English Grammar to Ace Biblical Hebrew by Miles V. Van Pelt

English Grammar to Ace Biblical Hebrew by Miles V. Van Pelt

Author:Miles V. Van Pelt [Van Pelt, Miles V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Published: 2018-07-02T00:00:00+00:00


WORDS, PHRASES, AND CLAUSES

In previous chapters, we have used grammatical terms and labels such as “word,” “phrase,” “clause,” and “sentence” without any explanation or definition. It is now time to provide some basic definitions in order to ensure clarity and accuracy.

The definition of a word is simple. A word is a word, an assembly of letters into a meaningful unit. For example, “cat” is a word. It is an assembly of three letters into a noun whose reference is well known and commonly understood. On the other hand, something like “gxtqllyefv” is not a word. Sure, it is an assembly of letters, but this particular assembly is not meaningful. It is unknown and has no reference to reality. But you already know that.

A phrase is a group of related words that lacks a subject or predicate (or both). The subject is the noun or pronoun that a clause makes a statement about, like the subject of a verb, and a predicate consists of the statement about the subject. So, for example, in the sentence, “David struck down Goliath with sling and stone,” “David” is the subject, and everything else is the predicate. A phrase cannot stand alone. It must be connected to something else in a larger grammatical unit that can stand alone, such as an indepen-dent clause. In the example above, “with sling and stone” is a prepositional phrase (see chapter 5), and it would not form a complete thought if it were to appear by itself. It only makes sense in the context of the clause to which it is connected.

Like a phrase, a clause consists of a group of words. But unlike a phrase, a clause must have a subject and predicate. The absence or presence of a subject and predicate is what distinguishes a phrase from a clause. Using the same example from above, “David struck down Golliath,” the presence of the subject “David” and the predicate “struck down Golliath” creates a clause. This independent clause can stand alone and it forms a complete thought or sentence. It does not require the additional prepositional phrase “with sling and stone” to make sense.

There are two basic clause categories: independent and dependent. Independent clauses are, well, “independent.” They are the Marlborough men of the sentence world. They can stand alone or provide the point of contact for those other, less “manly” clauses, the dependent clauses.

By way of contrast, dependent clauses are not independent, but rather depend on their connection to main or independent clauses. One example of a dependent clause is the relative clause. We studied the relative clause in chapter 7. It is usually easy to spot a dependent clause. They normally begin with a key word that makes them subordinate to another clause. Some of these key words in English are that, since, because, who, if, and while.

Compared to languages like English or Greek, Hebrew has relatively few subordinate clauses. In fact, it is fair to say that biblical Hebrew has only two major subordinate clauses – those that begin with (who, that) and those that begin with (because, since, that).



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