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For some time, linguists have agreed that (1) English is an SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) language and that (2) the purpose of this order is to indicate the difference between "John loves Mary" and "Mary loves John." In contrast, Hebraists are still debating the first item. According to Holmstedt, Biblical Hebrew is an SVO language with the Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) order being "triggered" from SVO. By contrast, Hornkohl, Khan, and van der Merwe maintain that Biblical Hebrew is a VSO language with the SVO being the "marked" order. Hebraists rely on linguistic methods to answer these questions. This article evaluates the claims of the abovementioned authors from two perspectives: whether the linguistic methods they use are compatible (some approaches do not work well together) and whether the principles of their chosen linguistic method are followed. Suggestions for improvement for Khan and van der Merwe's model are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper presents an analysis of Biblical Hebrew terms for ‘rain’, a relevant corpus formed by six lexemes: 1. ‘rain’, ‘showers’ 2. ‘heavy rain’ 3. ‘autumn rain’ 4. ‘rain’ 5. ‘spring rain’ 6. ‘light rain’ First it defines and explains the method used, then it realizes a distributional analysis into functional languages and a syntagmatic analysis of each lexeme. The second phase proceed in the paradigmatic analysis of the relationship between each lexeme. An explanation of the results and conclusion round off the paper.The purpose of this research is to indagate and understand the complexity of the relationship between lexemes for rain.

This paper evaluates how Sesotho translators have translated Biblical Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 Sesotho translation of the Bible. Because this 1989 translation is undergoing revision by the Bible Society of South Africa, it is important to determine the success of the translation. The orality of proverbs relates to their origin as orally transmitted sapiential sayings. In evaluating how some of the Biblical Hebrew proverbs are translated in Sesotho, the literal translation of 1909/61 will be compared to the 1989 dynamic equivalent translation. Using complexity thinking as a theoretical framework, the paper argues that the Hebrew proverbs are better translated in the 1989 version than they are in the 1909/61 version of the Bible in Sesotho in terms of numerous features of orality. In the 1989 version and its revision, proverbs are translated in a poetic format. This means that the translated proverbs in this version of the Bible, informed by the principles of orality, exhibit Sesotho poetic features or structures. The article is divided into the following components: proverbs in Hebrew and Sesotho, theoretical frameworks, how the theoretical frameworks are used to translate certain Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 version, and conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the history of Hebrew studies in Poland from the early 16th century to the 20th century. The beginnings of academic studies and thorough research into biblical Hebrew can be traced back to the 16th century as the first lecturers of classical languages appeared at the Kraków University. They were also the first to write textbooks for learning this language, and some of tchem translated biblical books from their original languages. Jewish printing houses had a significant impact on the growing interest in Hebrew studies, both in the Jewish and Christian communities. Passion for Hebrew was still observed in Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries. In turn, the late 18th century and the 19th century were the times of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) and disputes about the shape of Hebrew. At universities theological studies included biblical Hebrew courses. The 20th century saw the emergence of numerous centres for Hebrew studies at leading Polish universities, offering full-time Bachelor and Master’s programmes, conducting interdisciplinary research, developing scholarly publications in the field and establishing organizations aiming to promote research on Jewish history, culture and language.

This paper evaluates how Sesotho translators have translated Biblical Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 Sesotho translation of the Bible. Because this 1989 translation is undergoing revision by the Bible Society of South Africa, it is important to determine the success of the translation. The orality of proverbs relates to their origin as orally transmitted sapiential sayings. In evaluating how some of the Biblical Hebrew proverbs are translated in Sesotho, the literal translation of 1909/61 will be compared to the 1989 dynamic equivalent translation. Using complexity thinking as a theoretical framework, the paper argues that the Hebrew proverbs are better translated in the 1989 version than they are in the 1909/61 version of the Bible in Sesotho in terms of numerous features of orality. In the 1989 version and its revision, proverbs are translated in a poetic format. This means that the translated proverbs in this version of the Bible, informed by the principles of orality, exhibit Sesotho poetic features or structures. The article is divided into the following components: proverbs in Hebrew and Sesotho, theoretical frameworks, how the theoretical frameworks are used to translate certain Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 version, and conclusions.

