Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Isaac,

Can you please explain more clearly what you mean by what you wrote below.

Thanks,
David Kummerow.


-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re:[b-hebrew] Definite Article 7:14
From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
To: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
Date: 26/06/2007 10:54 AM

> David,
>
> You recall "the definite pronoun" but without telling us what this "the" 
> is, nor explaining to us what is this "the" pronouning for.
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
> On Jun 25, 2007, at 7:51 PM, David Kummerow wrote:
>
> > > Subject:
> > > Re: [b-hebrew] Definite Article 7:14
> > > From:
> > > Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
> > > Date:
> > > Sun, 24 Jun 2007 17:37:28 -0500
> > > To:
> > > b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > >
> > > To:
> > > b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Joseph,
> > > > HH: "My argument was not that the generic use of the article was
> > > > exactly the  same as the usage of it in Gen 14:13, but they are
> > > > similar. The one  could lead to the other. I wrote to Joseph:
> > > >
> > > > See the word "famine" in  Isa 29:8. See how it is used with "silver"
> > > > in Gen 13:2, or with "crimson" in  Isa 1:18, or with "blindness" in
> > > > Gen 19:11. In all these English would use  "a/an" or nothing, not 
> > > > "the."
> > > >
> > > > Or look at these cases below, all of which  take the definite article
> > > > in Hebrew, but an indefinite article in  English:
> > > >
> > > > like the heart of a lion (2 Sam 17:10)
> > > >
> > > > as a dog laps  (Judges 7:5)
> > > >
> > > > as one hunts a partridge (1 Sam 26:20)
> > > >
> > > > as one rends a  kid (Judges 14:6)
> > > >
> > > > If Hebrew could consider all these cases, which are  clearly
> > > > indefinite in English, as worthy of a definite article in a generic
> > > > sense,"
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > JW:
> > > > None of the above are clearly indefinite in English. I've seen
> > > > English  translations with "the" for all but Judges 14:6. More
> > > > importantly, none even sound awkward with "the".
> > >
> > > HH: Sorry, but they do sound somewhat awkward to me because English does
> > > not usually use the generic definite article this way, preferring an
> > > indefinite article.
> >
> > I'm the same as Joseph, though: all apart from the last one sounds fine.
> >
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > HH: David Kummerow shared with some of us an article written by a man
> > > named Ehrensvärd. It claimed to undermine the category of the definite
> > > article that you don't like. I went through only about a dozen of his
> > > examples. He was trying to undermine the force of 67 examples.  Some
> > > examples seemed implausible for the definite meaning that he tried to
> > > attribute to them. The strongest case of implausibility for me was with
> > > his example 11. This was the author's argument:
> > >
> > > (11) He found him sitting under the oak tree [H)LH] (1 Kgs 13,14)
> > > A known oak tree.
> > >
> > > HH: In example 11, a prophet of God traveled from Judah to Bethel and
> > > was heading back to Judah, The sons of a man show their father the road
> > > that the man of God was taking back to Judah. The father followed the
> > > prophet and found him sitting under "the oak tree." There was evidently
> > > more than one road the man of God could have taken; otherwise the sons
> > > would not have had to show their father the road. If the readers don't
> > > even know the precise road, how can they know the well-known oak tree on
> > > it?
> > >
> > > David thought it was too presumptuous of me to draw such a conclusion on
> > > the basis of my limited knowledge of the biblical situation, but the
> > > case is so weak in example 11 that it loses credibility, and there are
> > > several a bit like that. The reason I bring this author up is that he is
> > > trying to shoot holes in an established grammatical category found in
> > > numerous Hebrew grammars. It is related to several other categories of
> > > usage of the Hebrew article that are similar but different from English
> > > usage. These are grammarians from different centuries. It is not just
> > > these grammarians, for the translators of the King James Version drew
> > > similar conclusions back in the 1600's. And translators across a wide
> > > spectrum of beliefs  confirm the grammarians' judgment by likewise
> > > translating with the indefinite article where the Hebrew has the
> > > definite article.
> >
> > OK. I accept that 1Kgs 13:14 is most probably as you outline. However,
> > this is an exception to the overwhelming majority. Most of the other
> > examples can be taken otherwise. For me, the number is simply too low to
> > establish an indefinite category for the definite pronoun. I accept that
> > this may not be accepted. But I suggest that if this is maintained, then
> > perhaps another name other than "definite article" should be used.
> >
> > I've given thought a bit more to the generic use of the definite article
> > and I'm not entirely sure that the indefinite use you argue for could
> > have sprung from it as you suggested earlier. In a generic use, the
> > definite article does not refer to either a specific or known
> > individual, but to a category (member?). However, the indefinite
> > examples are all claimed to refer to specific unknown individuals. This
> > is quite different. The arguments of my previous post remain
> > substantively untreated. It remains to be demonstrated for me if the BH
> > "definite article" has in fact undergone semantic bleaching to the point
> > that it is rather a "marker of specificity" rather than a "marker of
> > definiteness". Some of these examples may perhaps be a move in this
> > direction. However, again, most need not be taken as indefinite --
> > despite what the grammars assert and what some translations have done.
> >
> > Much the same point is made by Holmstedt (2006: 21-22) regarding some
> > aberrant uses of ’ăšer:
> >
> > "What, then, do we do with these apparently aberrant examples? Since
> > they represent less than than one-fifth of one percent of the 5,500
> > ’ăšer clauses in the Hebrew Bible, not including the 299 included
> > clauses from Ben Sira and Qumran, I suggest that we hesitate in
> > recognising them as part of the grammar of ancient Hebrew. It is
> > possible that they are grammatical, particularly if we subscribe to
> > Sapir's maxim that 'all grammars leak,' which suggests that there is
> > room at the edges of a language's grammar for strange, but grammatical,
> > constructions. However, given the extreme statistical rarity of examples
> > in which ’ăšer serves a non-nominalising role, I strongly prefer to
> > exclude altogether these examples from the grammar of Hebrew; while they
> > might have been interpretable (an open question for which we shall never
> > have an answer since we lack native speaker input), they are nonetheless
> > grammatically unacceptable.
> >
> > "This should not be a troublesome conclusion, since if we believe
> > ancient Hebrew to be a real language, then we should expect to face
> > marginally acceptable and even outright ungrammatical examples in such a
> > large and varied corpus as the Hebrew Bible....We should neither be
> > surprised to find errors, nor should we attempt to include them in our
> > grammars as anything other than a footnote."
> >
> > My feeling is that, mutatis mutandis, this is much the case with the
> > so-called indefinite use of the BH definite article.
> >
> >
> > Holmstedt, Robert D. 2006. “The Story of Ancient Hebrew ’ăšer.” Ancient
> > Near Eastern Studies 43: 7-26.
> >
> > Regards,
> > David Kummerow.
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