Abstract

, the Object can precede or follow both the Subject and the Verb, and adverbs and prepositional phrases can be thrown into a variety of positions. To the reader word order often seems to be random, but grammarians have long agreed that it is not random or ‘free’. Describing precisely what determines the order of words, though, remains an elusive task. Yet, it is universally understood that determining a rhyme and reason for the variation exhibited in the biblical texts would provide access to subtle linguistic cues the ancient authors used to get their message across. And so many Hebraists have attempted to identify the patterns. As with all investigations, though, the initial assumptions strongly influence the conclusions and for Hebrew word order studies the almost universal starting point has been to assume a basic Verb-Subject order. In this essay I challenge this assumption, thereby potentially undercutting the methodologies and conclusions of the vast majority of existing word order studies. I introduce, describe, and illustrate the typological linguistic criteria for determining basic word order and conclude, contrary to near-consensus position, that Biblical Hebrew is better classified as a Subject-Verb language.

Highlights

  • The recent publication of another monograph on word order variation in ancient Hebrew (Moshavi 2010) suggests that the issue is at once important, complex, and unsettled

  • That the issue is complex is established both by the diversity of word orders exhibited in the ancient texts, especially the Bible, and by the attention that word order variation receives in general linguistics

  • The monographs and articles listed above or in note 4 approach the analysis of word order variation in the Hebrew Bible from different linguistic frameworks, take up differing pragmatic concepts that influence word order, and often use different corpora from within the Bible

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The recent publication of another monograph on word order variation in ancient Hebrew (Moshavi 2010) suggests that the issue is at once important, complex, and unsettled. Moshavi devotes more space to this issue than the others, and it is no small item that the arguments of the small minority who disagree and classify Hebrew as a Subject-Verb (SV) language have been promoted from brief footnote to full-scale consideration.5 As one of those in the small SV minority and whose views were given respectful consideration in this latest word order contribution, I will take advantage of the appearance of Moshavi’s monograph (a revision of her 2000 thesis) to clarify a few points on which my arguments have been misunderstood and to re-issue an empirical challenge.. I will present here in published gacre 1992, 1995, van der Merwe 1991, 1997, 1999a, b, van der Merwe and Talstra 2002/2003, Moshavi 2000, 2006, Myhill 1995, Myhill and Xing 1993, Payne 1991, de Regt 1991, 1996 In her short counter-argument, Moshavi builds her case against my analysis in three questionable ways (and revised) form the Genesis data I used in my thesis (2002), which will complement my published analyses of Proverbs (2005) and Ruth and Jonah (2009a) and will anticipate works in progress on Qoheleth and the Minor Prophets

THE QUESTION OF ‘BASIC WORD ORDER’
THE TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF WORD ORDER
THE CRITERION OF CLAUSE TYPE
THE CRITERION OF PRAGMATICS
ON THE VSO LANGUAGE TYPE AND BIBLICAL HEBREW
Findings
CONCLUSION—AND A HINT OF WHAT IS TO COME
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