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  • From: Donald Vance <donaldrvance AT mac.com>
  • To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Gen 14:6 and the construct state
  • Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 18:28:37 -0500

You're confusing categories. Genitive and construct are not identical. A noun in the construct state juxtaposed to another noun is one way to express the genitive relationship, but not the only way (noun + prep. "le" + noun, for example). Morphology is precisely the difference and morphology matters. The authors put some nouns in the construct state which usually has a different morphology than does the absolute or status pronominalis. Other nouns they set side by side with no change in morphology, which we call apposition. I'm not making assumptions; I'm accounting for the data. I don't know how to make this any clearer. Ephah is absolute and ephat is construct. They are different forms morphologically. I stated explicitly that the appositional phrase is
genitival (or the functional equivalent), but that does not make it construct. Further, not all appositional phrases are genitival (the father-in-law example). "Construct," "genitive," and "apposition" may be modern grammatical terms, but they describe genuine phenomena observable in the text.
Your English example of Fish doesn't work either. It follows the rules (whatever they may be), just not the rule of "s". To repeat, the rules are observations, not legislation.

To sum up, "construct" is a descriptor used to designate the genitive relationship of two or more nouns where these nouns are treated as a single accentual unit which, in turn, usually affects the morphology. You keep using construct and genitive as synonyms and they are not. Genitive is a broader term than is construct. You may choose to use the terms differently, but to do so means that you will continue to be misunderstood and that you will continue to have conversations like this one.


Sent from my iPhone

Donald R. Vance
donaldrvance AT mac.com

Sent from my iPhone

Donald R. Vance
donaldrvance AT mac.com

On May 6, 2010, at 1:01 PM, James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com> wrote:

Yes. I agree that speakers internalised. But the question is what exactly did they internalise. You seem to be making an assumption that they internalised apposition and construct in the same way with the same criteria as you do. Just what linguistic tools exactly are you basing this assumption on.

The example you gave of a ephah of Barley, to me, seems to be a clear construct. You conclude that it isn't based on morphological details. I conclude that it is based on its function which from the context is very clearly genitival.

The example you gave of Jethro his father in law yes I agree is clearly not genitival. I would not analyse this as construct. But there are clearly instances where it is quite possible that for whatever reason the Hebrews did not follow your formalism of construct. The example you gave of an ephah of barley illustrates the point adequately.

Let's look at English. A purely morphological analysis of English says that a final s on a noun is needed to form a plural. But then we get plurals like fish that don't seem to obey the rules.

In the phrase we were discussing it is the context that clearly illuminates the genitival function of the phrase as does the context in your ephah of barley example.

It was at university that my professor, Dr Davila, told me that the best rule of thumb for constructs is two nouns next to each other. I've found the most useful rule of thumb. Better than the precise morphological system that is governing your classification which seems to be preventing you from seeing that ephah of barley is quite clearly a construct form that doesn't obey your morphological expectations.

James

On 6 May 2010 20:14, Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. <donaldrvance AT mac.com> wrote:
Of course they did. Just like any speaker of any language internalizes their rules. They may not have been able to articulate it, but they would be aware that "we just don't say it that way." Otherwise communication would be impossible as everyone would be doing whatever they like. Rules as formulated in grammars are merely the systematization of what we observe in the language. For example, Proper Names in Hebrew never take pronominal suffixes as do common nouns. Clearly the speakers of Classical Hebrew were making a distinction between the two, in use if not conceptually. In the same way, we don't seem to find PNs in construct (though see my earlier post on Ur of the Chaldeans which may prove me wrong here). Appositional phrases are not genitival. "The car, the red one" is an appositional phrase that is not genitival. Appositional phrases can approach the genitive relationship as "Bethlehem, Judah" does since this is functionally the same as "Bethlehem of Judah." We find, for example, in Ruth 2:17 ‏כְּאֵיפָה שְׂעֹרִים ke'epha se'orim "about an ephah, barley" that is "about an ephah of barley" yet ephah is clearly NOT in the construct as it has the abso lute feminine ending (the construct would be אֵיפַת, "ephat"). There are no textual variants for this phrase, implying, it seems to me, that the construction was not particularly hard to understand o r unusual. Why the appositional phrase instead of the construct? Who knows? I suppose there is some nuance that is lost. But other appos itional phrases are not genitival, for example, Ex 3:1, ‏יִתְרוֹ חֹתְנוֹ yitrô hotenô "Jethro, his father in law." This is not genitival. Waltke and O'Connor devote chapter 1 2 to appositional phrases. This is not getting "bogged down" but unp acking what the text says.


Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance AT oru.edu
donaldrvance AT mac.com


On May 6, 2010, at 2:43 AM, James Christian wrote:

I really don't think your average Hebrew writing possibly 3,000 years ago had a grammatical notion of different rules for proper nouns and common nouns. I really also don't think he had a grammatical notion of construct and apposition quite as rigid as your modernised and highly theoretical linguistics based approach has.

Languages disregard high level generalisations at will. That is why it more useful a guide to use a rule of thumb such as two nouns next to each other rather than getting bogged down with so called 'rules' about the construct form. What you are calling apposition just looks like a construct to me that doesn't obey your expected rule system of constructs. It has the same linguistic function and the exact same meaning.

In fact, I challenge you find and show us a single phrase you analyse as apposition which has an unambiguously significantly different meaning to its construct counterpart. I'm sure you will agree that there are none.

Also, your criticism of Karl's method of not using the vowels is completely unwarranted. They are an addition to the text and therefore a potential corruption of it. Karl's method is only to be commended and, in fact, the Hebrews read the text in this way for thousands of years before the Massoretes made this change. It is only by reading the text in this way that you are able to engage your instincts in matters of logical disambiguation decisions. If you rely on the vowel pointing then you rely on many of these decisions having been made for you. Not an entirely scholarly approach. This is not to say that Karl's decisions are necessarily superior but at least he's made the effort of training his own instincts and this is only to be commended. Were I to run a Hebrew course I would teach students from the word go to read the text unpointed.

James Christian







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