This article describes an ongoing effort within the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa to design a performative translation of biblical texts on forgiveness into Sesotho, one of the official languages of South Africa. The goal is to communicate effectively the concept of forgiveness to both confessional communities and those outside those communities. This translation will help the hearers to understand better the Old Testament concept of forgiveness and how that concept can promote social reconciliation within the polarised society of South Africa. The design of a performance translation of forgiveness texts and its implementation in society provides a model for similar translations into the other ten official languages of South Africa. The study is based on Biblical Performance Criticism. https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2022/v35n2a12

In one of his recent books, Jean-Claude Larchet argued that the study of Hebrew is useless for those doing research in the field of Orthodox theology, since the Church fathers used the Greek version of the Old Testament (Septuagint). There are at least two reasons that might be advanced in order to prove the invalidity of Larchet's thesis. First, fostering an attitude of ignorance as regards the Hebrew Bible might nurture anti-Judaic beliefs among Orthodox students, considering that such attitudes could be noticed in Romania during the interwar period. Second, the Fathers of the Church had a favorable attitude towards Hebrew, despite the fact that few of them actually knew that language. They held the belief that Hebrew was the primordial language through which God spoke to mankind in the beginning and through which the Old Testament was revealed. Both the Hebrew language and the Hebrew alphabet played a significant role in their theoretical considerations on the canon of the Holy Scripture. Since Larchet published his work in Romanian, his theses and their implications are discussed from the perspective and in the context of Romanian Orthodox theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the conventional interpretation of the doe-comparison in Ps 42:1 based on linguistic indications and a biological phenomenon. When the verb ערג is considered as a form of crying out and not of longing, it can be recognised that the næpæš is not only trying to reach God but is also constructively influencing the praying person towards this goal. This leads to a new perspective on the self-perception of the praying person and the role of the næpæš throughout the prayer. After initially rejecting the needs of the næpæš , in the last stanza, the praying person is finally transforming the performative screaming into formulated prayer: lament, petition, and praise. By turning to lament they are taking up the doe's call and vindicating the næpæš 's intentions as essential and justified expressions of the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Masoretic Text is a codification of the recitation tradition, the crucial aspect of which is its phrasing represented by the masoretic accents. The accents address primarily the declamation rhythm rather than the pitch of the recitation melody. Disjunctive accents of different hierarchic prominence mark the phrasing caesurae as relatively major or minor, distinguishing between various grades of caesural depth. However, the chanted recitation realizes the caesurae by the positionally assigned durations that do not express the significance of the individual caesurae and are aligned only with the division of the text into superordinate phrases. Caesurae of different depth may be realized indiscriminately, yet are distinguished in the accentuation. By their differentiating notation the accentuators were able both to capture the phrasing sound of the oral tradition and to interpret, determine, and even manipulate its sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper lays out an approach to teaching biblical Hebrew in American day schools. This paper builds on extant work in the field of Jewish education on teaching biblical Hebrew and offers day school educators a theory of language instruction for teaching biblical Hebrew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meaning of any given lexical item emerges from an analysis of its contextual usage, but with biblical languages, often a traditional gloss will be accepted as if it were the clear meaning of a lexical item. Lexicons and dictionaries rarely go all the way back to a fresh analysis of the actual usage of a lemma, so the traditional meaning is rarely reconsidered. Those learning biblical languages accept the lexicon’s judgement without stopping to reflect on how the lexicon reached its conclusion. The acceptance of a traditional gloss as the meaning then gets assumed as more and more texts are read, reinforcing the assumption that the meaning is the gloss learned early on as the equivalent for that lexical item. This study focuses on the biblical Hebrew root בשׁל and the Greek verb ἕψω, both traditionally understood to denote the activity of preparing food by boiling in liquid. These lexemes appear in the Old Testament in some exegetically challenging texts, so clarifying the range of meaning may help to illuminate the interpretation of difficult passages. The full context of the usage of these lexical items in the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint is examined using cognitive semantics with the goal of identifying the semantic and pragmatic clues that point to the conceptual meaning evoked by these lexical items in biblical Hebrew and Greek. Contribution: The re-analysis of the data serves to re-evaluate traditional assumptions about the meanings of these words. Clarifying the meaning may illuminate some exegetical difficulties.

