Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Spinti <jspinti AT eisenbrauns.com>]

While I agree with Randall that the basic word order in prose is VSO (and 
Eisenbrauns has a book arguing it--Word Order in the Biblical Hebrew Finite 
Clause), you should be aware that there are linguists, such as Robert 
Holmstedt, who argue that the basic order is SVO. You can read his arguments 
here:
http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_161.pdf

Muddying the waters,
James
________________________________
James Spinti
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On Oct 27, 2011, at 8:06 AM, Randall Buth wrote:

> david katav (note good BH word order)
>> However, when it comes to Hebrew, I'm not convinced that we know as
> much as we need to about the "basic" syntax of the language to be able
> to sift out what are "violations" in poetry. Scholars can't even agree on
> such basics as basal component order: VSO or SVO? >
> 
> Just because some scholars are not clear on what is happening doesn't
> mean that others don't or can't know what is happening. Normally with
> language, the understanding of the texts is already in place before
> linguistic writeups. Linguistics is normally only a dispute on how best to
> write up and describe the rules, not what the language means.
> 
> 
>> There are good arguments for both. (I'm in the latter category,
> if it matters.)
> This is why I have chosen to restrict my own syntactic investigations to
> prose. >
> 
> Sorry to hear about your trouble with SVO, though starting with prose is
> the correct place to begin.
> In main sentences in prose you will find good pragmatic reasons for any
> Subject in front of the "remaining verbal clausal core". Pragmatic functions
> with
> Subjects typically include various 'topicalization' functions as well as
> Focus.
> [[Naturally, that does not apply to nominal/participial sentences, which in
> fact
> do use a Subject-Participle basic order.
> For a fuller explanation of Subject-Participle order, see
> http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/verbless-clause-article/ ]]
> Topicalization
> functions include setting up a new topic chain, setting up a new unit, and
> breaking up the sequentiality structure, typically for marked temporal
> overlap
> or backreference, but also for simple pause and dramatic effect.
> 
> As confirmation,
> with finite verbal clauses you will find that when a clause uses a single,
> non-Subject pragmatic-fronting order then the following clausal order is
> ... V-(presupposed)-Subject-Other... ('presupposed' is optional, highly
> presupposed, typically pronominal material placed between Verb and
> Subject, e.g. vayyomer elav ha-melex "..." where 'elav' is positioned as
> highly presupposed). An SVO template would have produced X-S-V-O
> after placing a pragmatic item in the "X".
> 
> Likewise, in subordinate clauses like ki, asher, im, you will find that if
> anything is fronted for pragmatic reasons (and in subordinate clauses the
> reasons are typically Focal), the following core is ... V-S-O. A person can
> only generate from an underlying SVO template by using an extra ADHOC
> rule, and you are aware what stigma attaches to 'adhoc' in linguistics.
> That, and the pragmatics really does fit wonderfully tight when generated
> from V-S-O. It is very satisfying to read pages and pages of text and
> to pick up all of the pragmatic signals from Subjects and non-Subjects in
> front of finite verbs.
> 
> Your starting with prose is interesting because it is specifically poetry,
> not
> narrative prose, where SVO and the ensuing pragmatics become more
> frequent.
> 
> braxot
> Randall
> 
> -- 
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
> Biblical Language Center
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