The Verbless Clause in Biblical Hebrew.
Thirty years after seminal studies by Francis
I. Andersen and Jacob Hoftijzer, members
of the 1996 SBL section on Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew gathered to reconsider the topic of the verbless
clause in Hebrew. The results are published
here, demonstrating the gains made in the
interim and providing direction for future
research.
CONTENTS:
Cynthia L. Miller, "Pivotal Issues in Analyzing the Verbless
Clause";
Walter Gross, "Is There Really a Compound Nominal Clause
in Biblical Hebrew";
Cameron Sinclair, "Are Nominal Clauses a Distinct Clausal
Type?";
Randall Buth, "Word Order in the Verbless Clause:
A Generative-Functional Approach";
Vincent DeCaen, "A Unified Analysis of Verbal and Verbless
Clauses within Government-Binding Theory";
J. W. Dyk and E. Talstra, "Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Features
in Identifying Subject and Predicate
in Nominal
Clauses";
Takamitsu Muraoka, "The Tripartite Nominal Clause Revisited";
Alviero Niccacci, "Types and Functions of the Nominal
Sentence";
Kirk E. Lowery, "Relative Definiteness and the Verbless
Clause";
Lenart J. de Regt, "Macrosyntactic Functions of Nominal
Clauses Referring to Participants";
E. J. Revell, "Thematic Continuity and the Conditioning
of Word Order in Verbless Clauses";
Ellen van Wolde, "The Verbless Clause and Its Textual
Function"
REVIEWS.
"This volume deserves a place on the
shelf of every Biblical Hebrew scholar."--C.
H. J. van der Merwe, University of Stellenbosch in Journal of
Northwest Semitic Languages
This volume inaugurates a new series, Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic (LSAWS), focusing on linguistic approaches
to the problems of ancient West Semitic,
from the earliest texts to the rise of Islam.
The articles are divided into three sections:
section I: Basic Issues, section 2: Syntactic
Approaches, and section 3: Semantic and Pragmatic
Approaches. Miller's article succinctly outlines the
problem of the verbal clause in Biblical
Hebrew and discusses some of the most important
secondary treatments during the final decades
of the twentieth century (for example, Francis
I. Andersen's The Hebrew Verbless Clause in the Pentateuch,
JBLMS 14 [New York, 1970] and J. Hoftijzer's
"The Nominal Clause Reconsidered," VT 23 [1973]: 446-510). She also defines
certain fundamental linguistic terms, sometimes
in conjunction with reference to positions
argued by contributors to the volume.
This volume is certainly an engaging one,
with methodological and linguistic sophistication,
and vigorous debate regarding the form and
function of verbless clauses.
The subject index of this volume is superb,
and it also includes an index of biblical
texts and modern authors. Finally, the quality
of the articles and the absence of errors
(typographical) in this volume clearly demonstrate
Miller's editorial abilities and her judgment
as a scholar. This volume is a valuable contribution
to previous studies of Hebrew syntax and
is an appropriate inaugural volume for this
auspicious series.
--Christopher A. Rollston, Journal of NE Studies April 2002
The overall topics discussed
are whether the verbless clause exists in
Hebrew, the definition of nominal clauses
and the linked topics of the copula and the
status of the verb haya ('to be'). Also considered are such matters as ellipsis
and whether the participle is verbal or nominal.
In the main, the contributions deal with
prose, but poetry is also discussed either
overtly but very briefly (especially pp.
293 and 58, 105-6), or in passing (e. g.,
pp. 47-49, 135, 302, n. 7). Indexes of topics,
authors and biblical texts are supplied and
there are almost no mistakes: 'ellipse' for
'ellipsis' (p. 135) and 'corpuses' for 'corpora'
(p. 273). Here the contributions are listed
under the main headings of the three sections.
BASIC ISSUES:
'Pivotal Issues in Analyzing the Verbless
Clause', by the editor (pp. 3-17), provides a summary
of the whole book by identifying the problems
discussed. Principal among these, given the
title of the collection, is the terminology
to be adopted. Verbal clauses contain a verb,
of course, and verbless clauses do not. Or
so it would seem. However, while some scholars
(e. g., A. Niccacci) consider clauses which
contain a non-initial verb to be nominal
(following the Arab grammarians), others
restrict this definition to clauses without
any verb at all (e. g., Gross).
