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  • From: kgraham0938 AT comcast.net
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Duet 6:4
  • Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2005 16:22:57 +0000

Thanks for the response, your reasoning makes much sense, It just seemed to
make the most sense.


>
>
> kgraham0938 AT comcast.net wrote:
> > I am sure this has been discussed here, but what about Duet 6:4 being
> translated as a question?
> >
> > W: SH:MI ADONAY LO' NODA`:TI LAHEM
> >
> > And my name YHWH was I not known to them?
>
> I assume you mean Exod 6:3 :-)
> >
> > Since we know that not all questions do not have an interrogative H, I
> > think
> this is a possible translation.
>
> One question that I think needs to be asked is whether we can generalize
> at all about polar (yes/no) questions that are not marked with the h-
> prefix. Mitchell, which a century later still seems to be the most
> comprehensive study of this construction, concludes essentially
> (although he does not use the precise term) that the h- is only omitted
> on questions with a mood of contraexpectation (aside from two instances
> where it would precede the article). It should be noted that he
> considers several instances where a question with lo but no h- has been
> suggested and finds that they are probably not questions. If he had
> judged otherwise in these cases, his results might have been different.
> Still, I think caution is merited. It is too convenient to explain away
> a difficult assertion by calling it a graphically unmarked question. If
> we assume that a polar question can appear without h- under any
> circumstances, we almost never have to deal with anything we don't like.
>
> In this particular instance, I don't get any sense of contraexpectation,
> so I'd be hesitant to call it a question. It also seems to make more
> sense that he mentions only two names here if we read it as a contrast.
> Otherwise, why mention two and only two, especially when the first
> doesn't seem to be all that common? And why use two full clauses, when
> he could have simply listed the names? We'd almost have to suspect a
> poetic structure here to explain the cumbersome repetition, but I don't
> know that the passage otherwise calls for a poetic reading. I don't know
> that you can definitively rule out reading it as a question, but I don't
> think I'd go that way myself.
>
> Trevor Peterson
> CUA/Semitics
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