 4.5.1 au-dessus.
2. For best results, in the toolbar, select the Stich Display option.
3. Press the Pattern Recognition button to display patterns.
The number of patterns displayed appears in the status bar.
4. Click to select a row, and press the Pattern/Verse Display toggle button to view the verses
corresponding to the selected pattern.
Pattern recognition provides the following data for the selected book or books:
25 most frequently attested patterns of disjunctive signs.
To view more patterns, press the Next button.
The following table illustrates such a display of patterns:
Occurrences Position 1 Position 2 Position 3 Position 4
# 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 37 Silluk
# 28 Pashta 33 Little Zakef 31 Tifkha 36 Atnakh
Default sorting is descending order by occurrences of pattern. Data may be sorted in
ascending or descending order by the frequency of any (or all by nested sorting) of the
position columns by clicking the desired column header.
4.6.2 Disjunctive Patterns by Sign
TBD. This command filters results so that only patterns including pashta, little zakef,
and/or tifkha, for example, are displayed. This is performed using the Search for Signs
dialog box in 4.4.2.
4.6.3 Conjunctive Patterns by Sign per Position
To perform conjunctive pattern recognition by sign per position:
1. Perform data analysis to obtain conjunctive statistics by sign, as in 4.5.2 au-dessus.
2. In the Conjunctive Sign Position menu, click to select the desired position:
Ultimate (last before disjunctive sign)
Penultimate (last but one before disjunctive sign)
Antepenultimate (last but two before disjunctive sign)
Preantepenultimate (last but three before disjunctive sign)
Preterpreantepenultimate (last but four before disjunctive sign)
Only those positions in which the selected sign occurs in the selected books are enabled.
3. In the toolbar, press the Pattern Recognition button to display patterns.
The name of the selected conjunctive sign and the number of patterns displayed appear in the
status bar.
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Application 46
4. Click to select a row, and press the Pattern/Verse Display toggle button to view the verses
corresponding to the selected pattern.
Pattern recognition provides the following data for the selected book or books:
25 most frequently attested patterns of surrounding conjunctive signs and the disjunctive sign
following the selected conjunctive sign in the selected position.
To view more patterns, press the Next button.
The following table illustrates such a display of patterns for munakh in the ultimate
position, i.e. immediately preceding a disjunctive sign:
Occurrences Preterpreantepenultimate Preantepenultimate Antepenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Disjunctive
# 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
# 17
Munakh
33 Little
Zakef
Default sorting is descending order by occurrences of pattern. Data may be sorted in
ascending or descending order by the frequency of any (or all by nested sorting) of the
position columns by clicking the desired column header.
4.6.4 Conjunctive Patterns per Disjunctive Sign
To perform conjunctive pattern recognition per disjunctive sign:
1. Perform data analysis to obtain conjunctive statistics per disjunctive sign, as in 4.5.3 au-dessus.
2. In the toolbar, press the Pattern Recognition button to display patterns.
The name of the selected disjunctive sign and the number of patterns displayed appear in the status
bar.
3. Click to select a row, and press the Pattern/Verse Display toggle button to view the verses
corresponding to the selected pattern.
Pattern recognition provides the following data for the selected book or books:
25 most frequently attested patterns of conjunctive signs preceding the selected disjunctive sign.
To view more patterns, press the Next button.
The following table illustrates such a display of patterns for atnakh:
Occurrences Preterpreantepenultimate Preantepenultimate Antepenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Disjunctive
# 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
# 15
Merekha
36 Atnakh
Default sorting is descending order by occurrences of pattern. Data may be sorted in
ascending or descending order by the frequency of any (or all by nested sorting) of the
position columns by clicking the desired column header.
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Application 47
4.6.5 Conjunctive Patterns by Sign per Position & per Disjunctive Sign
To perform conjunctive pattern recognition by sign per position & per disjunctive sign:
1. Perform data analysis to obtain conjunctive statistics by sign per position and per disjunctive sign,
as in 4.5.4 au-dessus.
2. In the toolbar, press the Pattern Recognition button to display patterns.
The name of the selected disjunctive sign and the number of patterns displayed appear in the status
bar.
3. Click to select a row, and press the Pattern/Verse Display toggle button to view the verses
corresponding to the selected pattern.
Pattern recognition provides the following data for the selected book or books:
25 most frequently attested patterns of conjunctive signs surrounding the selected conjunctive sign
in the selected position and preceding the selected disjunctive sign.
To view more patterns, press the Next button.
The following table illustrates such a display of statistics for munakh in the ultimate
position preceding atnakh:
Occurrences Preterpreantepenultimate Preantepenultimate Antepenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Disjunctive
# # # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
# # # # # 17
Munakh
36 Atnakh
4.7 Musical Analysis
The Sublinear Signs, Superlinear Signs, and Superlinear Sign Position drop-
down menus allow the user to perform analysis according to the biblical music theory of
Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura.
To perform musical analysis, in toolbar, press the Configuration button. In the
Configuration dialog box select the Musical analysis radio button. Find, search, sort,
statistical analysis, and pattern recognition all proceed as in 4.4-4.6 au-dessus with
sublinear signs replacing disjunctive signs and superlinear signs replacing conjunctive
signs. Keep in mind that the conjunctive sign depends on the following disjunctive sign,
while the superlinear sign depends on the preceding (active) sublinear sign.
Musical configuration sorts sublinear signs in descending order as follows: tonic,
supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, superdominant, subtonic. Superlinear
sorting?
Musical configuration output may be displayed in the following three notation systems,
by selecting a radio button from the music toolbar:
Letter notation (for export to music editors) Notation of accidentals?
Fixed-do (for European users) Notation of accidentals?
DispName property (sign names)
Display of Rthm property? (Note problem with Great Pazer.)
musical config use display feature (color?) to distinguish notes derived from sub/superlinear signs
and to distinguish consecutive ornaments, if applicable
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Application 48
4.7.1 Prosodic Mode & Scale
Cantillizer calculates note values by means of algorithms operating on the degrees of
the diatonic scales (corresponding to the sublinear signs) in the prosodic and psalmodic
modes (Figure 4-4 and Figure 4-8 below). The monody (both modes considered) spans
eleven degrees from middle C to F', a typical soprano vocal range of an octave and a half.
Tenor and bass cantors will sing one octave lower than indicated by the treble clefs
below, beginning on 'C.
Figure 4-4 Phrygian Mode Scale in C Major
6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6
Drga Tvir Sluk Mrka Tfka Atnk Mnkh
23 Mhpk
24
In her Music of the Bible Revealed Haïk-Vantoura analyzes the structure of this
In addition to these characteristics, the melody actually terminates (as the medieval
treatises on the te‘amim [cantillation marks] state) by progressing from high to low,
rather than low to high.* Nearly every verse begins with a rising melody, starting from
* The text above in parentheses is misleading and may be deemed anti-Semitic. A more faithful rendering
reads: ―as our treatises have taught us‖. One can infer that the translator correctly understands the first-
person plural anaphors to refer to the author and her fellow Jews by his interpolation of the adjective
―medieval‖, which does not occur in her text. The medieval treatises on cantillation marks were written
by Jews, as opposed to later treatises that were written by Jews and Christians alike. The English
translation silently suppresses Haïk-Vantoura’s reference to her own religious education and cultural
background, which context alone explains her early exposure to and lifelong interest in the cantillation of
the Hebrew Bible.
