The Verbal System in the Hebrew Text of Ben SiraThis volume is a revised and enlarged version of the author's Ph.D. dissertation (1999). It gives a comprehensive analysis of the morphosyntax and syntax of the tenses in the Hebrew text of Ben Sira. Due attention is paid to the heterogeneous character of the textual evidence (three manuscripts from the Desert of Judah and six mediaeval manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza), which complicates any linguistic study of Ben Sira. A descriptive analysis is complemented by a comparison with other contemporaneous, earlier, and later forms of Hebrew. It is argued that the Hebrew of Ben Sira is a literary language in its own right, rather than an imitation of Biblical Hebrew or a predecessor of Mishnaic Hebrew. |
Contents
Preliminaries | 3 |
The book of Ben Sira and its textual transmission | 9 |
Orthography of the Hebrew manuscripts | 27 |
Studies on Ben Siras language a historical survey | 52 |
The perfect alone | 67 |
Preliminary considerations concerning | 81 |
The imperfect alone | 106 |
The consecutive perfect | 127 |
The absolute infinitive | 277 |
Interrogative and exclamatory clauses | 287 |
Preliminary remarks on subordinate clauses | 294 |
Relative clauses | 306 |
Temporal clauses | 325 |
Conditional clauses | 347 |
Final and consecutive clauses | 363 |
Causal and explicative clauses | 376 |
The consecutive imperfect | 142 |
The copulative perfect | 155 |
The copulative imperfect | 166 |
The volitives | 180 |
The participle | 200 |
The construct infinitive | 241 |
Comparative clauses | 385 |
Conclusions | 399 |
Bibliography | 411 |
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Common terms and phrases
4QMMT apodosis Aramaic asyndetic relative clause attested b-colon Beentjes Ben Sira Bible biblical Btxt Compare cons consecutive construction cstr defective spelling Deut discussion Driver examples Exod expression Fassberg final-consecutive finite verb full impf Geniza GrII Hebrew text hifil Hurvitz imperfective aspect imprt infin interpretation Joosten jussive Kesterson 1984 Kister Kutscher language Lévi Lord manuscripts Masada meaning Mishnaic Mishor modal Muraoka occurs orthography parallel Pérez Fernández 1997 perf Peursen plene spelling preceding predicative preposition prohib protasis Prov ptcp qatal Qimron Qoheleth qotel Qumran relative clause retroversion Rüger Schechter-Taylor 1899 Scroll Segal short impf Sira we find Sira's situation Smend Standard Hebrew stative verbs suffix syntactic Syriac temporal tense textual Tiberian Tiberian Hebrew tion translation verb forms verse volitive vowel wayyiqtol weqataltí weyiqtol Yifrach yiqtol יקטל כן לו לך