Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

Do you have a reference for van der Merwe in this regard? §47. The
Semantic-Pragmatic Functions of Word Order of "A Biblical Hebrew Reference
Grammar for Students" by Christo H. J. van der Merwe, Jackie A. Naudé & Jan
H. Kroeze (Sheffield Academic Press 1999) implies that VSO is the unmarked
order, for the authors list the different functions which are marked by
fronting of a constituent to the pre-verbal position.

Jean-Marc Heimerdinger gives a short survey of this issue in "Topic, Focus
and Foreground in Ancient Hebrew Narratives" (JSOT, Sheffield 1999),
pp.24-26. He doesn't mention van der Merwe, but after outlining the case for
VSO he mentions Joüon and Hadas-Lebel as supporting the SVO analysis. He
comments, "one gets the impression that such differing views on word order
can only be arrived at by isolating the numerous cases of vayyiqtol clauses
and treating them as special cases". He then looks at Givón's 1977*
"examination of the drift from VSO to SVO in Old Hebrew", including "a
statistical study of Genesis... which shows that there is a dominant V-S
order in the realis clauses". On this basis Heimerdinger concludes that
Hebrew is VSO.

* Givón, Talmy, 'The Drift from VSO to SVO in Biblical Hebrew: The
Pragmatics of Tense-Aspect', in C.N. Li (ed.), "Mechanisms of Syntactic
Change" (Austin: University of Texas Press): 181-254.

Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-hebrew-
> bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Dr Dale M Wheeler
> Sent: 27 May 2003 18:51
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [b-hebrew] VSO vs SVO
> 
> Does anyone have a response to van der Merwe, et.al.'s contention that
> Hebrew is not a VSO language, but rather should be viewed as a SVO
> language?
> 
> 
> **************************************************************************
> Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
> Research Prof., Biblical Languages    Multnomah Bible College
> 8435 NE Glisan Street                      Portland, OR  97220
> V: 503-251-6416    F:503-251-6478     E: dalemw AT multnomah.edu
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