The American edition mentions nowhere that the author was Jewish, although the biographical note
relates without comment that ―her studies were interrupted by World War II‖. Haïk-Vantoura and her
family fled Vichy France for their lives. More than thirty years later she identifies herself in the disputed
phrase as a Jewess writing in the context of Jewish tradition.
On the other hand, the editor’s preface tells of his own childhood memories of Christian Sunday School.
With regard to the translation John Wheeler states: ―I have taken pains to examine closely both the
classical French text (with its figurative and often highly elliptical expressions) and Dennis Weber’s
English translation (which was originally made for study purposes). I have attempted to retain the literal sense of the French text and of Mr. Weber’s translation as much as possible without sacrificing clarity.
What editorial alterations I have made of the translation were made with the aim of presenting clearly and faithfully the message of the French book.‖
The qualification of Haïk-Vantoura’s writing style (―classical,‖ ―figurative,‖ and ―elliptical‖) does not
ring true. Francophone readers may form an esthetic judgment of the source text from the quotations in
the endnotes below. (For a concrete example of her wordy prose, see endnote 1 and comment.) Her long-
winded style bears little resemblance to classical (late-seventeenth-century) French language and
literature, and would have no reason to do so.
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Application 49
the tonic. All concluding cadences, without exception, depict a descending movement
as they rejoin the same tonic note. Furthermore, this tonic note’s attraction is not to a
lower leading tone but an upper one.* And finally, as the recent deductions of
musicologists would lead one to presume, the finale or tonic has an invariable median
position in the tonal scale from whence it governs the relationships.25
Haïk-Vantoura writes fixed-do musical notation, as note lettering is not used in France
(nor in many other Romance- and Slavic-language countries). Her musical thought may
bear the influence of her education. In tying the syllable do to the note C, this method
frees the tonic to wander upwards from C to E (with respect to the modern, western,
classical convention that defines the tonic as the first note in the scale) more easily than
does movable-do notation, which fits the syllables of solfège to the degrees of the scale.
(To compare fixed- and movable-do representations of the scales, see Prosodic Pitch
Chart and Psalmodic Pitch Chart below.)
Figure 4-5 Other Prosodic Sublinear Signs
DbMr
26 Gaya
27 Glgl Ytiv
28
A sublinear sign remains active until the occurrence of the next sublinear sign. Every
unmarked syllable is sung on its tone, which recurs after an intervening superlinear sign,
whose duration is limited to the syllable it marks. Since Cantillizer does not support
Hebrew-language text, the sublinear sign’s note is represented only once. The cantor will
realize this written notation in the melody and reiterate it, since every sung syllable must
by definition receive a pitch value.
Prosodic Pitch Chart
Integer MIDI Letter Degree Sign Function Fixed-Do Movable-Do29
00 60 C 6 Darga Superdominant Do Mi
01 61 C# Do#
02 62 D 7 Tevir Subtonic Re Fa
Apparently born in Paris, Haïk-Vantoura seems to have been the child of a Yiddish- and/or Alsatian-
speaking Ashkenazi mother and a Ladino-speaking Sephardic father. At the time of her birth, historically
germanophone Alsace, home to a large Jewish community, had been German territory for more than
thirty years, and would resist gallicization for another fifty years. Jews expulsed from Spain by the
Inquisition in 1492 continued to speak Judeo-Spanish in Turkey for more than four centuries. If French
was the primary language spoken in the Vantoura home, it was almost certainly a foreign tongue to both
parents.
Translator Dennis Weber and editor John Wheeler have both been given the opportunity to explain in
this space. Neither has answered yet. [Note and italics by SAGReiss.] * This characteristic ―upper leading tone‖ in the Dorian [Haïk-Vantoura refers to the Phrygian mode as
Dorian in an older acceptation of the latter term. Note by SAGReiss.] mode is called, however, the 2nd
degree. The melody rises so naturally before returning towards its starting point. [Author’s note and
italics. Translation by Dennis Weber.]
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Application 50
Integer MIDI Letter Degree Sign Function Fixed-Do Movable-Do29
03 63 D# Re#
04 64 E 1 Silluk Tonic Mi So
05 65 F 2 Merekha Supertonic Fa La
06 66 F# Fa#
07 67 G 3 Tifkha Mediant Sol30
Ti
08 68 G# Sol#
09 69 A 4 Atnakh Subdominant La Do
10 70 A# La#
11 71 B 5 Munakh Dominant Si31
Re
00 72 C' 6 Mehupakh Superdominant Do Mi
4.7.2 Prosodic Rhythm & Melody
The syllable count determines the rhythm of cantillation. Not enough is currently known
about Ancient Hebrew versification to characterize the rhythm of the prosodic books of
the Bible. Suffice to say that it feels quite irregular (or prosaic) to the modern reader,
except for a few passages (Song of Deborah, Song of Hannah, Song of Moses,
Song of Songs, Song of the Sea, Song of the Well) that feel more poetic, in content
if not in form. Cantillizer hopes to contribute to the research in this field. The esthetics
of prosody vary wildly according to the style of the text, from mythological narrative
(Genesis) to liturgy and legislation (Deuteronomy), from epic history (Samuel) to
ideological harangue (Jeremiah), from divine hallucination (Ezekiel) to philosophical
poem in prose (Ecclesiastes).
The sublinear signs determine the pitch value of the subordinate degrees (appoggiature)
and ornamental figures (melismata), corresponding to the superlinear signs. Nevertheless,
these melodic embellishments are mandatory, contrary to the optional or improvised
grace notes and flourishes of baroque music.
Haïk-Vantoura enumerates the functions of prosodic ornaments:
Let us bear in mind that the cadential significance of the 5th
degree, compared with that of
the 4th
degree (when it is part of the ancient prosody), is more suspensive (deprived as it
is of harmonic support); from whence comes the feminine ending which affects it so
naturally.
This ending generally takes one of two characteristic aspects: one being a simple flection
[little zakef], the other a more shaded flection [great revia]. This ending’s reserved
contours not only give a particular twist to the word concerned, but at the same time to
the phrase it terminates. It is a sort of cautious ―commentary,‖ justified by its special
location at the caesura in relationship to the context.
Now we can see the functional meaning of the different melismas as ―instruments‖ of the
punctuation, although we must not generalize nor lose sight of the primacy of the tonal
functions in this office. Let us summarize them here. This melisma [great telisha] often
introduces the first word of a phrase, whereas this one [little telisha] produces a
prolongation, as does moreover this next one [great zakef]. This sign [little pazer] sets off
the word like a ―curl‖ in the middle of the discourse. This next melisma [segolta], which
never appears in the middle of the phrase, distinguishes itself from the others by a
recognized characteristic: it does not mark a consequential rest, but a simple caesura,
and it is always preceded by this sign [zarka] which delicately shades the middle of the same incidental clause.
32
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Application 51
(For more information on the function of these melismata, see 4.7.4 au-dessous.)
In Figure 4-6 and Figure 4-7 below, it is assumed that silluk, the tonic E (default value),
is the active (preceding) sublinear sign or constituent degree, based on whose pitch the
note values of superlinear signs are calculated. The tonal relationships remain constant as
the sublinear sign changes. The rhythm of the ornament always equals the value of a
quarter note. (All formulæ appear in 3.4.2 au-dessus.) For example, the formula for great
pazer is the following.