The traditional view reflected in biblical Hebrew dictionaries and textbooks that heaven is construed as a mere cultural experience became problematic in at least two ways: firstly, the extension of the grammatical expression found in the biblical Hebrew exemplars becomes conventionalised in such a way that the original construal no longer constrains how the biblical Hebrew speakers think about the experience; and secondly, this released consequence influences recent publications on heaven. Consequently, most modern publications on heaven construed heaven as a relative design. This study argues that such inhibited way of expressing heaven reduces the structural schematisation as construed in the Hebrew Bible. Methodologically, this study proposes an experientialist-embodied approach towards the conceptualisation of heaven. The result, in theory, is a more effective schematisation in which different semantic structures were employed to express the experience. This is then applied towards understanding the spatial image schema of up versus down in the Hebrew Bible and offers a vantage point from which to investigate the whole network of the biblical Hebrew spatial cognition. Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the ancient Israelite conceptual system for ‘heaven’ in the Hebrew Bible.

Cultural encounters often result in the borrowing of words between the communities involved. This words, in turn, preserve precious clues about the nature and characteristics of the interactions underlying their transfer, and can thus be a precious (but often overlooked) source of socio-historical information. The present paper aims at showing how Egyptian borrowings in Levantine languages can be used as an additional source of evidence to explore the sociocultural interactions between Egyptians and local Levantine societies during the New Kingdom.

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The traditional literal interpretation of the text in Judges 11:37 shows exceptional variation in topographic depiction. The literal interpretation of Driver, published in Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, is an example. From a linguistic perspective, no attention was paid whatsoever to the relation of interiority between an objective body and an objective space. This article proposes a cognitive semantic perspective and argues that the motion-path verb ירד (yrd) in Judges 11:37 carries a metaphorical meaning, and the linguistic processing, that is, the metaphorical mapping of the image schematic structure of CHANGE (up-down) as the source domain onto that of BEHAVIOUR as the target domain, involving activation of cultural spatial and bodily systems. With this background in mind, Judges 11:37 represents a new understanding for similar UP-DOWN image schemas applied in the Hebrew Bible. Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the apparent ‘inexact’ sense of the use of ירד (yrd) in Judges 11:37.

In one of his recent books, Jean-Claude Larchet argued that the study of Hebrew is useless for those doing research in the field of Orthodox theology, since the Church fathers used the Greek version of the Old Testament (Septuagint). There are at least two reasons that might be advanced in order to prove the invalidity of Larchet’s thesis. First, fostering an attitude of ignorance as regards the Hebrew Bible might nurture anti-Judaic beliefs among Orthodox students, considering that such attitudes could be noticed in Romania during the interwar period. Second, the Fathers of the Church had a favorable attitude towards Hebrew, despite the fact that few of them actually knew that language. They held the belief that Hebrew was the primordial language through which God spoke to mankind in the beginning and through which the Old Testament was revealed. Both the Hebrew language and the Hebrew alphabet played a significant role in their theoretical considerations on the canon of the Holy Scripture. Since Larchet published his work in Romanian, his theses and their implications are discussed from the perspective and in the context of Romanian Orthodox theology.

Left dislocation, right dislocation, topicalisation, and extraposition involve a constituent in a non-canonical position at the edges of the sentence. In Biblical Hebrew, the differentiation of these four constructions is complicated by two additional constructions. At the left edge of the sentence is a construction that is like topicalisation in that it has no resumptive element within the sentence although it apparently occurs outside of the left boundary of the matrix sentence. At the right edge of the sentence, we identify for the first time a comparable construction of “heavy extraposition” which is like extraposition in that it has no resumptive element within the sentence although it apparently occurs outside of the right boundary of the matrix sentence. In this article, we examine the evidence that negation provides for differentiating the syntactic features of the six constructions. We present the data for negation involving each of these constructions with attention to the scope of negation as sentential negation or constituent negation (Snyman and Naudé 2003, Naudé and Rendsburg 2013). In particular, we examine the implications of negation for delimiting and defining the constructions, especially left dislocation and topicalisation, which are shown to involve important asymmetrical features. The facts about negated sentences provide important evidence that the presence (or absence) of resumption is critical to differentiating left dislocation and topicalisation (contra Westbury 2014, 2016). Negation thus provides important positive information for the syntactic structures of these six constructions and provides a crucial foundation for differentiating their functions with respect to information structure.

