Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Wednesday 06 October 2004 10:58, MarianneLuban AT aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 10/6/2004 9:39:41 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>
> hholmyard AT ont.com writes:
> > >I don't know how much relevancy can be attributed--but "ink" is a
> > > personal pronoun in Egyptian.  It means "I am" and is only seen at the
> > > start of a clause.
> >
> > HH: In Hebrew )NKY does not have to be the first word of a clause.
> > See Genesis 3:10 and 4:9.
>
> One doesn't count preliminary qualifiers as "And he said", does one?  Isn't
> the statement of the person a clause in itself?  Well, my rules of grammar
> may be rusty, but in Egyptian, this independent pronoun would certainly
> also be followed by a qualifier  like "Dd.n=f" or "he said" (in the case of
> a male) . The pronoun was first written as "nwki" and then later as "ink",
> "nwk" and "inwk".  Sir Alan Gardiner wrote:  "This series (of independent
> pronouns) is closely connected with the personal pronouns in Hebrew and
> Arabic."

Marianne,
I agree with you that "and he said" etc. is a separate clause, not part of 
the 
direct speech being cited.  But the two examples Harold gave don't fall into 
this category; in both instances, they are the second word in a standard 
verbless clause.  Thus Gen 3:10 reads KY (YRM )NKY "because I am/was naked" 
and Gen 4:9 reads H$MR )XY )NKI "am I my brother's keeper?"

Having said that, it could be that there are different "rules" for the 
pronoun 
depending on whether it's in a verbless clause such as these, or in a clause 
with an explicit verbal element as in Judg 6:8.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No good.  Hit on head."   -Gronk