Great Pazer (three 32nd
notes, one 16th
note, three 32nd
notes):
1. Constituent degree + 3 diatonic degrees
2. Constituent degree + 2 diatonic degrees
3. Constituent degree + 1 diatonic degree
4. Constituent degree
5. Constituent degree + 1 diatonic degree
6. Constituent degree + 2 diatonic degrees
7. Constituent degree + 3 diatonic degrees
Figure 4-6 Prosodic Appoggiature
Azla
33 Grsh LtZk Psta
Figure 4-7 Prosodic Melismata
DbGr GtPz GtRv
GtTl GtZk LtPz LtTl
RdPs
34 Sgol Slsl
35 Zrka
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Application 52
Haïk-Vantoura puts great emphasis on the precise syllabic location of superlinear signs,
although it is not clear how she translates two-dimensional graphical space into linear
phonetic time in order to define the beginning, middle, and end of a syllable.36
Since it
does not support Hebrew-language text, Cantillizer lacks this information. Hebraists
may wish to create these linguistic data for themselves. If the syllable following a
superlinear sign (except ole veyored, which already returns to the constituent degree) is
marked with a sign other than the active (preceding) sublinear sign, it is suggested to
resolve the ornament’s note sequence to the constituent degree, and adjust the rhythm so
that the total duration remains equal to the value of a quarter note.37
4.7.3 Psalmodic Mode & Scale
The psalmodic mode scale lacks middle C, the superdominant in the lower octave.38
Figure 4-8 Harmonic Mode Scale in E Minor
7 1 2 3 4 5 6
Glgl Sluk Mrka Trka
39 Atnk Mnkh
40 Mhpk
41
Haïk-Vantoura explains the specificity of this scale:
The mode actually takes shape at the same time as the scale, being a ―chromatic minor‖
similar to our own, with one slight difference: the connection between the 6th
and 7th
degrees (in their fundamental nature as represented by the lower signs) is avoided. The
scale limits itself to the upper 6th degree at the top and the lower 7th degree at the
bottom. The characteristic interval of the augmented 2nd
between them therefore does
not fundamentally exist. Only the presence of subordinate degrees makes it occur.42
Figure 4-9 Other Psalmodic Sublinear Signs
Dkhi
43 Gaya
44
Psalmodic Pitch Chart
Integer MIDI Letter Degree Sign Function Fixed-Do Movable-Do45
00 60 C Do Fa
01 61 C# Do#
02 62 D Re
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Application 53
Integer MIDI Letter Degree Sign Function Fixed-Do Movable-Do45
03 63 D# 7 Galgal Subtonic Re# Si46
04 64 E 1 Silluk Tonic Mi La
05 65 F Fa
06 66 F# 2 Merekha Supertonic Fa# Ti
07 67 G 3 Tarkha Mediant Sol47
Do
08 68 G# Sol#
09 69 A 4 Atnakh Subdominant La Re
10 70 A# La#
11 71 B 5 Munakh Dominant Si48
Mi
00 72 C' 6 Mehupakh Superdominant Do Fa
4.7.4 Psalmodic Rhythm & Melody
The rhythm of the psalmodic books of the Bible feels more regular, more poetic, than
the rhythm of prosody. The typographical convention of leaving a blank space to mark
the cæsura reinforces this impression. The esthetics of psalmody embrace song and
prayer (Psalms), theological thought (Job), and aphoristic wisdom (Proverbs).
Haïk-Vantoura characterizes the style of psalmody:
The following melismas in the prosodic system are absent in the poetic books: [great
zakef, segolta, great telisha, little telisha, double geresh]. Upon reflection, this is not
surprising. They figured in the narratives and the exhortations, either for directing the
believer’s attention to key words [great telisha], or for marking with retrocession
certain occasions of an incidental clause [great zakef], or, on the contrary, terminating a
word with the flourish of a panache [little telisha].
These means, these artifices we are tempted to say (even though legitimate everywhere they are found), have no place in the Psalter. The psalmodic cantillation is
a harmony which conjugates with that of the words. Both blend their respective purity
in order to support the special effusion of prayer. It is useless to employ devices in order
to attract the attention of Him who knows everything! When all is said and done, the
presence of these melismas, authentic oratorical ―structures‖ that they are, would be most
unusual in the Psalms.49
In Figure 4-10 and Figure 4-11 below, it is assumed that silluk, the tonic E (default
value), is the active (preceding) sublinear sign or constituent degree, based on whose
pitch the note values of superlinear signs are calculated. The tonal relationships remain
constant as the sublinear sign changes. The rhythm of the ornament always equals the
value of a quarter note. (All formulæ appear in 3.4.2 au-dessus.) For example, the
formula for shalshelet is the following.
Shalshelet (a triplet of eighth notes):
1. Constituent degree – 2 diatonic degrees
2. Constituent degree – 2 chromatic intervals
3. Constituent degree – 1 chromatic interval
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Application 54
Figure 4-10 Psalmodic Appoggiature
Azla
50 Iluy
51 LtRv
52 GrMk
53
Figure 4-11 Psalmodic Melismata
LtPz OlVy
54 Slsl
55 Tnor Tnri
56
Haïk-Vantoura describes the distinctive leap and fall of the superlinear sign ole veyored
when following the constituent degree of galgal (D#):
Melodically speaking, the subtonic note—the only basic scale degree below the tonic
note in psalmody—exercises a curious influence, highly different from that of our
present-day ―leading tone‖ […]
Even though it is just a half-step from the tonic, it almost never cedes to its attraction nor
resolves directly to it (which is not the case at all for our ―classical‖ leading tone). In the
concept which emerges, this sub-tonic creates the effect of a ―set of balances.‖*
As soon as this 7th
note of the scale is attained by the melodic line, as if in recoil, it nearly
always sets in motion a highly characteristic rebound to the upper 4th
(most often a
diminished 4th
) and, after a melodic oscillation, arrived at again, it proceeds to finally
conclude on the 2nd
degree of the mode [see 4.7.6, v. 6, below] The melody thus
determines a suspending cadence through a figure charged with expression.57
4.7.5 Psalmodic Instrumental Accompaniment
A score of Psalms call for the accompaniment of specific musical instruments in their
ascription (v. 1):
Psalm Section Transliteration Instrument
22 Hapax legomenon ayelet hashakhar58
8, 84 Strings gitit
9 Hapax legomenon mut laben
53, 88 Dis legomenon makhalat leanot
4, 6, 54, 55, 61, 67, 76 Strings neginot (al-hasheminit) -
5 Woodwinds nekhilot
46 Dis legomenon alamot
* An observation curiously supported by its etymology: literally, ―a wheel.‖ [Author’s note. Translation by
Dennis Weber.]
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Application 55
Psalm Section Transliteration Instrument
12, 45, 60, 69, 80 Horns shushan (edut)
Psalm 150 (v. 3-5) seems to evoke a street orchestra and a parade of dancers:
Section Transliteration Instrument Text
Strings kinor
Strings nebel
Woodwinds ugab
Percussion tselatsali
Horns shofar
Percussion tof
Unfortunately the interpretation of these Ancient Hebrew technical terms (harp, lute,
pipe, horn, timbrel, cymbal, etc.) remains highly speculative, so much so that certain
translations of the Bible simply transliterate many of the words. Some of the above may
not even refer to the names of musical instruments.