This paper examines the widespread classification of ʾt before the nominative as a trademark of Late Biblical Hebrew. The paper begins by defining the nature and scope of this syntactic usage and reviewing its possible explanations. Next, a full list of the relevant examples is presented and alleged post-biblical cognates are examined. This data leads to the conclusion that contrary to the common scholarly sentiment, ʾt nominativi cannot be considered a late feature within Biblical Hebrew. The evidence from Mishnaic Hebrew that was erroneously associated with ʾt nominativi enables, however, the identification of a hitherto unknown late biblical structure, namely, the demonstrative ʾt ʾšr. Biblical occurrences of this usage are recognizable in Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Qohelet. The paper concludes that while ʾt nominativi is by no means a late usage, the demonstrative ʾt ʾšr may be classified as late with more certainty. This conclusion calls for a re-examination of the syntactic profile of LBH as drawn in the influential works of the field, chiefly those by Kropat and Polzin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article responds to the innovative and stimulating research by Ellen van Wolde in a previous volume of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. She claims that the Niphal is middle voice and can be passive, 'if (and only if) an external argument, coded as an external Agent, is present'. My research however, demonstrates that such a description of the passive is both inadequate in view of the world's languages and incongruent with Niphal. In addition, my response lays bare how such a prescription of the middle voice to the Niphal in the Hebrew Bible is circulus probando and unconvincing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question-response interchange in biblical dialogue is of great linguistic as well as literary interest. In order to successfully serve purposes such as characterization and plot development, question-response interactions in a literary composition must authentically reflect the linguistic forms and conversational practices characterizing natural spoken language. The present study analyzes the linguistic characteristics and patterns of use of responses to questions in Biblical Hebrew dialogue. Its findings show that the semantics and syntax of answers to yes/no questions are closely related to the affiliation or misaffiliation of the answer with the question's accompanying assumptions, expectations, and agendas. These associations between semantic/syntactic types and social cooperativeness, which closely resemble those found in modern spoken conversation, contribute to the authenticity of the style of biblical dialogue, and enable the question-response interaction to function effectively on the literary level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike its English counterpart between, the Biblical Hebrew (BH) preposition bên does not allow a conjoined object (between A and B), but it uses additional prepositions in two typologically unusual patterns: bên A wə-bên B 'between A and-between B' and bên A lə-B 'between A to-B'. This article shows that these two patterns, and their equivalence with the English one, can be accounted for semantically, on the basis of the underlying filter behaviour of the 'betweenness' meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construct phrases are nominal expressions consisting of a noun in the construct state, termed the construct , and an immediately adjacent nominal phrase, the annex. Biblical Hebrew has four kinds of construct phrases containing numerals: phrases with a definite nominal annex, complex numeral phrases, approximative phrases and phrases with an indefinite nominal annex. The first three constructions are found in Modern Hebrew, but not the fourth. In this paper we provide semantic interpretations for the four numeral construct phrase types, accounting for these constructions within a theoretical approach to the cross-linguistic properties of numeral phrases. Adopting the semantic analysis in Rothstein (2013, 2017b), which treats numerals as a type of property expression in the sense of Chierchia (1985), we show that the four constructions fall into two groups. In the first group, containing the complex numeral and the indefinite measure phrase, the construct numeral is an argument of a function. In the second group, containing the definite numeral phrase and the approximative, the construct numeral is a predicate that expresses intersectional modification. The numeral has a different semantic status in each group: as an argument, the numeral is a saturated property expression designating an individual, while as a modifier it is unsaturated. It is shown that definite numeral construct phrases and approximative phrases can be viewed as types of classifier expressions. The data and interpretations presented in the paper demonstrate that Biblical Hebrew numerals share fundamental semantic characteristics with numeral constructions in other languages, despite having various syntactic properties which are specific to this language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the nature of the interplay between viewpoint aspect and tense in the temporal systems of Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew, focusing on the suffixed verb form qaṭal and on the participial verb form qoṭel common to both. The examination of these temporal systems is couched in a neo-reichenbachian framework, taking the categories of viewpoint aspect and tense to consist of relations between temporal intervals (also known as the "two dimensional theory of tense"). It follows from this framework that viewpoint aspect and tense are encoded in any given temporal system, and languages differ in whether they contrastively mark tenses and/or aspects. When only one of the categories is morphologically marked, it