Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

> 
> Yes, TH (that helps). If the Lord doesn't miraculously raise up a 
> native speaker, I guess you could do a lot worse than ask someone like 
> Al Silberman. But, from what I was saying to Dave Washburn, surely we 
> need to come up not with isolated sentences but whole discourses - 
> especially to test such things as use of weqatal. Even I :-) fooled 
> myself that "This morning I write a letter" was ungrammatical, until 
> someone showed me a context in which it was OK.
> 
> Meanwhile, by all means try to come up with a grammar based on poetry. 
> If it works, great! If it doesn't (as people have said in the past), 
> then maybe the biblical poets are not so comparable with Shakespeare 
> after all.

This brings up a question that has been tugging at the back of my 
mind for some time.  We all know that there are expressions in 
common use in English and other languages that are not, 
technically, grammatically well-formed but are part of some 
regional dialects nevertheless.  Some good examples come from 
my teenage daughter :-)  in such expressions as "So he goes, 'Did 
you call him?' and she goes, 'As if!' and then I'm all 'Why's that as 
if?  That guy be cute!'"  These statements are not well-formed 
according to English grammar, but they're part of a sub-sub-sub-
dialect that she and her friends use in private (they hope) 
conversation, I think the official term is "idiolect."  We all know 
them, yet such expressions within an idiolect are not necessarily 
considered "grammatically well-formed" in the broader context of 
English syntax.  The kids are simply choosing to use "bad" 
grammar.

That leads me to my question, submitted for everyone's 
consideration: do we have examples of idiolects in BH, i.e. are 
there instances of "bad grammar" in the biblical corpus?  If so, 
what are some examples?  If not, how do you know?
[helmet on again]

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.