The shofar, or ram’s horn, is the only musical instrument that survives in an unbroken
tradition from biblical antiquity to modern times.59
The word informs the Sephardic name
of two cantillation signs, shofar holekh (munakh) and shofar mehupakh (mehupakh).
Figure 4-12 Blowing the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah
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Application 56
Figure 4-13 Salomon Helperin Blowing the Yemenite Shofar (2006)
In the Bible the shofar announces battles, parades, festivals, the new moon, coronations,
and religious ceremonies. Today the shofar still sounds in synagogues around the world
on Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).60
Haïk-Vantoura gives the following argument in favor of instrumentation, absent from the
tradition of synagogues, where the cantor generally sings a cappella:
[…] the psalmody rather than the prosody, seems to have been created with an
instrumental accompaniment in mind.* Its configuration (with its often disjointed melodic
movements, notably in thirds, and particularly the V-I cadence found frequently at the
end of verses) testifies to this. Its structure implies a harmonization. Again, these given
facts reveal a music created for a specific purpose.61
Composers may wish to partition and/or orchestrate the choral scores. While Haïk-
Vantoura transcribed the music in several modes and keys, Cantillizer supports two,
Phrygian in C major for prosody and harmonic in E minor for psalmody. Musicians may
need to transpose scores in order to accommodate their instruments and arrangements.
* But apart from the Song of Songs and other canticles, of course, it is quite possible that the prose texts
were accompanied by the lyre or harp in common use […] [Author’s note and italics. Translation by
Dennis Weber.]
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Application 57
4.7.6 Psalm 137 “By the Rivers of Babylon”
Psalm 137 62, 63 celebrates, laments, and
threatens brutally to avenge the fallen city of
Jerusalem. The poem appears to have been
written between 586 BCE (date of the
destruction of the Temple of Solomon and of
the enslavement of the Jews by King
Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia) and 538
BCE (date of the liberation of the Jews by
King Cyrus II of Persia), or in any case
before 516 BCE (date of the destruction of
Babylon by King Darius I of Persia, and of
the construction by the Jews of the second
Temple). Authorship has been diversely
attributed to King David (died c. 970 BCE)
and the prophet Jeremiah (died a refugee in
Egypt after 562 BCE), however the
narrator’s claim to be a Levite singer seems
compelling.
Figure 4-14 Marc Chagall, The Capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (1956)
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Application 58
Figure 4-15 Psalm 137 “By the Rivers of Babylon” in E Minor
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Application 59
Figure 4-16 Synagogue at Gaza, Mosaic of King David Strumming the Harp (6th
century CE)
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Application 60
Nostalgic and bloodthirsty, the psalm abounds in such macabre images as tears falling on
the waters of the Euphrates, lyres gibbeted from poplar trees, palsied hands, swollen
tongues, the ransacked citadel, lapidated children. The narrative structure falls into four
anachronical parts: exile (v. 1-4), recollection (v. 5-6), history (v. 7), and revenge (v. 8-
9), corresponding to the present, memory, the past, and the future. The narration closely
matches this partition, as both speaker and addressee change accordingly: we/Ø
(unexpressed), I/thou (Jerusalem), Ø/thou (Lord), we/thou (daughter of Babylon). The
poet employs the figure of speech apostrophe to personify the despoiled city, God, and
the city of deportation. The meter reinforces this grammatical and rhetorical parallel, as
scansion of the three vocatives yields the following anapestic feet: /ye•ru•SHLAIM/, /ye•ho•VAH/, /bat ba•VEL/. The last constitutes a beautifully sinister phonemic and
graphemic alliteration, the identical letter beth representing both consonants [b] and [v],
contextual variants distinguished by the diacritic dagesh ( ).
The narrator begins with the tale of a topical event, the labor strike of the captive bards,
who seize the means of production (their instruments) and refuse to entertain their
raptors. This job action leads to a universal reflection on alienation: how to stay true to
oneself on foreign soil? The noun אדמת ―land, (red) earth‖ starts an elaborate paronomasia
on the name of Edom (aka Esau, sibling rival of Jacob, aka Israel), derived from the
adjective אדם ―red, ruddy‖ because of the color of his hair or complexion, and from
whom are said to descend the Edomites, historical enemy of the Israelites. Follows a
dramatization of what Sigmund Freud would call (some 2,500 years later) the return of
the repressed. The hysterical symptoms of aphasia and paralysis give symbolic shape to
the work stoppage of the players, voices that will not sing, fingers that will not pluck the
harp strings. We may infer that the songsmith plays right-handed (as King David in
Figure 4-16 above) and thus threatens his own artistic livelihood. This pathological
reenactment of the insurrection triggers a flashback to the primal scene (the pillage of
Jerusalem, entailing the death, abduction, and flight of tens of thousands of Jews and the
desecration of the Temple), source of the trauma, with its compulsive repetition of the
imperative ערו ―plunder‖. Finally a flashforward envisions hallucinatory vengeance. The
poet vindictively puns on the name of the capital city of the Edomites, Petra ―The Rock‖
in present-day Jordan (the Hebrew proper and common noun סלע, instead of the verb סקל
―stone, lapidate‖ found elsewhere in the Bible). The hymn itself seems to embody the
esthetic answer to the liturgical question asked in verse four: it is a strange song indeed
that one sings in a strange land.
4.7.7 The Suspensive Cadence of Psalm 137 64
A thematic cadence lends its structure to the monody. Its melodic line is
typical of psalmody and serves to highlight certain words of the lyric (v. 1
―we remembered‖, v. 2 ―we hanged‖, v. 8 ―thou hast served‖,
v. 9 ―thy little ones‖) with a rise of two degrees corresponding to the superlinear
sign geresh mukdam.
The following table shows the immediate environment of little revia, the complementary
superlinear sign that generally follows geresh mukdam in the same word, from the active
(preceding) sublinear sign to the end of the verse, disregarding the four occurrences of
little revia (without geresh mukdam) in the first hemistich (v. 1, 4, 7-8):
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Application 61
Verse LtRv-2 LtRv-1 LtRv LtRv+1 LtRv+2
1 Signs Atnk GrMk LtRv Sluk
1 Notes A C G E
2 Signs Atnk GrMk LtRv Gaya Sluk
2 Notes A C G E E
3 Signs Mrka GrMk LtRv Mrka Sluk
3 Notes F# A E F# E
4 Signs Atnk GrMk LtRv Mrka Sluk
4 Notes A C G F# E
5 Signs Gaya LtRv Mrka Sluk
5 Notes E D# F# E
6 Signs Atnk GrMk LtRv Mnkh Sluk
6 Notes A C G B E
7 Signs Atnk GrMk LtRv Mrka Sluk
7 Notes A C G F# E
8 Signs Atnk GrMk LtRv Mrka Sluk
8 Notes A C G F# E
9 Signs Gaya GrMk LtRv Sluk
9 Notes E G D# E
The following pattern of signs emerges:
Verse LtRv-2 LtRv-1 LtRv LtRv+1 LtRv+2
4, 7-8 Atnk GrMk LtRv Mrka Sluk
1 Atnk GrMk LtRv Sluk
2 Atnk GrMk LtRv Gaya Sluk
3 Mrka GrMk LtRv Mrka Sluk
5 Gaya LtRv Mrka Sluk
6 Atnk GrMk LtRv Mnkh Sluk
9 Gaya GrMk LtRv Sluk
The theme atnakh-geresh mukdam-little revia-silluk is announced in the first verse and
expanded to include penultimate merekha in the third and following.