is assumed that the other marks a default value. In the current context, it will be shown that viewpoint aspect properties of the verbal forms remain essentially unchanged over the two periods: qoṭel expressed, and still does, imperfective viewpoint aspect, with some characteristics of a progressive, whereas qaṭal expressed, and still does, a default viewpoint aspect that is interpreted as perfective according to the lexical aspectual properties of the underlying VP. In contrast, the properties of the tense categories in the systems have undergone a significant change: in Biblical Hebrew, the category of tense, in these particular forms, but possibly also more generally in the system, mark only a default value where the two temporal intervals, R and S, are not ordered in any specific manner, but rather present a temporal overlap; in Modern Hebrew, the category of tense contrasts temporal values, where R and S are clearly ordered with respect to each other: overlap, precedence. It will be suggested that this state of affairs is correlated with the (im)possibility of the forms to express narrative progression. Given that narrative progression involves update of R, this is not possible when the temporal relation between R and S is one of general overlap, blocking R progression. In Biblical Hebrew, narrative progression is achieved via the sequential w -forms, which have later disappeared from the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A clear distinction between the Niphal and Hitpael derivational morphology in Biblical Hebrew has eluded scholars. Traditionally, they have been distinguished according to voice (passive and middle) and reflexivity, where the Niphal tends more to express the former and the Hitpael, the latter. These categories result in significant overlap between these verbal forms, however. To fill attempt to fill this gap, the present study examines the complex relationship between the situation aspect, namely, State, Activity, and Accomplishment, of these verbal forms and the semantic category of verbal roots, both of which contribute to the meaning of a given verb. The Niphal tends consistently towards the situation aspect of State, and the Hitpael towards Activity, as I showed previously (Benton 2009). This paper delves additionally into Accomplishments as a compound aspect of an Activity followed by a State, and it shows that the Hitpael expresses the first phase and the Niphal, the second. The semantic categories in this study include denominal, deadjectival, and motion verbs. The verbal forms consistently follow their situation aspect in all the semantic categories of this study, but, significantly, the semantic category of these verbs imposes an additional dimension of meaning, further distinguishing between the two verbal forms. Authors can combine roots and derivational morphology for stylistic effect. Finally, the article suggests areas where the intersection of morphology, situation aspect, and semantic category can aid linguistic analysis in Biblical Hebrew and other Semitic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Septuagint (LXX) generally approached the antiphrastic, euphemistic use of ברך [bless] with a literal translation of ברך with εὐλογέω. This choice produced a Hebraism, as the Greek verb is not generally used antiphrastically. The translators may have expected the Greek audience to track with the figurative usage. Job contains four of the six uses of this euphemism, and LXX Job is evenly split between the use of εὐλογέω and the use of more creative renderings. These creative renderings in Job 1:5 and 2:9 reflect the exegesis of the translator. Contribution: The contribution of this research article is its focus on the phenomenon of euphemism in Biblical Hebrew and the implications of non-literal renderings in the Septuagint for a theologically-significant Hebrew euphemism. The article fits within the scope of the journal as a contribution to this special collection on the Septuagint.

In this paper, I define and apply M. Halliday's interpersonal metafunction methodology, a socio-linguistic approach to language known as Systemic Functional Linguistics, to an analysis of the dialogue between Nehemiah, son of Hakaliah, and Artaxerxes, King of Persia, in Neh 2,2-8. My purpose is to discover some truths concerning the social dynamics that exist between Nehemiah and Artaxerxes to inevitably uncover who, that being the governing discourse participant, is responsible for and/or holds in his control Judah's restoration. To accomplish this task, I conduct both a mirco- and macro-level analysis of the designated corpus. In the end, the data reveals that Artaxerxes is the governing discourse participant though Nehemiah dominates the discourse by saying more. However, taking the greater co-text and context of Nehemiah into consideration, specifically Nehemiah's prayer of chapter 1, there is potentially a third unmentioned discourse participant who could well be the one governing the result of the present dialogue. This unmentioned discourse participant is invariably Yahweh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Septuagint (LXX) generally approached the antiphrastic, euphemistic use of ברך [bless] with a literal translation of ברך with εὐλογέω. This choice produced a Hebraism, as the Greek verb is not generally used antiphrastically. The translators may have expected the Greek audience to track with the figurative usage. Job contains four of the six uses of this euphemism, and LXX Job is evenly split between the use of εὐλογέω and the use of more creative renderings. These creative renderings in Job 1:5 and 2:9 reflect the exegesis of the translator. Contribution: The contribution of this research article is its focus on the phenomenon of euphemism in Biblical Hebrew and the implications of non-literal renderings in the Septuagint for a theologically-significant Hebrew euphemism. The article fits