Jeremiah 2: Headless Relative Clauses

[Jason Hare]

That makes zero sense of the whole phrase. You can read whatever in any way that you want, but you aren't treating the text with justice if you just ignore the word בארץ and don't have it joined to anything.

[ducky]

Hi,

Karl, they are verbs and not participles.
First, the negation word is לא which negates verbs.
Second, this form with verbs comes often that it isn't a "surprise".

You can see it as an adjectival phrase because it IS a description, but it doesn't reject the reading of it as a verb.
relative parts (whether it is with a pronoun word or not) come in the role of a subject, predicate, adjective, object, and so on.
The whole relative part acts like one unit.
and so לא עבר בה איש acts like one unit - the answer of the question: which ארץ=land.
And this one unit of לא עבר בה איש can be replaced with just one word for example - because it is one unit.
And basically, the whole point of this style is that it has verbs in it.
(and see the example later)

**
As for "his walk"...
Where did you get this one from?
First, you can see the pattern of verbs:
אמרו-ידעו(ידעוני)-פשעו-נבאו
and it continues with הלכו.

Second, where do you see a noun הלך as "walk"
(but I'm open for an Hapax, in general).

But I wonder, Just for the "fun" of it, that you will translate the sentence with a "his walk", just to see your way. Because I'm trying to understand the meaning of this kind of translation.

*****

Here some examples:
Jer. 15:14 בארץ לא ידעת (undefinite+no relative pronoun)
Jer. 17:4 בארץ אשר לא ידעת (definite+relative pronoun)


Deut. 32:37 צור חסיו בו

Jer. 48:38 ככלי אין חפץ בו

Isa. 51:1 הביטו אל צור חצבתם ואל מקבת בור נקבתם
(here it comes twice)

*****
Sometimes, the relative pronoun comes when the noun is indefinite, like:
מעשים אשר לא יעשו (Gen. 20:9)

And sometimes, the relative pronoun would be missing when the noun is definite, like:
Jer. 13:20 איה העדר נתן לך

[ducky]

Basically, the linking words (relative pronouns) אשר (and others) come when the linked noun (antecedent) is definite.
And when the noun (antecedent) is indefinite, then there would be no linking word (relative pronoun), and mostly, these cases would be seen in poetry.
This is the basic.

This relationship of "definite & Relative pronoun" is also seen in Arabic
http://allthearabicyouneverlearnedthefi ... e-clauses/