Biblical Hebrew Forum

["TROELS HANSEN" <tkmh AT get2net.dk>]

Aarhus, Denmark, May 5. 2005



Dear fellow b-hebrewers!


No doubt, you are all expert b-hebrewers. And English is your mother tongue. 
And in these times of rock and roll and internet and so on, you are prone 
not to speak any German. Which makes my errand a little complicated. I did 
want to ask you, if you had any idea where I could have read about the 
distinction between a "Habitus-Sprache" and a "Relations-Prädikat-Sprache", 
but I could bring the idea through to you without any German.
Being merely a theologian, I would probably be excused, if i were to say 
that quantum mechanics makes no sense to me. But if i dared to say that 
quantum mechanics has no meaning, I'd better be expelled from any university 
I ever had or ever would have frequented. "Having meaning" is what Germans 
might call "habitus", a word I just don't know how to render in English, but 
a "habitus" is a predicate that is unseparable from its subject just as my 
being Danish is unseparable from me. But what about a "relation predicate"? 
Well, take a look at this quotation from the KJV, Eze. 16, 51f:

51 Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast 
multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters 
in all thine abominations which thou hast done.
52 Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy 
sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more 
righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in 
that thou hast justified thy sisters.

If "being justified" was a "habitus", this quote would be gibberish, but if 
you take "being justified" to be a "relation predicate". it all makes sense. 
Now, the author I have forgotten claims that Greek is "Habitus-Sprahe", 
whereas Hebrew is a "Relations-Prädikat-Sprache". Who is he?

Thank you for any help in this case!

Yours
Troels Hansen,
tkmh AT get2net.dk