within the scope of the journal as a contribution to this special collection on the Septuagint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hebrew quantifier ‮כל‬‎ is used both as a universal quantifier (equivalent to English all) and as a distributive quantifier (equivalent to English each, every). In Qumran Hebrew, as in Biblical Hebrew, the quantifier ‮כל‬‎ occurs in four syntactic constructions depending upon the type of noun phrase that follows it in order to indicate nuances of individuation and specificity in addition to universal and distributive quantification. In contexts in which these constructions occur within the scope of negation, the quantifier assumes negative polarity (none, nothing, any in English). In this article, we identify the syntactic contexts and constructions in which negative polarity is licensed and we describe and analyze the constructions of ‮כל‬‎ with negative polarity. We also compare the negative polarity licensing exhibited in Qumran Hebrew with Biblical Hebrew and demonstrate that some of the features of negative polarity in Qumran Hebrew differ from those in Biblical Hebrew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A negative polarity item (NPI) is a word or expression that occurs grammatically in negative clauses and a variety of other types of clauses such as interrogatives and conditionals, but not in ordinary affirmative sentences. Examples from classical Biblical Hebrew include the pronoun ‮מאומה‬‎ "anything" and the semantically-bleached noun ‮דבר‬‎ "a thing," which has been produced from the ordinary noun ‮דבר‬‎ "word, matter, action" by the process of grammaticalization. This paper examines the noun ‮דבר‬‎ in the non-biblical DSS with the purpose of determining whether it is used as there as an NPI, as in Biblical Hebrew, or as an ordinary semantically-bleached noun, as in Rabbinic Hebrew. The results show that the diachronic development of ‮דבר‬‎ in the DSS appears to be at an earlier stage than classical Biblical Hebrew, despite the later dating of the scrolls. This finding is explained as a special kind of pseudo-classicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars struggle to delineate the differences between the middle and passive voice. This is particularly apparent in scholarship on the Niphal (Biblical Hebrew). Using recent linguistic research (Ágel 2017; 2007), this article attempts to assist Hebraists and exegetes by distinguishing the passive and middle Niphal. Applying the concept of linguistic perspective, the categories of endoactive and exoactive predicates are illustrated on mlṭ and nṣl. In sum, this article demonstrates that linguistic perspective is able to clarify semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic complexities of the Niphal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-occurrence restrictions on Biblical Hebrew root consonants have received thorough treatment in the specialized literature. However, combinations involving glides on the one hand, and nominal roots on the other, have received very little attention. The aim of this paper is to argue for an incompatibility between medial consonants and final glides in defective nouns: a final w cannot generally follow a homorganic medial root consonant, viz. labial p, b, m and velar k, g, q. The III-w roots are rare: they came about as a result of a well-documented historical process and are found almost only in nominal roots. Previous investigations have overlooked this incompatibility owing to the incomplete scope of the studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interrogative sequence אִם‎... הֲ‎ in Biblical Hebrew can be employed in two forms of disjunctive question. The first offers mutually exclusive questions and the second comprises a rhetorical pair. Close examination of the extant examples reveals no difficulty in distinguishing between these two forms and, further, that, when employed to express a rhetorical question, the double rhetorical sequence אִם‎... הֲ‎ anticipates the answer 'No'. Careful study of a debated example, Jer. 31.20, confirms that a negative answer is implied here, hence the evidence strongly favours this reading in the other contentious passage, Hab. 3.8. Here, triple rhetorical questions introduced by the interrogative particles אִם‎... אִם‎... הֲ‎ are employed in a motivated interrogative sentence, suggesting that a negative answer is therefore expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss secondary predication in Biblical Hebrew, showing that contrary to what linguists such as Rothstein (2004. Structuring events. Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell) suggest, there are languages with verb phrases as secondary predicates. In particular, I deal with a construction in Biblical Hebrew I refer to as the double infinitive-absolute construction, where in addition to a finite verb, the sentence contains two conjoined occurrences of an infinitive absolute, where the first is of the same root and binyan (pattern) as the finite verb but deprived of temporal and agreement features, while the second is of a different root and (maybe) binyan. I show that Biblical Hebrew uses this construction to form a new complex verb with the primary predicate, such that it shares the subject or the object with the primary predicate, depicting a situation that overlaps in time with the situation depicted by the primary predicate or results from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weinrich's monograph Tempus: besprochene und erzählte Welt (1964) had a tremendous influence on the study of Biblical Hebrew. Studies by Schneider, Talstra and Niccacci and others are strongly influenced by Weinrich. In the ETCBC database of the Hebrew Bible, initiated by Eep Talstra in the 1970s, some of Weinrich's insights have been integrated. Amidst hundreds of studies in general linguistics, why was it precisely this book that had such a great