Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

Dear Friends,

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> From: Lee R. Martin <lmartin AT vol.com>
> To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject: Re: 1 Kgs 1:40
> Date: Monday, November 23, 1998 8:11 PM
> 
> Dear Bryan,
> You are wrong.  

Likely.  I know I am in my previous use of the word "accusative" in this
thread.  I was thinking that "accusative" referred only to the object of a
verb.  After re-reading Waltke and O'Connor on the accusative case--btw,
thanks, guys for provoking me to do so--I realize that the term can also
refer to an optional adverbal complement(see section 10.2.2).  That's what
I think simxah g:dolah in 1 Ki 1:40 may be.  Accusative case?  Maybe. 
Object?  No.  A seperate verbless clause?  Maybe. 

Can we say that the repetition of the root smx(to be glad) in 1 Ki 1:40's
phrase s:mexiym simxah g:dolah is a cousin to expressions of the sort mot
yamut(he will
surely die or a-dying he will die)?  mem-vav-tav as a root in the Qal stem
is intransitive as opposed to transitive in the Hiphil stem. 
One kills(Hiphil) something(or someone), and it(he) dies(Qal).  In such a
phrase as mot yamut the presence of the infinitive absolute does not make
the Qal all of a sudden transitive.  It intensifies the notion of the
verb's mood, and perhaps the root's lexical value in some cases.  Well I'm
not saying that simxah g:dolah does all that.  But I am saying that it
intensifies the idea that the folks were rejoicing without being a direct
object.

I think Peter means, with this valence idea, that we must consider the
semantic boundaries of words simulataneously with syntax.  Is that right? 
I think this is why, in "...carving a carving"  the second "carving" is a
direct object but in "...rejoicing a rejoicing" the second "rejoicing" is
not a direct object.  Semantically--it has nothing to do with what language
we are in--the activity called carving is done *to* a carving.  The state
called rejoicing is not done *to* a rejoicing.

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> From: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org
> To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject: Re[4]: 1 Kgs 1:40
> Date: Monday, November 23, 1998 11:00 AM
> 
> I still see a problem with $MX here that we are trying to force this 
> verb/adjective into categories taken from traditional grammar of 
> Indo-European languages, i.e. transitive or intransitive, as well as 
> verb/participle or adjective. Instead we need to look at the whole 
> issue of "valency" of this and other verbs in a more general way, and 
> distinguish between grammatical cases and semantic roles. Now I am not 
> an expert at this, so perhaps someone can correct me. But as  I 
> understand it the "valency" of a verb is a description of which nouns 
> or noun phrases can be associated with it, which grammatical cases 
> and/or prepositions/postpositions are used with these noun phrases, 
> and what semantic roles these noun phrases play. In some languages 
> these valency rules are quite strict. In others, including b-hebrew, 
> they seem to be quite flexible, although there may be subtle rules not 
> immediately obvious. Also in b-hebrew there are no true grammatical 
> cases, and so this part of the rule is irrelevant.
> 
> On the basis of this model I see $MX (in the Qal - the valency rules 
> differ in different stems) as a stative verb, with a participle form 
> $FM"AX acting as an adjective. The valency of this verb is apparently 
> that it requires a (semantic) agent (subject) with no preposition, and 
> there is an optional (semantic) patient (or ??) with the preposition 
> b- or `al. Additionally, at least in 1 Kings 1:40, there seems to be a 
> further optional semantic role describing the quality of the action, 
> in which the noun has no preposition. Is this a reasonable desrciption 
> of the situation?
> 
> Peter Kirk