The same information written in musical letter notation yields slightly different
variations:
Verse LtRv-2 LtRv-1 LtRv LtRv+1 LtRv+2
4, 7-8 A C G F# E
1 A C G E
2 A C G E E
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Application 62
Verse LtRv-2 LtRv-1 LtRv LtRv+1 LtRv+2
3 F# A E F# E
5 E D# F# E
6 A C G B E
9 E G D# E
The theme A-C-G-E is announced in the first verse and expanded to include pretonic F#
in the third and following.
While the three note values corresponding to little revia (D#, E, G) may look quite
different to allophone readers of modern musical notation, the G values corresponding to
little revia (v. 1-2, 4, 6-8) and to geresh mukdam (v. 9) look the same. Readers of
cantillation marks (and the composer of this music) might, on the contrary, see the little
revia values D#, E, and G as manifestations of the same sign, but draw a distinction
between little revia (G) and geresh mukdam (G). The choice of semiotic systems (signs
or notes) bears a strong influence on the definition and interpretation of the data. Little
revia occurs nine times in the excerpted text. In only six of those instances does it
correspond to the note G.
In terms of diatonic degrees, the expanded motif runs: IV-VI-III-II-I, a jump up to the
highest pitch in the scale, a drop to the mediant, followed by a decline to the tonic.
Taking into account the return of the active sublinear sign (atnakh, interpolated in square
brackets), this sequence may be represented graphically as follows.
Figure 4-17 Cadence of Psalm 137 with Ornament Resolution
1
6
5
4
3
2
7
Sluk
De
gre
es
Atnk Mgrs LtRv Mrka
Signs
[Atnk] [Atnk]
Geresh mukdam does not rise so high as ole veyored (v. 6-8 and see 4.7.4 au-dessus), but
little revia dips just as deep, relatively, to one degree below the constituent degree. Haïk-
Vantoura comments this construction:
The other melismatic figure contributing to the particular turn of psalmody is the result of
two associated signs: [geresh mukdam] and [little revia], whether they are close to [v. 3-
4, 6-7] or distant from [v. 1-2, 8-9] each other. A widely-employed means of expression,
this melodic ―curl,‖ more expansive above than below the note which it emphasizes,
encircles it like a contemplative or even painful commentary […] the result can be most
impressive.65
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Application 63
Broken by the return of the constituent degree, the fall from the zenith of the tonal
hierarchy, geresh mukdam-atnakh-little revia (6-4-3), finds a parallel two degrees lower
in the landing at the nadir, atnakh-merekha-silluk (4-2-1). The cliffhanging of geresh
mukdam and atnakh gives this cadence its suspensive character.
Little revia also plays a structural role in the meter, marking the cæsura where the verse
lacks atnakh (v. 5, 9), which otherwise defines the hemistich (v. 1-2, 4, 6-8), or where
atnakh does not designate the pause (v. 3).66
The following example shows a fully syllabified score of the first verse, including one
instance of the anticipated return of an active sublinear sign, gaya (E) following little
revia (D#).
Figure 4-18 Psalm 137, Verse 1, Syllabified
It should be recalled that Cantillizer performs neither ornament resolution nor
syllabification, as these tasks require the skills of a human, Hebrew-speaking musician.
The question of whether written music is music at all lies beyond the scope of this
document. Nevertheless, cantillation marks lend a certain urgency to the debate, a
forgotten music notation system preserved for generations and reinterpreted after a
thousand years. The economy of means (single notation of polysyllabic constituent
degrees and of multiple-note melismata) and the polysemy of the signs (phonetic,
syntactic, and musical meanings) show that written music stands in relation to physical,
acoustic music as the written language that cantillation marks annotate stands in relation
to spoken language. Sound waves represent but one material support medium for the
transmission of digital information, language and music alike.67
4.8 Freeform Analysis
Cantillizer allows you to perform analysis independent of the constraints and
restrictions imposed by the syntactic (disjunctive/conjunctive) distinction of cantillation
marks, which is widely, but not universally, admitted.
4.8.1 Prosodic & Psalmodic Freeform Analysis
To perform freeform analysis, in the toolbar, press the Configuration button. In the
Configuration dialog box select the Freeform analysis radio button. Find, search,
sort, statistical analysis, and pattern recognition all proceed as in 4.4, 4.5.1, and 4.6.1 au-
dessus. Disjunctive and conjunctive signs are processed identically.
One problem is to define what exactly constitutes a cantillation mark. The status of the
following signs needs to be decided:
Gaya
Geresh mukdam
Ole veyored
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Application 64
Best solution might be to retain meteg and make geresh mukdam distinct from revia and
ole distinct from merekha. User can ignore or merge signs according to his predilection.
Giving meteg a value close or equal to silluk would generate quite odd results from the
point of view of syntax.
4.8.2 Hierarchy Problems in Freeform Analysis
Freeform analysis presents a few hierarchy problems, due to the different syntax and
value of the same signs in the prosodic and psalmodic books (see 3.4.2 au-dessus in the
Issues column). Cantillizer does not initially propose to resolve this issue. As data is
collected from the system, a solution may nevertheless be found. If so, freeform analysis
could be redesigned to incorporate the new information. Problem signs are:
Great shalshelet
Merekha
Azla
An alternative solution for freeform analysis is to ignore the metric (prosodic/-psalmodic) distinction as well. In this scenario freeform value is identical to the SNum property.
4.9 Graphics
Cantillizer provides the ability to create graphic representations of the data. Prospective
options abound, but criteria should include most or all of the following elements.
4.9.1 Values
Number of signs (count)
Value of signs (mean, mode, median, standard deviation, etc.)
4.9.2 Units
Stich (as determined by atnakh/ole veyored and silluk)
Verse
Chapter (poem in the case of the Psalms)
4.9.3 Creating Charts & Graphs
To create and display charts & graphs:
1. Perform data analysis to obtain statistics, as in 4.5 au-dessus, and/or pattern recognition, as in 4.6
au-dessus.
2. In the toolbar, press the Charts & Graphs button.
The Charts & Graphs dialog box opens.
3. Click to select the chart type (column, bar, line, pie, etc.) and subtype.
4. In the bottom of the dialog box, press the Next button.
The Data Range dialog box opens with the cursor in the Category (X) axis text box.
5. In the table of data open behind the active Data Range dialog box, click and drag the mouse
cursor to select a range of data (e.g. value of disjunctive sign).
The range of data appears in the Category (X) axis text box.
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Application 65
6. In the Data Range dialog box, click in the Group (X) axis text box, if you wish to group the x
axis values.
7. In the table of data open behind the active Data Range dialog box, click and drag the mouse
cursor to select a range of data.
The range of data appears in the Group (X) axis text box.
8. In the Data Range dialog box, click in the Value (Y) axis text box.
9. In the table of data open behind the active Data Range dialog box, click and drag the mouse
cursor to select a range of data (e.g. verse)
The range of data appears in the Value (Y) axis text box.
10. In the Data Range dialog box, click in the Group (Y) axis text box, if you wish to group the y
axis values.
11. In the table of data open behind the active Data Range dialog box, click and drag the mouse
cursor to select a range of data (e.g. chapter).
The range of data appears in the Group (Y) axis text box.
12. In the bottom of the dialog box, press the Next button.
The Chart Options dialog box opens.
