Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

The fact of language is variation in constituent order. Constituent movement
is a concept which depends on a hypothesis of one of the many Chomskys, that
there is an underlying deep structure relative to which constituents may be
moved in the surface structure. This hypothesis has not been proved, indeed
it is probably unprovable. It may have proved productive for the analysis of
some languages, but that does not imply that it has any cross-linguistic
reality and is relevant to all languages.

So let's reformulate the question: why does Hebrew position the verb at the
front when creating a so-called waw-consecutive clause, and why does it
front the subject when creating a qatal/yiqtol clause? But that has turned
an oversimplifying yes/no question into a rather more complex one.

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 Dave Washburn
> Sent: 29 May 2003 18:31
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] V2 (was VSO vs. SVO)
> 
<snip>

...  The question at hand is,
> what is the base constituent order of Hebrew?  Constituent movement is a
> fact
> of language; the question is, does Hebrew move the verb to the front when
> creating a so-called waw-consecutive clause, or does it front the subject
> when creating a qatal/yiqtol clause?  If you have a better way of
> formulating
> that question, go for it.
> 
<snip>