Syntax of the Hebrew Language of the Old Testament

by Heinrich Ewald

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. ... [813] II. DEPENDENT PROPOSITIONS. 1. Relative Sentences. 33 la. Of these, there are in general two the relative sentence starts (a) from a word which indicates a person or a thing (qui, or, with less indication of life, quad,--who, or which, tltaf); as, qui tacet and vir qui tacet; or, (&) from a particle which merely serves to gather up a thought and show the relation in which it stands, i.e. a conjunction, as, gaudco quod vales. According to the simplest syntactical arrangement, both kinds in Semitic always prefix the word which indicates the relation; arrangements of a more complicated character, as, quam vidi urlem tnagna est, are, at least generally speaking, foreign to the Hebrew. We shall consider-- (1.) Relative Sentences proceeding from an Independent Word. From what has been already stated, it follows, under this head,-- I. That, though the word which indicates relation has the force of a substantive, it is nevertheless placed quite separate and apart from others, at the head of the proposition, and hence is, outwardly, more like a conjunction, as it has neither gender nor number in Hebrew. But because it stands at the beginning in this abrupt and incomplete condition, it must, like any other word so placed, explain itself more fully (when necessary) by means of the personal pronoun, in the sentence following, when the usual calm order of discourse is observed; thus, we must say, vir, dim ei, when vir is abruptly placed first (see § 3096), and similarly, qui, dixi ei for the Lat. cui dixi.1 1 [It will be evident that our " relative pronouns " arc really composite, having the force of a conjunction and that of a pronoun combined in one word. E.g. in the statement, "Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban," the...

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004