impact? How should we evaluate this impact? Are Weinrich's insights still useful or have they become outdated? In this article we describe the introduction of Weinrich's insights into Biblical studies and some developments that have taken place since then, both in general linguistics and in Biblical studies. We further describe and evaluate the classification of Biblical Hebrew text types which developed from these insights [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the word order in the biblical Book of Job by analysing focus structures within the bicola of the book. The theory of focusing that is developed in this article is based on Adina Moshavi’s work on focus structures. The conditions that need to be met for a focus structure to occur, as well as the typology of focusing, will be developed. There is also a brief analysis of the placement of (bicola) focusing within the poetic Book of Job. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes that the same functional categories which determine the inflection of the Biblical Hebrew finite verb also determine the feature specification of the Biblical Hebrew infinitive. This proposal depends both on demonstrating that the infinitive is a verb, rather than a noun (or a verbal noun), as traditionally assumed, and on showing that the functional categories that embed the infinitive are clausal rather than nominal. The article starts by examining the traditional distinction between the Infinitive Absolute and Infinitive Construct , and makes an argument for a single infinitive, with two allomorphs. The former is a verb marked as [+Mood], while the latter is marked as [–Mood], and both are also specified for two other clausal functional categories: T and Asp/Mod. These two latter categories determine a 4-way classification of finite/infinitival verbs: [+T+Asp/Mod], [+T–Asp/Mod], [–T+Asp/Mod], [–T–Asp/Mod]. This classification determines a concomitant 4-way alternation of attachment options of subject and/or object clitics to the verb: [+subj.cl.+Obj.cl.], [+subj.cl.–Obj.cl.], [–subj.cl.+Obj.cl.], [–subj.cl.–Obj.cl.], and moreover accounts for the distribution of the different verb forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Biblical Hebrew personal names like ʔăḇīšay 'Abishai' and dɔ̄niyyēl 'Daniel', names that are made of two primary elements that are related to meaningful elements from outside the domain of personal names. I argue that these names are best analyzed as a case of LEXICAL SECRETED AFFIXATION, such that their recurring element is a derivational affix for deriving personal names. Furthermore, I argue that the medial vowel, occurring in the middle of ʔăḇīšay and dɔ̄niyyēl , is an underlying part of the affixes, such that they are / ʔabi -/ and /- iʔel /. An Optimality-theoretic account is given for the allomorphy of the Yahwistic suffix and variable occurrence of the medial vowel. Lastly, I argue that these affixes diachronically originate from blend and clitic group names that were morphologically reanalyzed to include an affix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies agree that the input (i.e. the base) of a segholate paradigm in Biblical Hebrew is prosodically CVCC. However, such an input leads to an analysis that does not comply with universal typology of vowel strength, an analysis where vowel alternation not only affects a strong (stressed) position but also triggered by a (weak) epenthetic vowel. In this paper, we provide an alternative analysis, which postulates the surface singular form as the input of the paradigm and eliminates the unnatural nature of the morphophonology of segholates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called tripartite verbless clause in Biblical Hebrew consists of two nominal phrases and a pronominal element. Three analyses of the pronominal element have been advanced, each with implications for understanding the structure of the sentence. A first approach has been to view the pronominal element as a copular constituent, which serves only to link the two nominal constituents in a predication (Albrecht 1887, 1888; Brockelman 1956; and Kummerouw 2013). A second approach has been to view the pronominal element as the resumptive element of a dislocated constituent (Gesenius, Kautzsch and Cowley 1910; Andersen 1970; Zewi 1996, 1999, 2000; Joüon-Muraoka 2006). A third approach combines the first and second approaches and is represented by the work of Khan (1988, 2006) and Holmstedt and Jones (2014). A fourth approach views the pronominal element as a “last resort” syntactic strategy—the pronominal element is a pronominal clitic, which provides agreement features for the subject (Naudé 1990, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2002). The pronominal element is obligatory when the nominal predicate is a referring noun phrase—the pronominal clitic is used to prevent ambiguity in the assignment of subject and predicate (see Doron 1986; Borer 1983). As is well-known in the linguistics literature, cross-linguistically left dislocation involves a “gap” at the boundary between the dislocated constituent and the matrix sentence. In spoken language, this gap may be realized by a small pause or an interjection (Berman and Grosu 1976). In this paper we consider the prosodic evidence that is available from the Masoretic accentual tradition. The Masoretes were Jewish scribes who attempted to preserve the precise reading tradition of the biblical text through the addition of a complex system of “accents” which were superimposed on the traditional Hebrew text between the sixth and the tenth centuries CE. Although the accentual system also was used for cantillation purposes, its complex system of conjunctive and disjunctive accents provides important evidence for prosodic phrasing, which can be utilized for differentiating the role of the pronoun in these two types of sentences which are otherwise structurally identical.

