
Towards Better Davening and Torah Reading
Towards Better Torah reading and Davening
Another look at an old topic, with examples from Ki Teitzei.
When a VAV is prefixed to a verb in order to change its tense from past to future (or TZIVUI, the command tense - included in future), the accent most often changes from the next to the last syllable to the last syllable. The word goes from a MIL'EIL accent to MILRA.
Examples from Ki Teitzei:
bi-AR-ta (past), uvi-ar-TA (future)
SHAV-ta (past), v'shav-TA (future)
za-CHAR-ta (past), v'za-char-TA
sha-CHACH-ta (past), v'sha-chach-TA
And many others.
Notable exception is a LAMED-HEI verb. That is, when the root of the verb ends with a HEI.
ta-LI-ta (you hung, past tense),v'ta-LI-ta (and you shall hang). No switch in the accent this time, even though the tense flips.
Another situation in which the accent does not move even though the verb's tense is switching from past to future is when the word in question is the last word in a pasuk or it is TROP-ed with an ETNACHTA. Both these full stops keep the accent in place. When an accent does move we should be careful to accent the word correctly.
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