Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Dear Moon,

I think I may have confused you by bringing in the comparison with 
English. Hebrew may be no more like English than Korean. In fact I 
think a closer English equivalent to ):A$ER might be "the following" 
followed by a colon. For it seems to me that the word ):A$ER is 
related syntactically to the main clause rather than to the 
subordinate clause. Azerbaijani has a similar conjunction "ki" (though 
it cannot take prepositions) in which this relation is made clear in 
that (according to the pronunciation) a comma is always written after 
"ki", making it part of the main clause rather than the subordinate 
clause. I think you are confused because you are trying to parse 
):A$ER as part of the subordinate clause. On my view HABBAYIT ):A$ER 
HF)IY$ BOW could be glossed "the following house: the man (is) in it". 
But HABBAYIT BA):A$ER HF)IY$ would not make sense: it would mean 
something like "the house in the following (one): the man is". Thus 
KA):A$ER would be "like the following one:" or simply "as follows:".

Peter Kirk





Dear Peter,
thank you for your kind explanation. Let me go back to the issue of 
the
original post: 

Why isn't the following construction allowed in BH?

 (1) HABBAYIT BA):A$ER HF)IY$ (the house in which the man (is) )

BH allows only

 (2) HABBAYIT ):A$ER HF)IY$ BOW (the house which the man (is) in it)

It reminds me that English does not allow

(3) the house in that the man is
but only 
(4)  the house in which the man is.

It also seems that (5) sounds better than (6), though both are
not grammatical.

(5)  the house that the man is in it.
(6)  the house which the man is in it.

Don't the above examples suggest that ):A$ER is similar 
more to "that" than to "which"?

So, if we can explain why (3) is not valid and why (5) sounds better 
than
(6), we might be able to find a way to explain why (1) is not valid in 
BH.
Would anyone attempt to do it? As a non-native speaker of English, I 
do 
not
seem to have enough intuition into the use of "that"

Sincerely
Moon

Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea
 

 

> 
> BAYIT KA):A$ER HF)IY$ BOW (a house like that the man was in).
> .........
> 
> A case like KA):A$ER HF)IY$ B.OW, or the same with BA):A$ER, I would 
> explain as follows: as in the previous example ):A$ER HF)IY$ B.OW is 
> an adjective phrase, but as it does not descibe a noun it has become 
> nominalised and so can take a preposition