Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Donald Vance <donaldrvance AT mac.com>]

You're confusing categories. Genitive and construct are not identical.  
A noun in the construct state juxtaposed to another noun is one way to  
express the genitive relationship, but not the only way (noun + prep.  
"le" + noun, for example). Morphology is precisely the difference and  
morphology matters. The authors put some nouns in the construct state  
which usually has a different morphology than does the absolute or  
status pronominalis. Other nouns they set side by side with no change  
in morphology, which we call apposition. I'm not making assumptions;  
I'm accounting for the data. I don't know how to make this any  
clearer. Ephah is absolute and ephat is construct. They are different  
forms morphologically. I stated explicitly that the appositional  
phrase is
genitival (or the functional equivalent), but that does not make it  
construct. Further, not all appositional phrases are genitival (the  
father-in-law example). "Construct," "genitive," and "apposition" may  
be modern grammatical terms, but they describe genuine phenomena  
observable in the text.
Your English example of Fish doesn't work either. It follows the rules  
(whatever they may be), just not the rule of "s". To repeat, the rules  
are observations, not legislation.

To sum up, "construct" is a descriptor used to designate the genitive  
relationship of two or more nouns where these nouns are treated as a  
single accentual unit which, in turn, usually affects the morphology.  
You keep using construct and genitive as synonyms and they are not.  
Genitive is a broader term than is construct. You may choose to use  
the terms differently, but to do so means that you will continue to be  
misunderstood and that you will continue to have conversations like  
this one.


Sent from my iPhone

Donald R. Vance
donaldrvance AT mac.com

Sent from my iPhone

Donald R. Vance
donaldrvance AT mac.com

On May 6, 2010, at 1:01 PM, James Christian  
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com> wrote:

> Yes. I agree that speakers internalised. But the question is what  
> exactly did they internalise. You seem to be making an assumption  
> that they internalised apposition and construct in the same way with  
> the same criteria as you do. Just what linguistic tools exactly are  
> you basing this assumption on.
>
> The example you gave of a ephah of Barley, to me, seems to be a  
> clear construct. You conclude that it isn't based on morphological  
> details. I conclude that it is based on its function which from the  
> context is very clearly genitival.
>
> The example you gave of Jethro his father in law yes I agree is  
> clearly not genitival. I would not analyse this as construct. But  
> there are clearly instances where it is quite possible that for  
> whatever reason the Hebrews did not follow your formalism of  
> construct. The example you gave of an ephah of  barley illustrates  
> the point adequately.
>
> Let's look at English. A purely morphological analysis of English  
> says that a final s on a noun is needed to form a plural. But then  
> we get plurals like fish that don't seem to obey the rules.
>
> In the phrase we were discussing it is the context that clearly  
> illuminates the genitival function of the phrase as does the context  
> in your ephah of barley example.
>
> It was at university that my professor, Dr Davila, told me that the  
> best rule of thumb for constructs is two nouns next to each other.  
> I've found the most useful rule of thumb. Better than the precise  
> morphological system that is governing your classification which  
> seems to be preventing you from seeing that ephah of barley is quite  
> clearly a construct form that doesn't obey your morphological  
> expectations.
>
> James
>
> On 6 May 2010 20:14, Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. <donaldrvance AT mac.com>  
> wrote:
> Of course they did. Just like any speaker of any language  
> internalizes their rules. They may not have been able to articulate  
> it, but they would be aware that "we just don't say it that way."  
> Otherwise communication would be impossible as everyone would be  
> doing whatever they like. Rules as formulated in grammars are merely  
> the systematization of what we observe in the language. For example,  
> Proper Names in Hebrew never take pronominal suffixes as do common  
> nouns. Clearly the speakers of Classical Hebrew were making a  
> distinction between the two, in use if not conceptually. In the same  
> way, we don't seem to find PNs in construct (though see my earlier  
> post on Ur of the Chaldeans which may prove me wrong here).  
> Appositional phrases are not genitival. "The car, the red one" is an  
> appositional phrase that is not genitival. Appositional phrases can  
> approach the genitive relationship as "Bethlehem, Judah" does since  
> this is functionally the same as "Bethlehem of Judah." We find, for  
> example, in Ruth 2:17 ‏כְּאֵיפָה שְׂעֹרִים  
> ke'epha se'orim "about an ephah, barley" that is "about an ephah of  
> barley" yet ephah is clearly NOT in the construct as it has the abso 
> lute feminine ending (the construct would be אֵיפַת, "ephat").  
> There are no textual variants for this phrase, implying, it seems to 
>  me, that the construction was not particularly hard to understand o 
> r unusual. Why the appositional phrase instead of the construct? Who 
>  knows? I suppose there is some nuance that is lost. But other appos 
> itional phrases are not genitival, for example, Ex 3:1,  
> ‏יִתְרוֹ חֹתְנוֹ yitrô hotenô "Jethro, his father  
> in law." This is not genitival. Waltke and O'Connor devote chapter 1 
> 2 to appositional phrases. This is not getting "bogged down" but unp 
> acking what the text says.
>
>
> Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
> Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
> Oral Roberts University
> dvance AT oru.edu
> donaldrvance AT mac.com
>
>
> On May 6, 2010, at 2:43 AM, James Christian wrote:
>
> I really don't think your average Hebrew writing possibly 3,000  
> years ago had a grammatical notion of different rules for proper  
> nouns and common nouns. I really also don't think he had a  
> grammatical notion of construct and apposition quite as rigid as  
> your modernised and highly theoretical linguistics based approach has.
>
> Languages disregard high level generalisations at will. That is why  
> it more useful a guide to use a rule of thumb such as two nouns next  
> to each other rather than getting bogged down with so called 'rules'  
> about the construct form. What you are calling apposition just looks  
> like a construct to me that doesn't obey your expected rule system  
> of constructs. It has the same  linguistic function and the exact  
> same meaning.
>
> In fact, I challenge you find and show us a single phrase you  
> analyse as apposition which has an unambiguously significantly  
> different meaning to its construct counterpart. I'm sure you will  
> agree that there are none.
>
> Also, your criticism of Karl's method of not using the vowels is  
> completely unwarranted. They are an addition to the text and  
> therefore a potential corruption of it. Karl's method is only to be  
> commended and, in fact, the Hebrews read the text in this way for  
> thousands of years before the Massoretes made this change. It is  
> only by reading the text in this way that you are able to engage  
> your instincts in matters of logical disambiguation decisions. If  
> you rely on the vowel pointing then you rely on many of these  
> decisions having been made for you. Not an entirely scholarly  
> approach. This is not to say that Karl's decisions are necessarily  
> superior but at least he's made the effort of training his own  
> instincts and this is only to be commended. Were I to run a Hebrew  
> course I would teach students from the word go to read the text  
> unpointed.
>
> James Christian