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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew and English word order

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: "C. Stirling Bartholomew" <threetreepoint AT earthlink.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew and English word order
  • Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 12:15:02 +0100

On 07/07/2005 06:48, C. Stirling Bartholomew wrote:

On 7/6/05 10:34 PM, "C. Stirling Bartholomew" <threetreepoint AT earthlink.net>
wrote:


Two questions come to mind. Alter's stated purpose includes "... stylistic and
rhythmic integrity as literary English". I don't think "With God Noah walked"
meets this criteria. L. de Reqt is suggesting that "With God Noah walked"
reflects the information structure of the Hebrew Text placing the focus
element up front. But I don't think this is how English would handle this. In
English the focus element is often marked by vocal emphasis and it can be
clause final.

I have already thought of the first objection that will be raised. What de
Reqt wants to see is *contrastive* focus information structure in the
English translation. I don't see (it's late!) how "With God Noah walked"
accomplishes this. I think to bring out the contrastive focus a paraphrase
would probably be required.


We should bear in mind that de Regt is not a mother tongue speaker of English - although he speaks English very well. (I have met him several years ago, but I have not read his paper - I would be interested in a copy.) So we should not expect him to suggest good readings in English.

The correct English way of bringing out this contrastive focus unambiguously, at least in written language where vocal emphasis cannot be used, would be something like "But it was with God that Noah walked". That would probably be overtranslation in this context. Or since there has just been a mention of "the people of his time" (NIV), a good alternative might be "Unlike them, Noah walked with God". Some might reject this as "paraphrase", but it is simply impossible to render all of the information structure of Hebrew into English simply by word order.

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



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