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b-hebrew - Re[8]: 'asher with prepositions

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  • From: peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[8]: 'asher with prepositions
  • Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 00:52:52 -0500


At risk of seeming to show off my knowledge of languages (not much
wider than in this post, in fact!), let me answer some of Dave's and
Doug's points.

I don't know any Korean. But I do know that it is structurally very
similar to Turkic languages. Turkish has no relative pronoun, and thus
I can believe that Korean has none either. Instead, Turkish has a
variety of constructions using embedded phrases with non-finite or
participle verb forms. These can be used to do almost everything you
can do with relative clauses in Indo-European languages, though
because of the head-last structure it gets very confusing for us
westerners. (Koreans learn Turkish incredibly fast! Everything is the
right way round for them.)

Azerbaijani is closely related to Turkish, but its structure has been
more influenced by Farsi, and it has borrowed a complementiser "ki"
(probably related to the Hebrew KIY via Arabic) introducing real
subordinate clauses with finite verbs, which is widely used in
colloquial speech though deprecated in writing. Relative clauses
closer to the Indo-European pattern can be formed using "ki", but
closer inspection reveals a pattern closer to the Hebrew one e.g.

ev ki, adam ondadir
house which, man in-it-is

ev ki, biz onda yashayiriq
house which, we in-it (we-)live

The comma indicates the phonological break (and is required in
writing) and suggests also the clause boundary. The subordinate clause
is in fact a fully independent clause with no shift of components,
trace theory does not apply. "ki" could be replaced by a full stop
(period) with no other changes and in written language it often is.

Russian also offers a phenomenon comparable with another side of the
Hebrew one. Alongside the regular relative "kotoryy" there is a
construction "tot, chto" or "tot, kto", equivalent to English "that
which" or "he who". This construction consists of two elements, which
must always be separated by a comma (indicating the phonological
break). Each element is a separately declinable pronoun; one is part
of the main clause and the other part of the subordinate clause. The
main clause element "tot" may be adjectival or nominal, when
adjectival it is shifted before the noun. But in this case the element
in the subordinate clause is fronted, only a preposition may come
before it.

tot dom, v chom chelovek
that house, in which person (is)

tot, v chom chelovek
that (one), in which person (is)

u togo, v chom chelovek
at that (one), in which person (is)

Interestingly, the form "potomu, chto" "according to that, which" can
be used, but this generally becomes merged into an expression in which
the comma and phonological break is shifted forwards, ", potomu chto"
(pronounced as one word) "because". This clear case of shift of a word
from the main clause to the subordinate might interest you
generativists.

Then to get back to Hebrew: It seems to me that Hebrew combines
elements of the Azerbaijani and the Russian constructions. ):A$ER
corresponds to the Azerbaijani "ki" or the Russian "tot" in that it
goes with the main clause, and with the Russian "tot" in that it can
be nominal or adjectival and (when nominal) can be governed by
prepositions which relate to the main clause. The subordinate clause
(excluding ):A$ER ), like the Azerbaijani subordinate clause following
"ki", is a sentence in itself with no shift of ordering. Hence my
questions about verb forms, which might help to confirm my view. By
the way, I would not expect wayyiqtol forms here for two reasons: one
is that the conjunction is superfluous, and the second is that there
is no sequentiality. Doug's first data suggests that ):A$ER + qatal is
pluperfect like X + qatal, but then there are few examples of sentence
initial qatal to compare with. I would be interested to see if ):A$ER
+ yiqtol is more likely to be jussive (like sentence initial yiqtol)
than ):A$ER + X + yiqtol - that could help to confirm my hypothesis.

I hope that helps to explain where my idea is coming from. I will leave
it to experts like Dave to fit this data into particular theoretical
models. I am just supplying some data which may confirm or break those
models.

Peter Kirk

PS to Dave: You quoted the sentence

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

as if it is a valid sentence. I had taken this to be invalid, or at
least to have the rather odd meaning "the house in the one which the
man is". Does this type of construction actually occur with the
meaning "the house in which the man is"? Can you give references? You
originally asked, "So I'm wondering why an author would sometimes
choose to move the preposition with the 'asher, and sometimes choose
not to and put the preposition with an anaphor instead." To rephrase
my previous question, are there actual cases in the Hebrew Bible in
which you would say that the preposition has moved with ):A$ER, and
the preposition clearly relates to the subordinate clause and not to
the main clause? This is important, because the existence of such
sentences is the only justification for your assertion: "Of course, a
side-effect of all this is that Peter's idea of ):$ER being part of
the main clause is unlikely because either way it's a moved
constituent from the "lower" clause". My argument would be that ):A$ER
is not a moved constituent at all. In English we can write "the house
which the man is in" or (pedantically) "the house in which the man
is", because "which" is a moved constituent; you are suggesting that
the equivalent two possibilities exist in Hebrew, but I doubt if the
second one actually exists.






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