Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Thank you. With your help I have now found this reference to Gross, in a
footnote and so it didn't show up in a search.

Their point that the basic word order is found in predicate focus sentences
is probably a way of rescuing the concept of basic word order from the
morass which this thread has left it in - though of course this word order
is only basic to the extent that predicate focus sentences are basic. Indeed
it depends on the meaningfulness of the concept of predicate, which is
debatable in itself as a cross-linguistic concept. But there is a common
type of sentence (in very many languages at least) in which a noun is the
topic and also the grammatical subject and a verb with a direct object are
the focus. The word order in such a sentence could be considered basic. The
problem is that in Hebrew the word order in an isolated sentence may be
different from that in a connected narrative. Which is more basic? Who is to
say?

Anyway, van der Merwe et al conclude that the sentence constituent in focus
is generally fronted (by which I mean it is situated at the front, not that
it is moved to the front from some hypothetical other position). They
mention some other pragmatic functions of fronting: reintroduction or
reactivation of a character; and anterior and simultaneous constructions.
But it seems that where these do not apply the first constituent in a
sentence (after any conjunction) is the one in focus.

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: 29 May 2003 18:56
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] VSO vs SVO
> 
> Peter Kirk wrote:
> 
> 
> >I'm confused. I can find no reference to Gross in my electronic copy of
> this
> >grammar, except in the acknowledgement and the references. Is my copy
> >incomplete? Is it missing footnotes in which Gross is referred to?
> 
> Here's the footnote in Ch 7 where they refer to Gross..but as I said, they
> don't give ANY of his data, etc., to help the reader decide if their
> decision is correct.
> 
> **************
> 58 Many of the views put forward here are based on the results of a major
> research project on the function of BH word order conducted by Walter
> Gross
> at the University of Tübingen. Some of these findings have been published,
> cf. Gross (1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1991, 1993a, 1993b and 1996). However, this
> grammar is by no means an exhaustive representation of the views of Gross.
> It also does not represent an uncritical acceptance of his linguistic
> terms
> of reference and research findings, for example, the term fronting is
> preferred to his term topicalization, His more nuanced distinctions of
> constituents, referred to as syntagms, are also not used.
> ***************
> 
> >The text
> >as I have it certainly doesn't opt for SVO; it implies VSO, without
> actually
> >stating this, by treating as marked and classifying all variations from
> VSO.
> 
> No wonder I have been scratchin' my head trying to figure out what they
> are
> saying...you're absolutely correct, for after having (apparently)
> discarded
> the prime reasons that grammars have always claimed VSO for Hebrew, they
> make a passing comment towards the end of the chapter (when speaking about
> discourse issues), to wit:
> 
> *****************
> Across languages, utterances with predicate focus are those that are the
> most unmarked as far as the sequence of clause constituents is concerned,
> e.g. in English it is the sequence subject-verb-object (SVO) and in BH and
> Arabic it is verb-subject-object (VSO).
> ****************
> 
> So after beginning with the claim that all other grammars have used the
> wrong reasons (viz., waw-prefixed verbs and pronounless verbs starting
> sentences) to come to the VSO conclusion, they then come to *exactly* the
> same conclusion, but they call it "PreVerbal Field" and "Main (ie., verb +
> everything else) Field".  So what was the point of implying that VSO was
> wrong, but then following a VSO approach, but just using different
> terminology??  And linguistics wonder why people get frustrated with their
> introduction of whole new sets of terminology...
> 
> At any rate...thanks Peter...my headache is beginning clear up...
> 
> 
> **************************************************************************
> 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
> **************************************************************************