13. In the Chart Options dialog box, select chart options such as colors, fonts, labels, scales of axes,
etc.
14. In the bottom of the dialog box, press the Finish button.
The chart opens in a separate window.
15. In the chart window, right click on the chart and select the Edit Chart option, if you wish to
modify the options selected in the previous steps.
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Application 66
Figure 4-19 Structure of Psalms 120, 124, 129, 130
57 59 54 58 56 60
54 58 56 60
58 56 60
54 58 6057
58 56 60
57 57 60
57 58 56 60
57 58 56 60
57 59 54 58 56 60
54 58 60
54 58 60
54 58 6056
121:1
5
124:1
8
7
6
4
3
2
5
8
7
6
4
3
2
54 58 6056
58 6056
57 55 60
54 58 6056
129:1
8
7
6
4
3
2
130:1
5
8
7
6
4
3
2
Ch
ap
ter
& V
ers
e
Position6Position5Position4Position3Position2
51 Azla Legarmeh 60 Silluk59 Ole Veyored58 Atnakh57 Revia56 Revia Mugrash55 Tsinor54 Dekhi
Position1
57 59 54 58 56 60
59 57
54 58 6056
54 58 56
58 6056
60
56 60
605854
57 60
51 57 58 56 60
6058
55 59 54 58 56 60
58 6056
605854
58 6056
58 6056
57 59 6058
54 58 56 60
5 54 58
This chart, intended as an example, is sadly unenlightening. I have thus far failed to
create something more illustrative.
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Application 67
4.9.4 Tree Diagrams
Once the hierarchy of signs is more perfectly understood through testing of Cantillizer,
an add-on could be created to generate tree diagrams based on cantillation marks. Such
graphics would be greatly enhanced if Cantillizer were attached to the software of a
Hebrew-font Bible reader or editor.
Figure 4-20 Tree Diagram
Organization charts can be generated from data in many common software programs such
as Microsoft Excel and Visio, so the technology must be relatively simple and standard.
The hierarchical groupings (and colors) in 1.4.1 au-dessus might be useful for generating
the diagrams.
4.9.5 Music Editor
If musical analysis proves cogent and promising, a music editor add-on could be
foreseen. Music notation software is relatively common, both proprietary and open
source.
Potential resources:
http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc
http://www.liypond.org
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Appendix A 68
Appendix A
List of Emendations
Certain prepositive signs that occur on the same letter as another sign are misencoded in
the source text. The two signs (prepositive and positive) are inverted in the source code.
The error, if it indeed is one, does not affect the representation of the signs in a graphical
browser, since the prepositive sign precedes the letter anyway. It only affects work done
directly on the Unicode files. In the interest of clarity, however, the following table lists
every individual instance of data correction.
Book Chapter Verse Prepositive Positive Remarks
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Appendix B 69
Appendix B
Tools & Libraries
Abbreviation Full Name Version Last Update
yyyy-mm-dd
Function Source Remarks
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Appendix C 70
Appendix C
Abbreviations
Abbreviation Full Name
Actv Active
Alin Alignment
Arg Argument
BNum Book Number
CNum Chapter Number
Conj Conjunction, -ive
Degr Degree
Disj Disjunction, -ive
Disp Display
Fol Following
Hgph Hagiographa
Num Number
Pent Pentateuch
PNum Position Number
Post Postpositive
Posv Positive
Pre Preceding
Prep Prepositive
Pros Prosody, -ic
Prph Prophets
Pslm Psalmody, -ic
Rthm Rhythm
SNum Sign Number
Subl Sublinear
Supl Superlinear
Syn Syntax
TNum Tome Number (conventional subdivisions of the 24 books of the Bible)
Valu Value
VNum Verse Number
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Endnotes 71
Endnotes
1 De quelle imagination ont fait preuve les scrupuleux réalisateurs de ces représentations graphiques, non
dénuées d’imagination. [Omitted by the translator, the last clause, pleonastic and meaningless, serves as
an example of Haïk-Vantoura’s overburdened prose. Note by SAGReiss.] Il importe de traduire avec
précision le message transmis avec tant d’amour. [Translation by Dennis Weber.] 2 The Hebrew alphabet contains five potential vowels (whose value is indicated by context and/or
diacritical marks): א [a, e, o], ה [a, e, o], ו [o, u], י [e, i], ע [a]. In Ancient Hebrew the first and last may
have represented consonants, a uvular fricative and a glottal stop respectively, as in modern Yemenite
pronunciation. They may also be silent in standard modern Israeli Sefardic Hebrew. ה may also be silent
or represent the consonant [h]. ו may also represent the consonant [v]. י may also represent the semi-
consonant [j]. 3 Saadia, for example, was a vehement holdout for the Babylonian school of vocalization, and an
outspoken opponent of the Karaites and of ben Asher, who some believe may have belonged to the sect.
At odds with the Exilarch (the political leader of the Babylonian Jews), deposed as gaon (headmaster of
the Jewish Academy at Sura), Saadia suffered professionally for his convictions. The isolated linguistic
community of Jewish Yemenites followed the Babylonian tradition for eight hundred years, until their
exposure to outside influence.
The Decalogue (Exodus 5:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21) attests two systems of cantillation marks, often
referred to as upper (or Babylonian) trope and lower (or Palestinian) trope. Ashkenazi custom preserves
both traditions in their services by reading according to Babylonian cantillation in the regular Sabbath
Torah portion and according to Palestinian cantillation at the Festival of Weeks. 4 Life of Moses, II, 31-32. (Translation by Charles Yonge.)
5 It is no accident that many of the first books printed in Europe were bibles, including Gutenberg’s
Mazarin Vulgate (1455), the vocalized Hebrew Soncino folio (1488), and the vocalized Hebrew Brescia
quarto (1494), a copy of which Luther used for his translation. The humanists of the Reformation and the
rabbis had the same goal, to fix the text of the Bible and, in doing so, to impose their interpretation. The
Roman Catholic hierarchy employed a different tactic in the service of the same strategy. Instead of
making their dogmatic Bible more accessible, they made it less so by leaving it in Latin, which few
layman could read. 6 L’accentuation est comme le premier bégayement d’une grammaire inconsciente, et n’aurait peut-être
jamais pris ce développement si elle n’avait pas été encore formée. Cette ponctuation incomparable se
comprend seulement comme l’expression d’une tradition qui a dû se matérialiser, faute de pouvoir
appeler à son secours l’observation exacte de l’organisme du langage. [Translation by SAGReiss.] 7 Dekhi, great telisha, little telisha, pashta (ubiquitously reduplicated), segolta, tsinor, and zarka.
8 The following exposition is based on the work of Helmut Richter. Figure 1-2 by SAGReiss.
9 These rules are known as left-parsing and right-parsing respectively, however these terms are avoided in
this discussion because of the potential for confusion arising from the representation of Hebrew, a right-
to-left language, in English, a left-to-right language. 10
Mais l’esprit inquiet et remuant de ces docteurs, courbés sans trêve sur le texte sacré, divisait et
subdivisait les mots de chaque verset ; on épiait les moindres nuances, on notait non-seulement [sic] les
séparations, mais aussi les liaisons, et malgré la règle, « qu’un prince ne devrait pas descendre au grade
du serviteur, ni celui-ci s’élever au rang du seigneur. » il s’établissait une véritable hiérarchie, un système
féodal d’accents assez burlesque, et qui a distrait quelques savants subtils des XVe, XVI
e et XVII
e
siècles. Sur cette échelle, la petite noblesse se confondait avec les laquais, et des accents comme le
talschâh maintenaient déjà difficilement leur rang de maître. Pendant la création continue de nouveaux
dignitaires, le petit trait, droit ou courbé, mis en haut ou en bas, tourné à droite ou à gauche, devenait
l’insigne des nouveaux grades. Enfin les dénominations affluaient et s’accrurent, soit qu’on procédât à de
nouvelles distinctions encore, soit que les naķdânim inventassent pour les mêmes accents d’autres noms
et qu’on recherchait après coup pour ces derniers venus des emplois jusque-là inconnus. [Translation by
SAGReiss.]
