http://www.mechon-mamre.org/c/hr/intro.htm#b21b3 http://www.mechon-mamre.org/c/hr/intro.htm#b21b3 The Hierarchy Of Distinctive Marks As described above, the cantillation marks belong to different classes describing their dividing power. These classes carry the titles of rulers: a qeysar (Caesar, emperor) terminates an entire Bible verse and "reigns" it; a melekh (king) divides the realm of an emperor and reigns the first half which it terminates while the other half is still under the reign of the emperor. Likewise, analogous rules apply to the lower ranks of rulers: a mishne (duke) divides the realm of a king and reigns the first half which it terminates; a shalish (officer) divides the realm of a duke and reigns the first half which it terminates. Lowest in rank is a mesharet (servant), that is, a conjunctive mark. Only the term for a distinctive mark in general, mafsiq (divider), does not fit into this imagery of rulers. In the 21 books, the very first division of each entire Bible verse is done by an emperor, Atnach, which divides the realm of another emperor, Sof Pasuq, thus violating the general rule that always the lower rank divides the realm of the immediately higher. However, the preceding paragraph remains valid even in this case when we regard the half-verse, terminated by either Sof Pasuq or Atnach, as the top level of the decomposition, of course keeping in mind that the Sof Pasuq divides stronger than the Atnach. In the 3 books, there is no such special rule: there, the Sof Pasuq is the only emperor, but two of the kings can appear at most once in a verse and only before the other kings so that in effect a similar division is obtained.
