While doing a quick Google search to recall (environments) where munach is substituted for metheg, one result was a 2014 Logos post/thread: "Question concerning syllable preferences in Hebrew" by Matt Robertson; it had multiple contributions and over 33k views!
I want to revive this, offering my two cents (some tips and corrections), as a potential aid to spot mistransliterations [not only in RIs, but throughout Logos - in Text Converter, context menu, and Exegetical Guide, etc.]. Here is my post at the end of that thread (with minimal changes):
Matt, you yourself show that your basic guideline (“Closed, unaccented syllables and open, accented syllables prefer short vowels. Essentially the reverse is true for long vowels.”) is flawed and unhelpful for determining syllables and vowel length. Here are some tips that cover most cases.
Your basic guideline should be simplified (along with a few caveats).
Replace it with: [1] Open syllables take long vowels; closed syllables take short vowels.
[Still, beware, an accent makes either possible (short accented V in open syllable; long accented V in closed syllable)]. So…
Add, [2]: A dagesh immediately following marks the ambiguous vowel as short in a closed syllable (so, chatuph; or short chireq [vs defectivo long chireq-yod]) and an accent stresses another syllable.
[Of course, that may require some knowledge of BH morphology and/or the type and placement of accents and their function.]
Two other mentions in that thread, with some addition and clarification, are helpful:
[3] Memorize the Qal perfect conjugation, AND imperfect; for other stems and forms, learn the vowel/pointing patterns.
(Ex. Niphal impf. pattern = i-class, dagesh (forte), a-class [so, qamets, not chatuph, in a second open unaccented syllable [not accounting for pausal forms] as frequently incorrect in Logos]).
And, in that regard, it is not a correct guide that “in the perfect of Qal all the shewas are vocal.”
See the paradigm from Lambdin's grammar below. (If taught otherwise, please explain the dagesh LENE in consonantal sufformatives starting with tav, and the doubly silent shewas in 2fs; nor is it vocal in 1 cpl. Only two Qal pf forms, 3fs and 3cp, have a vocal shewa — after addition of a light vocalic sufformative, requiring the "borrowing" of the final root consonant to start the final syllable, thereby reducing the theme vowel to a vocal shewa; and marked here in the paradigm by a metheg preserving the initial long vowel in an open first syllable.)
[4] Knowing a “base noun,”/lemma, is indeed helpful sometimes [as vowels reduce within their vowel class], as with qodshiy. Generally, however, you can expect a short vowel in such non-verbal forms, unless the Masoretes mark it with a metheg (or equivalent substitute for a metheg).
[5] Further, if still in doubt regarding syllable structure and vocal vs. silent shewa, shewa is Vocal after a long, unaccented vowel [mnemonic > after "LUV"].
Some unique situations:
[6] Before a guttural with compound chatuph: 2 possibilities! chatuph! OR qamets (if the prefixed article or a conjoined preposition with prefixed article; and the latter may require discourse factors sometimes to distinguish that from a prefixed preposition without the article = chatuph):
“before ḥaṭef qameṣ [= compound/composite qamets chatuph shewa] ( ֳ)is an o̧ [chatuph] despite the metheg, except in cases where ָֽ represents the vowel å [qamets] of the article…”Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar ofBiblical Hebrew (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2006), 42, §6 n.
[7] Few rare forms.
Such as the plural forms (absolute and construct [plus suffixes]) of ba'yit, “house” : bAttiym, pl, etc. is qamets, despite the dagesh and the metheg!
[See J-M, GBH 6L 2, GKC, other grammars, incl. for a possible explanation from historical linguistics. Logos incorrectly transliterates these forms as having chatuph, likely following my tip #2, but ignoring the presence of metheg.]
No wonder so many transliterations are incorrect in Logos, eh? Very difficult to build all the often interdependent factors (syllable structure and stress, and vowel length), and sometimes even contextual considerations, into a general transliteration tool.