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Endnotes 72
11
The following exposition, and the figures, are based on the work of David Robinson and Elisabeth Levy
in Masoretic Hebrew Punctuation and Hebrew Structure Analysis. 12
Mishneh Torah. (Translation by Eliyahu Touger.) 13
A full list of emendations appears in Appendix A. 14
According to Helmut Richter meteg is never the last sign in a word. This algorithm is based on that
claim. 15
The sign meteg is counted. The signs ole + merekha and geresh mukdam + revia are counted as two signs
each. Position will be adjusted in configuration (see 4.3.1 below). 16
Music values are initially defined per sign. Testing may yield additional values for sign sequences. It is
understood that musical configuration may be considerably more complex than syntactic configuration. 17
The names and hierarchical order of the signs are based on the work of William Wickes, the British
Orientalist and philologist. 18
The psalmodic distinction of Wickes between great and little revia (which are identical in form) has not
been retained, as it is based solely on the very distributional criteria that are the focus of this analysis.
This theory defines revia as little when it immediately precedes ole veyored. In musical configuration a
distinction is made between great revia (prosodic) and little revia (psalmodic). 19
Geresh is misencoded as geresh mukdam (1437), which differs only in alignment, in Leviticus 1:3. 20
Revia mugrash is consistently misencoded as geresh mukdam (1437) alone. 21
Zarka is twice (2 Samuel 3:8 and 2 Chronicles 19:2) misencoded as tsinorit (1432), which differs only
in alignment. The same mistake may have corrupted the usage of tsinor and tsinorit in the psalmodic
books. 22
Silluq is the strongest disjunctive accent, the equivalent of a modern full stop. It is written as a vertical
bar under the tone syllable of the last word in a sentence. In appearance it is exactly the same as meteg.
In the vast majority of cases, silluq is written under the word immediately before sof passuq (:) so it is
usually redundant as a punctuation mark. But the Masoretes made good use of it in a few cases where
they disagreed with the sentence divisions they had inherited from earlier rabbis. In Gen 35.22, for
example, the end of the verse is doubly accented. The earlier rabbis had not placed a sof passuq between
―and Israel heard it‖ and ―the sons of Jacob were twelve‖, although the structure of the narrative clearly
requires one--it seems likely that this was a rather delicate means of passing over an unpleasant subject
by minimising its emphasis. The Masoretes were not free to insert a sof passuq, and they obediently
pointed the text in the form they had received it, but also inserted silluq at the end of ―and Israel heard it‖
to indicate that there should have been a verse division at that point. Similar emendations of the
traditional verse structure are to be found in Ex 20.2ff and Deut 5.6ff. With these exceptions silluq is
always the last accent on a word. Any mark which appears before it is to be ignored for the purposes of
punctuation. [http://www.bfbs.org.uk/osis/masoretes.htm] 23
Munakh legarmeh is assimilated to munakh. 24
Mehupakh legarmeh is assimilated to mehupakh. 25
Ajoutons à ces caractéristiques qu’elle conclut effectivement, comme nous l’apprenaient nos traités, de
l’aigu vers le grave, plutôt que du grave vers l’aigu. Tous les débuts de versets, ou presque, voient la
mélodie s’élever, partant de la tonique : toutes les cadences conclusives, sans exception, lui confèrent un
mouvement descendant pour rejoindre la même tonique. D’autre part, celle-ci impose son attraction non
à une « note sensible », inférieure, mais supérieure. [Celle-ci, caractérisée dans le mode dorien
s’étiquette bien, pourtant, second degré : la mélodie s’élève tout naturellement avant de redescendre vers
son point de départ…] Enfin, comme les récentes déductions des musicologues le laissaient présumer, la
finale a une position médiane dans l’échelle tonale invariable dont elle régente les relations. [Author’s
note and italics. Translation by Dennis Weber.] 26
Interpreted as tevir followed by merekha (D + F). Haïk-Vantoura interpreted this sign as merekha
followed by pashta (F + G), however it has been emended on the suggestion of James Price. 27
Initial or medial homograph of silluk (final). 28
Prepositive aligned homograph of mehupakh. 29
Art Levine, ―Paper on Movable Do vs. Fixed Do‖, has kindly provided this information. 30
Fixed-Do is generally used on the European continent, where this form corresponds to so. 31
Fixed-Do is generally used on the European continent, where this form corresponds to ti.
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Endnotes 73
32
Cette terminaison prend généralement l’un de ces deux aspects caractéristiques : l’un de simple flexion :
[little zakef], l’autre de flexion plus nuancée : [great revia] ; et ces contours sobres donnent, non
seulement au mot concerné, mais en même temps à la phrase qu’il termine, un tour particulier : sorte de
commentaire discret, valorisé par sa position privilégié (à la césure), en rapport du contexte.
Maintenant se profile la valeur fonctionnelle des divers mélismes, en tant qu’ « instruments » de la
ponctuation ; bien qu’il ne faille pas généraliser (ni perdre de vue la primauté des fonctions tonales en
cet office).
Résumons-le ici : ce mélisme [great telisha] introduit souvent le 1er
mot de la phrase, alors que celui-ci
[little telisha] lui confère un prolongement ; comme le suivant, du reste : [great zakef]. Cet autre [little
pazer] accuse le mot, comme une boucle, dans le fil du discours. Le mélisme suivant [segolta], qui
n’apparaît jamais dans le cours des phrases, se distingue des autres par une caractéristique attitrée : il
n’accuse pas un repos conséquent, mais une simple césure ; et il est toujours précédé de celui-ci [zarka],
qui nuance légèrement le centre de la même incise. [Author’s italics. Translation by Dennis Weber.] 33
Positive aligned homograph of pashta. Azla legarmeh is assimilated to azla. 34
Defined as a distinct sign. 35
Great shalshelet (legarmeh). The second and third notes are determined by chromatic intervals. 36
It should be kept in mind that the phonetic terms vowel, consontant, and syllable refer only to spoken
language. Their usage with respect to written language is an expedient that may mislead both reader and
writer. 37
This anticipated return of the active sublinear sign may overload the phrase (an ad hoc esthetic
judgment), in which case the return is omitted. A normal return, i.e. in the following syllable, occurs
when the latter is unmarked. 38
In an idiosyncratic usage Haïk-Vantoura refers to this as an échelle défective ―gapped scale‖ (see the
entry for gamme [―scale‖] in Trésor de la Langue Française), and the glossary reflects her
unconventional definition. 39
Psalmodic homograph of tifkha. 40
Munakh legarmeh is assimilated to munakh. 41
Mehupakh legarmeh is assimilated to mehupakh. 42
En même temps que l’échelle, en effet, se dessinait le mode : un « mineur chromatique », semblable au
nôtre, à cette différence près que l’enchainement du 6ème
ou 7ème
degrés (dans leur nature fondamentale
que représente la position inferieure des signes) est évité. L’échelle se borne en effet au 6ème
degré supérieur, et au 7
ème degré inferieur : l’intervalle caractéristique de seconde augmentée n’y existe
donc pas, fondamentalement. Seule la présence des degrés subordonnés le fait intervenir. [Author’s
italics. Translation by Dennis Weber.] 43
Prepositive aligned psalmodic homograph of tifkha. 44
Initial or medial homograph of silluk (final). 45
Art Levine, ―Paper on Movable Do vs. Fixed Do‖, has kindly provided this information. 46
So augmented by a halfstep. 47
Fixed-Do is generally used on the European continent, where this form corresponds to so. 48
Fixed-Do is generally used on the European continent, where this form corresponds to ti. 49
Plusieurs mélismes du système prosodique sont absents dans les livres poétiques, ce sont les suivants :
[great zakef, segolta, great telisha, little telisha, double geresh].