In fact, 'Is There Really a Compound Nominal Clause
in Biblical Hebrew?', by Walter Gross (pp. 19-49) tackles this
very problem. He concludes that the category
of compound nominal clause, i. e., one which
opens with a noun and continues with a finite
verb, should be eliminated from Hebrew studies 'because it contributes nothing toward our
understanding of the structure and function
of Hebrew sentences' (p. 49). The conclusion reached in 'Are Nominal Clauses a Distinct Clausal
Type?', same range of complement types as sentences
that appear with the verb haya when it functions
as a copula' (p 75).
SYNTACTIC APPROACHES:
'Word Order in the Verbless Clause: A Generative-Functional
Approach', by Randall Buth (pp. 79-108), concludes
that the: 'underlying order in nominal clauses is
Subject-Predicate', hence '[R]eading
becomes
a simple matter of interpreting pragmatically
positioned material against the context' (p. 107). Also included are several references
to intonation (esp. pp. 83, n. 10 and
p 84,
and n. 12, though evidently this is
a matter
for conjecture in Hebrew), and some
suggestions
for future research (pp. 106-7).
In 'A Unified Analysis of Verbal and Verbless
Clauses within Government-Binding Theory',
by Vincent DeCaen (pp. 109-31), the theory
is explained in (relatively) simple
terms
(pp. 115-23) and then applied to Hebrew.
"Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Features
in Identifying Subject and Predicate
in Nominal
Clauses', by Janet W. Dyk and Eep Talstra (pp. 133-85),
has the aim of composing 'programs capable of parsing verbless clauses' (p. 184) and is rather more discursive,
describing the parameters adopted and the
parsing procedures used. A helpful summary
is also provided (pp. 184-85).
'The Tripartite Nominal Clause Revisited',
by Takamitsu Muraoka (pp. 185-213), first
describes clauses of this type which comprise
a third-person independent pronoun, a noun
phrase and another phrase which may be nominal,
adverbial or prepositional. These are then
listed according to pattern and discussed
in terms of the pronoun as copula, topicalization,
prominence, casus pendens, congruence, occurrence
and the function of the demonstrative pronoun
ze. No summary is provided.
'Types and Functions of the Nominal Sentence',
by Alviero Niccacci (pp. 215-48), is an attempt
to demonstrate that the label 'verbless clause' is inadequate. He defines the nominal sentence
in the following terms: 'Grammatically, only
a sentence without a finite verb form (including
a form of the verb haya) is nominal, but syntactically a sentence
with a finite verb form in second position
is also nominal because the verb plays the
role of a noun' (p. 243, emphasis added).
SEMANTIC AND PRAGMATIC APPROACHES:
'Relative Definiteness and the Verbless Clause', by Kirk E. Lowery (p. 251-72), involves
discourse analysis, for which 'a database of a morphologic and syntactic
description of the Hebrew Bible' (p. 252) is required and coding techniques
to provide syntactic tags for verbless
clauses.
Hence '[t]he goal of this study is to arrive at
an algorithmic way of determining the
S[ubject]
and P[redicate] of verbless clauses' (p. 262) for the book of Judges.
'Macrosyntactic Functions of Nominal Clauses
Referring to Participants', by Lenart J. de Regt (pp. 273-96), shows
that the description of such functions
as
given in W. Schneider, Grammatik des biblischen Hebraisch (Munich 1985) pp. 161-63 is correct. He concludes
that these clauses 'occur especially for the purpose of introducing
minor participants and beginning direct
speech', but if providing background information,
'stand outside the chronological chain of
events' (p. 296) and their function depends on how
early they appear in a paragraph.
'Thematic Continuity and the Conditioning
of the Word Order in Verbless Clauses', by E. J. Revell (pp. 297-319), deals with
choice of clause in context and with
the
declarative clauses in Judges, Samuel
and
Kings. He concludes that 'word order is to a large extent conditioned
by the desirability . . . of giving
the prominence
afforded by first position to the constituent
representing the topic of the clause
and
also to the constituent that has the
higher
referentiality and therefore is best
suited
to maintaining thematic continuity' (p. 316).
Finally, 'The Verbless Clause and Its Textual Function', by Ellen van Wolde (pp. 321-36), 'is based on the linguistic concepts of markedness/unmarkedness
and grounding/saliency' (p. 321) and provides a heuristic model of
this type of clause in biblical Hebrew
in
the form of a table (pp.333-34).
As the contributors are well aware, it is
a continual challenge to keep up with progress
in modern linguistics. We are grateful to
them, then, in providing us with the results
of their research, as applied to classical
Hebrew.--Wilfred G. E. Watson, Journal of Semitic Studies Spring 2002
Evans Experientialism 