The primary aim of this paper is to provide a functional profile of verbal Left Dislocation (=LD) constructions in the Torah and Former Prophets (Genesis–2Kings). As a precursor, however, an abbreviated syntactico-semantic description of LD constructions within the aforementioned corpus is provided. This description consists of seven overlapping constructional schemas (i.e. construction types) that form a radial network around a typologically prototypical schema. Accordingly, each schematic type is more or less prototypical depending on its family resemblance (i.e. shared attributes) to the prototype. In light of this formal profile, and of the fact that grammatical constructions are equal parts form and function, the remainder and central focus of the paper will entail a detailed functional explanation of LD. This functional profile will consist of two complementary parts: 1) the central factors motivating the use of LD, and 2) the prototypical and non-prototypical discourse-pragmatic functions achieved by the construction in discourse. Together with the formal description, this functional explanation reveals a textured profile of the LD category, one that consists of a unified radial network of overlapping constructional types.

Michael O'Connor (whose 1980 opus, Hebrew Verse Structure , provides a compelling linguistically grounded description of the poetic line) has called the endurance of Lowthian parallelism a "horror" that wreaks havoc on lexical semantics and "is beyond the comprehension of any sensitive student of language." Why does a model known to be a descriptive failure for a century persist in teaching resources and commentaries? It is because nothing compelling has risen to replace it. O'Connor's linguistic analysis of the line offered the first piece to replacing the traditional model, but O'Connor's model was more compelling for the structure of the poetic line than for the relationship of lines. In this study I take up interlineal syntax and offer an analysis that compliments and completes O'Connor's approach, allowing us to provide a proper burial for the admirable but ultimately unworkable Lowthian parallelism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of non-quotational direct speech – a construction displaying deictic perspective persistence – in the Hebrew Bible, an ancient text of great cultural significance. We focus on the use of non-quotational direct speech to introduce intentions, hopes, motives, or states of affairs. Special emphasis is laid on the complementizer lemor, grammaticalized from a speaking verb, which introduces the import of an action through direct speech. We claim that such fictive speech is grounded in face-to-face conversation as conceptual model or frame. Beyond the Hebrew Bible itself, we discuss possible extended implications that our findings have for the link between grammatical structures conventionally associated with perspective shift and orality, as well as possible links between the conceptual frame of situated interaction and the notion of linguistic meaning. Ultimately, we hope to advance the view that grammar and discourse are inherently conversational and thus viewpointed in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central thesis of this article is that improved knowledge of the Niphal can offer us arguments in favour of (or against) certain meanings of verbs in biblical texts. Proceeding from general linguistic studies of middle voice to Biblical Hebrew linguistics, the differences between the active, reflexive, middle and passive voices are clarified. Subsequently, it is shown that the Niphal expresses neither the reflexive nor passive voice, but predominantly marks the middle voice. The Niphal describes an event in which the subject is concerned with itself, though not reflexively as a differentiated object, but as an undifferentiated middle, while reference to an external Agent is absent. These insights are applied to various texts and verbs in the Hebrew Bible, namely, 3 Niphals of the verb גמל ('wean'), 7 Niphals (feminine singular) of the verb טמא ('defile'), and 16 usages of אסף Niphal in contexts of dying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]