Maximum He HaShe'elah
Previously: Consecutive Mappiq He, Non-Consecutive Mappiq He
Harold Zazula asks: What is the largest number of He HaShe'elah (interrogative prefix) in a pasuk or parsha?
Both Harold and Wikipedia helpfully tell us that the vowel under an interrogative prefix is chataf patach.
First, let's see how many verses have more than two words that start with a He and a chataf patach:
from pathlib import Path
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
URL_SEFARIA = "https://www.sefaria.org/{book}.{chap}.{verse}"
print("| count | ref |")
print("|-------|-----|")
for path in sorted(Path(".").glob("*.xml")):
# ignore extraneous files
if ".DH" in path.name or "Index" in path.name:
continue
# load the xml file; require lxml library
soup = BeautifulSoup(path.read_text(), features="xml")
for verse in soup.find_all("v"):
count = sum([
1 if word.text.startswith("הֲ") else 0
for word in verse.find_all("w")
])
if count > 2:
book = path.stem
chap_num = verse.parent["n"]
verse_num = verse["n"]
ref = f"{book} {chap_num}:{verse_num}"
url = URL_SEFARIA.format(book=book, chap=chap_num, verse=verse_num)
print(f"|{count}|[{ref}]({url})|")
count | ref |
---|---|
9 | Daniel 5:19 |
4 | Ecclesiastes 1:2 |
5 | Isaiah 40:21 |
3 | Isaiah 58:5 |
3 | I Kings 20:33 |
3 | II Kings 4:26 |
3 | Psalms 94:9 |
Let's take a look at each of these results.
-
Daniel 5:19 is in Aramaic. But it does indicate that having a maqaf immediately before this word should maybe disqualify the current word.
-
Ecclesiastes 1:2 the word הֲבֵל is getting picked up. Maybe I should just exclude that word.
-
Isaiah 40:21 has the word הֲלוֹא four times which is an appropriate match.
-
Isaiah 58:5 has the words הֲכָזֶה, הֲלָכֹף , and הֲלָזֶה which are all appropriate.
-
I Kings 20:33 has words that are all weird or not a match: הֲמִמֶּנּוּ and הֲדַד (twice, but after a maqaf).
-
II Kings 4:26 has הֲשָׁלוֹם three times which is an appropriate match.
-
Psalms 94:9 has הֲנֹטַע and הֲלֹא (twice) which are both appropriate.
In our next experiments we can try out:
- Ignore words preceded by a maqaf.
- Most consecutive verses with a He HaShe'elah.
- Chapter with the most verses containing a He HaShe'elah.
- Parsha with the most verses containing a He HaShe'elah.