Abstract

Word order in Biblical Hebrew nominal sentences is one of the most important themes that have been addressed for the past 100 years in the discipline of Biblical Hebrew linguistics. It can be said that the correct understanding of ‘word order’ has enormous influence on the interpretation of the Bible because the word order of ‘predicate-subject’ as well as ‘subject-predicate’ frequently occur actually in Biblical Hebrew and the interpretation of texts can differ depending on what is the normal word order. With semantic categories of nominal sentences, definiteness, morphological categories of subjects and predicates, chracters of sentences (identification and non-identification sentences), types of sentences (matrix and subordinate clauses, predicative and interlocutory styles, and declarative and interrogative sentences), syntactic structures (kinds of sentences, use of particular particles, and use of relative pronouns) etc. as important factors that can have influence on word order in Biblical Hebrew nominal sentences, this study tries to approach word order in Biblical Hebrew nominal sentences by systematically analyzing whether, and how far if any, such factors actually have a correlation with word order in nominal sentences.<BR> As a result of the statistical analysis of word order in Biblical Hebrew nominal sentences based on precise data along with diverse variables, we can draw the following conclusions.<BR> (1) In prayer texts, different from other interlocutory sentences, the order of ‘predicate-subject’ occurs about twice as much as that of ‘subject-predicate’.<BR> (2) In list texts, the proportion of ‘subject-predicate’ turns out to be high (82.3%).<BR> (3) There is a correlation between identification/non-identification sentences and word order.<BR> (4) There is a correlation between independent/subordinate clauses and word order.<BR> (5) There is a correlation between interrogative/declarative sentences and word order.<BR> (6) There is a correlation between definiteness and word order.<BR> (7) There is a very high correlation between morphological categories of subjects/predicates and word order. The word order is of ‘subject-predicate’ when the morphological category of the subject is demonstrative pronoun (94.7%), suffixal noun phrase (93.3%), ‘kol’-phrase (90.7%), and proper noun (90.1%).<BR> When the morphological category of the predicate is proper noun (92.8%), the word order is of ‘subject-predicate.’ Also, in cases where the predicate is a definite noun or a definte noun phrase, the word order of ‘subject-predicate’ absolutely accounts for 100%. When the morphological category of the predicate is demonstrative pronoun or interrogative pronoun, the word order of ‘predicate-subject’ absolutely accounts for 100%.<BR> (8) Variables that don’t have influence on word order in Biblical Hebrew nominal setnences are periods (Standard Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew) and semantic categories (simple be, exist, and become). Though tense and word order appear to have a correlation, we can say that there is no correlation between tense and word order since such a phenomenon appears because other variables have relations with tense rather than because tense itself has influence on word order.

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