Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

If this clause was found in an actual English text (and I can quite believe
that it was), it is an example of English as it is actually used. Who are
you to say that this is "bad" English? If anything is "bad" English, it is
your "having crossed the floor...", on the basis that I cannot conceive of
such a phrase actually being used by a contemporary native English speaker
except in an interlinear gloss of Greek or Latin. The grammar of a language
is not what some classically educated snobs try to say it ought to be, it is
what is found in actual usage. If we can't allow English to be what English
actually is, what hope do we have of finding out what Hebrew is?

Peter Kirk

----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 7:42 AM
Subject: RE: vayyiqtol, assumption-rolf
<snip>

> It can even be used as implicature. A friend of mine who completed her
> Ph.D. had the following clause in her corpus: "crossing the floor, he
> opened the cupboard"...

<snip>

This is actually "bad" English.  Proper English would say "having
crossed the floor, he opened the cupboard."  The present participle
makes it sound as though he took hold of the cupboard door and
opened it while he was still halfway across the room and walking
toward the cupboard.  I would file this one under Randall's
exceptions, most of which fall into the category of "bad" grammar.
It's hard to build an understanding of a verbal form based on its
misuse.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Éist le glór Dé."