Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Infinitive Construct

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Trevor Peterson <abuian AT access4less.net>
  • To: hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Infinitive Construct
  • Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:39:14 -0500

At the risk of treading all over a good joke . . .

C. Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Waltke/O'Connor page 601 36.2.1.a

"The infinitive construct can represent very nominal part of a clause."

The way I read this statement, an infinitive construct can fill any
syntactical slot in a clause which a noun can fill. Is that what W/Oc are
saying?

If that is the case then an infinitive construct can fill the slot of a noun
in the construct state or in the absolute state. What does one call an
infinitive construct when it fills the slot of a noun in the absolute state?

I wonder if this isn't a confusion of categories. Construct state and absolute state are morphological conditions, while "nominal part of a clause" suggests to me a syntactic issue. Syntactically speaking, what we normally think of as a construct chain is simply a type of noun phrase. It fills a nominal slot in the clause. So the syntactic question is not whether a word is construct or absolute in form, but how the word is functioning. Part of the confusion is that we talk about a noun being in construct to another noun, but this only works one way. We don't talk similarly about a noun being in absolute. The fact is, the role that we think of the absolute noun playing in a construct chain has nothing to do with the noun being absolute, because it can just as easily be another noun in construct, so that the chain extends.

In short, then, I'd say it's a non-issue, because we have no more occasion to talk syntactically about an infinitive construct in the absolute state than about a noun in the absolute state. That is only a relevant feature of nouns when we are talking about morphology.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page