divine grammar
Sep. 13th, 2005 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioI've been slowly working my way through The First Hebrew Primer, which covers biblical (not modern) Hebrew. The book came recommended by several people. Dani, after flipping through it, said it seems like the perfect book for me except that they sometimes avoid using the real technical terms and he thinks that might bug me. We'll see.
So far, the book does seem to be pretty good. The examples are contrived; yes, you want to start with a small vocabulary, and I can tell that they've carefully chosen some words that could be confusing (to teach valuable lessons early), but I'm looking forward to the day when I can read sentences that are an improvement on, say, "a nation crossed over from Moav and it crossed over the mountains with animals and servants to the land and it guarded the city". Can you tell that so far we're just doing past-tense perfect verbs? (They have not named a binyan. I assume qal. I think that's one of those "real technical terms" that they might have a tendency to omit.) But hey, I can actually read and translate straightforward past-perfect sentences with a restricted vocabulary. :-)
I've noticed something odd. But I have to set it up.
Consider the following assertions:
1. Nouns are indefinite by default. "Melech" is "a king". To make a noun definite, you prefix with "ha-". (Ok, sometimes the vowel can mutate. We're not going there now.)
2. Proper nouns are, of course, definite by default. You wouldn't say ha-David ("the David").
3. In English prepositions are stand-alone words, but in Hebrew they usually pile onto the noun as prefixes. "L'melech" is "to a king" or "for a king". (Most of the prefixes have multiple meanings, and you just have to work it out from context.)
4. However, if you want to combine certain prepositions (in/on, to/for, as; not sure of others) with a definite article, you don't stack them. "To the king" is not "l'ha-melech" or "ha-l'melech". Instead, the "h" (hei) drops out and its vowel moves to the "l" (lamed). So "to the king" is "la-melech".
Ok, I absorbed all that and then said "hey wait a minute...". There is a construct I've seen a lot in biblical Hebrew. I checked a couple places in the bible just to make sure I wasn't imagining it. Nope -- we really do see "la-[God]" in several places. Not "l'[God]". (Well, sometimes that too, but not always.)
Remember 2. Proper nouns don't get a "ha-". The "la-" mutation doesn't mean something else (according to Dani).
Conclusion: God gets his own rules of grammar.
I guess he can if he wants to. It's his language, after all. :-)
So far, the book does seem to be pretty good. The examples are contrived; yes, you want to start with a small vocabulary, and I can tell that they've carefully chosen some words that could be confusing (to teach valuable lessons early), but I'm looking forward to the day when I can read sentences that are an improvement on, say, "a nation crossed over from Moav and it crossed over the mountains with animals and servants to the land and it guarded the city". Can you tell that so far we're just doing past-tense perfect verbs? (They have not named a binyan. I assume qal. I think that's one of those "real technical terms" that they might have a tendency to omit.) But hey, I can actually read and translate straightforward past-perfect sentences with a restricted vocabulary. :-)
I've noticed something odd. But I have to set it up.
Consider the following assertions:
1. Nouns are indefinite by default. "Melech" is "a king". To make a noun definite, you prefix with "ha-". (Ok, sometimes the vowel can mutate. We're not going there now.)
2. Proper nouns are, of course, definite by default. You wouldn't say ha-David ("the David").
3. In English prepositions are stand-alone words, but in Hebrew they usually pile onto the noun as prefixes. "L'melech" is "to a king" or "for a king". (Most of the prefixes have multiple meanings, and you just have to work it out from context.)
4. However, if you want to combine certain prepositions (in/on, to/for, as; not sure of others) with a definite article, you don't stack them. "To the king" is not "l'ha-melech" or "ha-l'melech". Instead, the "h" (hei) drops out and its vowel moves to the "l" (lamed). So "to the king" is "la-melech".
Ok, I absorbed all that and then said "hey wait a minute...". There is a construct I've seen a lot in biblical Hebrew. I checked a couple places in the bible just to make sure I wasn't imagining it. Nope -- we really do see "la-[God]" in several places. Not "l'[God]". (Well, sometimes that too, but not always.)
Remember 2. Proper nouns don't get a "ha-". The "la-" mutation doesn't mean something else (according to Dani).
Conclusion: God gets his own rules of grammar.
I guess he can if he wants to. It's his language, after all. :-)
Re: sorry if this posted > once
Date: 2005-09-15 01:37 pm (UTC)Thanks for the heads-up. I haven't seen this in the torah portions I've read so far, but if it comes up at least I'll have a clue now. :-)
ha- can also be used as a question prefix
Wacky. Thanks!