Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Zech 6:8

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: kgraham0938 AT comcast.net
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Zech 6:8
  • Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:04:40 +0000

@ Herman
You wrote:
Herman:dear kelton, Steve, others interested,
In Biblical Hebrew, there is no visible nominative, genitive, dative,
accusative, ablative or any other kind of case ending for which we usLatin
words, because they are Latin/Greek, i.e. Indo-European terms.
Let alone a "datival accusative". Imagine we would suppose there were
indeed case endings someday in Hebrew (which is likely), like in Arabic
there still are in poetry for example, then we could easily prove that in the
biblical phase of Hebrew they died out.
Response: Well actually, the accusative is visible in Hebrew. )T is
definitely the sign for the direct object. A dative accusative is just a
label for when we find a pronominal object where we would expect a
prepositional object. You go on to say
Herman:We have for example words like לילה láyla
"night" with penultimate
stress, which is in fact ליל layl/leyl, with what we could
term a
"locative" case ending suffixed. The same thing we see in
הביתה
habbáyta "home". לילה layla has a fossilised/ossified
((?)PS what word would we use in English? It's not my native language)
"locative" ending, so it had once meant "at night", but because
לילה
"at night" was apparently used more often in the language than
ליל
"night" in its normal form, eventually לילה became
the normal word for
"night."
We can thus say that case endings were/are no longer there when most
> > > texts were composed.

Response: The word in english is just as you say it. It means "night". In
regards to what you said above, even though there are'nt any markers to
illustrate case, however from a syntatic standpoint I think we can see nouns
functioning as nominatives, genitives, and accusatives.
Herman:Why all this? Isn't this all purely academic?
Response: No, I think it is for clarification. I think it helps because it
illustrates how words are functioning in a sentence. In my mind it is good
to have ways of communicating Hebrew in a familiar way.

Herman:I think not; once we establish, like traditional grammars do, that
את
is the particle for the object, which in Greek/Latin is usually given
expression for nouns with the accusative, we tend to move on a little
too enthusiastically, and end up with a particle that expresses
"accusative", which is nonsense for Hebrew. As a result, we mix up
source language and Hebrew too, when we translate, because often our
languages are described by means of the same traditional Greek/latin
grammars.

Response: But if that is what we are familiar with, then I see no problem
with describing Hebrew under those titles if that is how the syntax of a
sentence operates. It helps clarify how the words are functioning under
titles that we are familiar with.
Herman:Like Steve asked, if you translate אתי "to me",
don't you turn a
Hebrew direct object into an English indirect object? (of course, he
didn't use Latin case names ;) ) Well, that is exactly where the two
languages have little or nothing to do with each other: an ancient Israelite
wouldn't have an idea what we are talking about: to him, the
את [et] in אתי [oti] is simply a preposition,
like על [(al] or other
prepositions. There are examples where it seems not to matter whether
or not את [et] is used in case of a definite noun that has the
function of object. But in case of
ויוזעק אתי wayyaz(eq
)oti here,
the only alternative is a suffix:
ויזעק� י wayyaz(aqeni (or something
like that). Here it is את [et], a preposition, not strictly
speaking a
direct object, which most likely would have been with a suffix (if we
would want to define it all in these terms).
What we should do, we have to look at the actual way the
particles/prepositions work in the Hebrew language, without importing
these foreign categories. The word את first of all seems so have a
complicated way of suffix attachment; we have both
אותי oti and אתי
itti (etc.), which seems to be the same word את. In the case of
אתי
itti the usual meaning is "with me", whereas אותי
oti is commony
understand as "me (object)". Can we then say that
אותי "must" always
expresses an object "me"?
Response: Well that's just it, the verb Z'Q means to "cry out." Normally it
takes the preposition 'EL following it when it is addressing someone. But
this time it is followed by )T. If you take )T as a preposition "with" I
don't think it would make much sense. So it is best to leave it
untranslated, take the pronoun as a DDO. Since 'T normally functions as a
DDO I think that is your best option.
Herman: That might be what we had our grammar books teach us. However, these
books are based on the very MT we use and were we find this example of
אתי oti that doesn't fit our grammars exactly.
Now we can do two things; we can adapt our MT to our grammars and find
all sorts of complex explanations using "datival accusatives" and
things like that; or we can adapt our grammars to our MT, saying,
apparently the grammars have missed this example where את [et]
(אתי
oti) introduces the addressed person as a complement to the verb
הזעיק
hiz(iq.I prefer the latter alternative.

Response: Well that would make sense, but I have never seen anyone propose
that idea before. But there are other instances of this type of situation,
so I would not argue that the grammars missed this example, just labeled it
in a mannar that could be understood.
--
Kelton Graham
KGRAHAM0938 AT comcast.net
>From bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz Mon Nov 21 14:22:09 2005
Return-Path: <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>
X-Original-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from cantva.canterbury.ac.nz (cantva.canterbury.ac.nz
[132.181.2.27])
by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8F7B04C00C
for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:22:08 -0500
(EST)
Received: from CONVERSION-A1.it.canterbury.ac.nz by it.canterbury.ac.nz
(PMDF V6.2-X27 #31178) id <01LVOXJSISCG9IB20G AT it.canterbury.ac.nz> for
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org; Tue,
22 Nov 2005 08:22:04 +1200 (NEW ZEALAND STANDARD TIME)
Received: from cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz
(cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz [132.181.4.26])
by it.canterbury.ac.nz (PMDF V6.2-X27 #31178)
with ESMTP id <01LVOXJU8LGK9KQ80Q AT it.canterbury.ac.nz> for
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org; Tue,
22 Nov 2005 08:22:06 +1200 (NEW ZEALAND STANDARD TIME)
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 08:22:06 +1300 (NZDT)
From: Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>
In-reply-to: <mailman.11.1132419602.23329.b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Message-id: <Pine.SOL.4.58.0511211611560.21292 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
References: <mailman.11.1132419602.23329.b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Alter's translation (Was: Daniel 6:27 (time
indefinite) II)
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.6
Precedence: list
Reply-To: bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz
List-Id: Hebrew Bible List <b-hebrew.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
<mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew>
List-Post: <mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
<mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:22:09 -0000

Peter wrote:-

>The trouble with Alter's attempt to fill this lack, from what I remember
>from a brief look some time ago, is that the English in it is so
>unnatural that it must also be rejected as "bad English".

Alter's translation and commentary has won much critical acclaim from
scholars. You ought to acknowledge that your view of what consistutes a
good translation is a very narrow one and not shared by many. I'm
gradually chugging my way through it. I think anyone who can read a
newspaper should have no problems reading it. It has its quirks, but
I think its a welcome addition to the range of English translations
available.

If list members haven't seen it, it is a translation and commentary of the
five books of Moses. The comments are not as extensive as you would get
with something like the Anchor Bible series. The work is formatted to try
to keep the comment on the same page as the text in question. On most
pages the comments take more space than the text. The comments are written
in very good English not Alter's slightly quirky translation style. There
is an extended essay on translation at the front which is well worth
reading. Taking everything together, as they clearly should be, it is a
work which every serious student of the Bible ought to consider adding to
their resources.

Bill Rea, IT Services, University of Canterbury \_
E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz </ New
Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax 64-3-364-2332 /) Zealand
Unix Systems Administrator (/'




  • [b-hebrew] Zech 6:8, kgraham0938, 11/21/2005

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page