Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Alviero Niccacci <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>]

 On  04/13/99 (Direct Speech Past Tense) Lee R. Martin wrote:

> Dear Professor,
> In your "BH Verb System in Prose" in The Tilburg Papers, p. 183 ff, I do
> not see a place for the participle in the axis of the past, e.g. Job
> 1:18.  Would you please explain this verse? Thank you.


Dear Martin Lee,

Thank you for your query concerning the Tilburg papers p. 183 ff.

- I think the RSV's translation of Job 1:18 is correct: "While he was yet speaking, there came another..."

In my _Syntax_ #100 I quoted Gen. 29:9, which is a similar example, under the heading "Simple noun clause functioning as a clause of time or as a conditional clause".  I think that Job 1:18 (and similarly 1:17) constitutes a double sentence composed of a clause of circumstance (or 'protasis') and a main clause (or 'apodosis'). I call it *double sentence* because the two clauses are strictly related one to the other and inseparable. They constitute a special syntactical unit, which I tried to describe in all its different forms in Chapter 8 of _Syntax_ (there the double sentence is called *The Two-Element Syntactic Construction*). Other examples similar to Job 1:17, 18 quoted in _Syntax_ #100 are Gen. 38:25; Judg. 6:13; 1Sam. 9:14, and 1Sam. 9:27.

- In the Tilburg papers I did not treat the participle as such because there I addressed what I consider the main problem of BH syntax, that is the structure of the sentence. In my view the structure of the sentence depends on two factors--the position of the finite verb (first or second), and/or the level of communication (main or secondary). These two criteria go together. As Randall Buth mentioned recently, Walter Gross presented a strongly critical view regarding the so-called "compound nominal clause" in _The Verbless Clause_ recently edited by Cynthia Miller. My paper there is not a direct rebuttal to Gross because I wrote it without knowing of Gross' paper (I was not present at the SBF meeting). Actually, I tried to show that the non-verbal sentence (i.e. the one with no finite verbform) in certain cases functions like a sentence with a finite verb in the second place, or "compound nominal clause". I think this is a proof that in certain cases the verb-second clause is functionally nominal although it contains a finite verbform. However, as I mentioned before, the criterion of the position of the finite verb in the sentence needs to be supplemented by the criterion of the levels of communication. Thus, the situation is complex but clear to me; it makes up a system. I am sorry that my description looks "unattractive" to Gross.
Actually, Gross is restating what he explained in his volume _Die Satzteilfolge im Verbalsatz_. I wrote a rather detailed discussion of it in a paper (in Italian) entitled "Ebraico biblico e linguistica"  published in the last issue of _Henoch_ 20, 2 (1998) 189-207.

- The participle does have a place in the BH verbal system. In direct speech, it constitues the present tense but it is also used for circumstantial clauses indicating contemporaneity. In historical narrative it is a secondary-level construction. It is used to indicate contemporaneity, to describe, to express a custom amd is translated with the imperfect--that is the 'present in the past.' Classical and Neo-Latin languages have specific forms for the imperfect as distinct from simple past--the narrative tense.

Because we have no competent speaker of BH, we have to learn it from the text. There is no other way. We need a text-linguistic approach and sound methodology. General linguistic is important; however, no general-linguistic principle can disprove what we learn from a sound analysis of the texts. General linguistics needs to accomodate itself to the text, not vice versa. We can not derive our analysis of the text directly from a general-linguistic study. Rather, with a general-linguistic knowledge we have to analyze texts and see whether or not general-linguistic principles apply or need to be refined or even modified.

Peace and all good,

Alviero Niccacci
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