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and for Dageš, since both are intended to indicate a hard, i.e. a strong, sound. Hence Rāphè (see e) is the opposite of both.

 [d 2. In MSS. Mappîq is also found with א, ו, י, to mark them expressly as consonants, e.g. גּוֹיִ (gôy), קָוִ (qāw, qāu), for which וְ is also used, as עֵשָׂוְ, &c. For the various statements of the Masora (where these points are treated as Dageš), see Ginsburg, The Massorah, letter א, § 5 (also Introd., pp. 557, 609, 637, 770), and ‘The Dageshed Alephs in the Karlsruhe MS.’ (where these points are extremely frequent), in the Verhandlungen des Berliner Orientalisten-Kongresses, Berlin, i. 1881, p. 136 ff. The great differences in the statements found in the Masora point to different schools, one of which appears to have intended that every audible א should be pointed. In the printed editions the point occurs only four times with א (אׄ or אּ), Gn 43, Lv 23, Ezr 8 and Jb 33 (רֻאּוּ; where the point can be taken only as an orthophonetic sign, not with König as Dageš forte). Cf. Delitzsch, Hiob, 2nd ed., p. 439 ff.

 [e 2. Rāphè (רָפֶה i.e. weak, soft), a horizontal stroke over the letter, is the opposite of both kinds of Dageš and Mappîq, but especially of Dageš lene. In exact manuscripts every בגדכפת letter has either Dageš lene or Rāphè, e.g. מֶלֶךְֿ mèlĕkh, תָּפַֿר, שָׁתָֿה. In modern editions (except Ginsburg’s 1st ed.) Rāphè is used only when the absence of a Dageš or Mappîq requires to be expressly pointed out.

§15. The Accents.

 [aOn the ordinary accents (see below, e), cf. W. Heidenheim, מִשְׁפְּטֵי הַטְּעָמִים [The Laws of the Accents], Rödelheim, 1808 (a compilation from older Jewish writers on the accents, with a commentary); W. Wickes (see also below), טעמי כ״א ספרים [The Accents of the Twenty-one Books], Oxford, 1887, an exhaustive investigation in English; J. M. Japhet, Die Accente der hl. Schrift (exclusive of the books אׄמׄתׄ), ed. by Heinemann, Frankf. a. M. 1896; Prätorius, Die Herkunft der hebr. Accente, Berlin, 1901, and (in answer to Gregory’s criticism in the TLZ. 1901, no. 22) Die Uebernahme der früh-mittelgriech. Neumen durch dis Juden, Berlin, 1902; P. Kahle, ‘Zur Gesch. der hebr. Accente,’ ZDMG. 55 (1901), 167 ff. (1, on the earliest Jewish lists of accents; 2, on the mutual relation of the various systems of accentuation; on p. 179 ff. he deals with the accents of the 3rd system, see above, § 8 g, note); Margolis, art. ‘Accents,’ in the Jewish Encycl., i (1901), 149 ff.; J. Adams, Sermons in Accents, London, 1906.—On the accents of the Books תא״ם (see below, h), S. Baer, תורת אמת [Accentual Laws of the Books אמ״ת], Rödelheim, 1852, and his appendix to Delitzsch’s Psalmencommentar, vol. ii, Lpz. 1860, and in the 5th ed., 1894 (an epitome is given in Baer-Delitzsch’s Liber Psalmorum hebr., Lpz. 1861, 1874, 1880); cf. also Delitzsch’s most instructive ‘Accentuologischer Commentar’ on Psalms 1–3, in his Psalmencommentar of 1874, as well as the numerous contributions to the accentual criticism of the text, &c., in the editions of Beer and Delitzsch, and in the commentaries of the latter; W. Wickes, טעמי אמ״ת [Accents of the Poet. Books], Oxford, 1881; Mitchell, in the Journal of Bibl. Lit., 1891, p. 144 ff.; Beer and Strack, Dikduke ha-ṭeamim, p. 17 ff.

 [b 1. As Prätorius (see above) has convincingly shown, the majority of the Hebrew accents, especially, according to Kahle (see above), the ‘Conjunctivi’, were adopted by the Jews from the neums and punctuation-marks found in Greek gospel-books, and, like these, their primary purpose was to regulate minutely the public reading of the sacred