Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 15/11/2006 12:49, B. M. Rocine wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> Thank you for your helpful clarifications.
>
> One minor clarification on my side:  in my post (quoted below) I 
> purposely avoided discussing 'adoni hammelek for the very reasons you 
> mention.  I focused on only the transformation from 2nd person notion 
> (e.g. tishma') to 3rd person surface (yishma`) and `ebed + pronominal 
> suffix, which has wide application.
>
> I do accept that grammaticalization may be more rigorous than I had 
> realized. I am still not sure why tishma` -> yishma` would not qualify.
>
>   
We should certainly expect forms like plural pronouns and "your slave" 
to continue to agree in person and number with their original literal 
meanings even when they are fully grammaticalised as pronouns, whatever 
that might mean. Thus French "vous" and German "Sie" take second person 
plural and third person plural verb forms even when used as polite 
second person singular pronouns, and I am almost sure that Turkish 
"bendeniz" continues to take third person pronouns. Thus this is not a 
test of grammaticalisation. It would indeed be strange if Hebrew 'adoni 
hammelek took second person singular agreement.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/