Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 23/10/2004 19:42, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:

> Dear Peter,
>
> > Basic Hebrew knowledge is not as simple as you thought, for ):A$ER is 
> > not the same as the Greek, Latin or English relative.
>
>
> HH: I never said it was. I was the one who first mentioned, it seems 
> weeks ago, that BDB calls )$R a connecting link or sign of relation. 
> We ...


No, you, singular. Well, not BDB, not Gesenius "in the Greek, Latin or 
English sense", not Clay, and not me.

> ... call the function that it sometimes has that of a relative pronoun.


A pronoun is something which fills a noun slot in the syntactic 
structure. If ):A$ER does not do this, it is like Azerbaijani ki which 
should not be called a pronoun: it is a relative something, but a 
relative conjuction. Since in certain cases ):A$ER can fill a noun slot, 
it is sometimes a pronoun. But the slot it fills is not usually the one 
(in the subordinate clause) which a Greek, Latin or English relative 
pronoun fills, and so Gesenius is quite right to say that ):A$ER "is 
not, however, a relative pronoun in the Greek, Latin or English sense".

So I end up agreeing with Clay on Ezekiel 23:28.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/