À la réflexion, cela ne surprend pas. Ils figuraient dans les récits, les exhortations, soit pour diriger
l’attention des fidèles sur des mots clés : [great telisha] soit pour marquer d’un recul certaines
incidences d’une incise : [great zakef] soit au contraire, ils terminaient un mot, tel un panache : [little
telisha] etc…
Ces moyens, ces artifices, sommes-nous tentés de dire, (bien que légitimes partout où ils figuraient) n’ont pas de place dans le Psautier. La cantillation psalmodique est une harmonie qui se conjugue avec
celle des mots. Toutes deux allient leur pureté respective pour soutenir l’épanchement spécifique de la
prière. Inutile d’attirer par des artifices l’attention de Celui qui sait tout ! En fin de compte, c’est la
présence de ces mélismes, véritables tournures oratoires, qui serait insolite dans les Psaumes. [Author’s
italics. Translation by Dennis Weber.]
http://www.sagreiss.org [email protected]
Endnotes 74
49
Prepositive aligned psalmodic homograph of tifkha. 50
Positive aligned homograph of pashta. Azla legarmeh is assimilated to azla. 51
Iluy rises four degrees if the active (preceding) sublinear sign is tarkha (G or lower), falls three degrees if
the active sublinear sign is atnakh (A or higher), i.e. to the same note one octave lower. Haïk-Vantoura’s
charts do not always make this clear, but her scores confirm this rule. 52
Psalmodic homograph of great revia. 53
Psalmodic prepositive aligned homograph of geresh, defined as a distinct sign, independent of the
following little revia. 54
Defined as a distinct sign, independent of the following merekha. 55
Great (legarmeh) and little shalshelet are amalgamated. The second and third notes are determined by
chromatic intervals. 56
Prepositive aligned homograph of tsinor. 57
Mélodiquement parlant, la sous-tonique, seul degré constitutif inferieur à la note principale de l’échelle,
exerce une curieuse influence, fort différente de celle de notre « note sensible » […]
Bien que séparée de la tonique par un demi-ton dans la quasi totalité des cas, elle ne cède pas à son
attraction, elle ne se résoud pas en elle (sort auquel n’échappe pour ainsi dire jamais la « sensible »
classique). Cette sous-tonique, dans la conception qui se fait jour, fait effet de « bascule ». [Remarque
curieusement étayée par l’étymologie : elle est dénommée « roue ».]
Dès que la ligne mélodique parvient à elle, comme en un recul, elle lui impose le plus souvent un
rebondissement très caractéristique à la quarte supérieure (quarte diminuée la plupart du temps) et après
une oscillation l’atteignant de nouveau, la fait aboutir finalement sur le 2ème
degré du mode. Elle
détermine ainsi une cadence suspensive par une figure chargée d’expression. [Author’s note and italics.
Translation by Dennis Weber.] 58
Literally: ―doe of the dawn‖. 59
Jews of different cultures make shofars of goat, gazelle, gemsbok, antelope, and other kosher animal
horns for liturgical or esthetic reasons. 60
Except when the former falls on the Sabbath. 61
[…] la psalmodie elle seule, et non la prosodie, semble avoir été conçue en vue de comporter un
accompagnement instrumental Sa configuration en témoigne (mouvements mélodiques souvent disjoints,
de tierces notamment ; et particulièrement cadence V-I, fréquente en fin de versets. Sa structure sous-
entend une harmonie. Ces données, elles encore, révèlent une musique créée en vue de sa finalité.
[Author’s note and italics. Translation by Dennis Weber.] 62
In order to accommodate Western musical notation, the Hebrew lyric has been disposed by word
(including makef as separator) from left to right. Due to this convention, Mgrs + LtRv (v. 1-4, 6-9) and
OlVy + Mrka (v. 6-8), respectively RvMg and OlVy in syntactic configuration, and other signs occurring
in the same word appear in reverse order. Azla (v. 1, 3, 7) and Mhpk (v. 7 [3rd
occurrence from left], 9)
are followed by pasek and defined as AzLg and MhLg respectively in syntactic configuration. 63
Haïk-Vantoura obtained her results from the Bible (whose publication date [2nd
edition, 1866, cited in
Wikipedia] and location [Berlin] are hard to verify) attributed to Meir Halevi Letteris (1800-1871),
whom the Columbia Encyclopedia and the JewishEncyclopedia both identify as a Jewish Austrian
poet, scholar, and translator, but not as an editor of the Bible. She dates this edition in 1873 (two years
after the death of Letteris) and places it in Vienna (his hometown). Alternate readings from that edition:
v. 1 s/Mrka/Ø; v. 2 s/Gaya (1st occurrence from left)/Ø; v. 3 s/Gaya (1
st occurrence from left)/Ø,
s/Glgl/Mhpk; v. 4 s/Mrka (1st occurrence from left)/Dkhi; v. 5 s/Gaya (1
st occurrence from left)/Ø; v. 6
s/Gaya (1st occurrence from left)/Mhpk; v. 7 s/Mhpk (2
nd occurrence from left)/Glgl, s/Mnkh/Gaya,
s/Mhpk (3rd
occurrence from left)/Mnkh; v. 9 s/Mgrs/Ø. 64
Music: Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura, bass: Xavier Tamalet, Celtic harp: Nehama Reuben, 1979. [Discography
by John Wheeler. The date differs from that (1978) posted on his site.] 65
.L’autre figure mélismatique contribuant à donner à la psalmodie son tour particulier, est celle qui résulte
des deux signes associés : [geresh mukdam] et [little revia], qu’ils soient proches ou distants l’un de
l’autre.
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Endnotes 75
Moyen expressif largement utilisé, cette boucle, plus ample à l’aigu qu’au grave de la note sur laquelle
elle insiste, la cerne souvent comme un commentaire méditatif ou douloureux […] le résultat peut être
magistral. [Translation by Dennis Weber.] 66
The cæsura is represented by a double pipe (||) in poetic meter, by two oblique bars (//), or railroad tracks, in musical meter, where it indicates a pause whose duration is left to the discretion of the
performers. A preliminary cæsura occurs in four verses, marked by dekhi (v. 3), tsinor (v. 6), and little
revia (v. 7-8). In other psalmodic texts ole veyored (followed by merekha) also performs this function. 67
For more information on music as digital data, see Art analogique & représentation numérique (in
French).