What exactly is the Construct in Hebrew?

[Mira de Vries]

Song of Solomon 3:7

I thought you might come up with another place, because here there doesn't seem to be any possession. It just means that he used to sing that song. There is also no word של here. And even if there were, just one occurrance in the entire Biblical canon hardly qualifies as a grammatical rule.

ָExactly as you see in the Bible שלי and שלנו

Where do I see that?

[ducky]

Mira

According to your comment, I guess I don't understand what you're seeking.

We've talked about the word של.
1. it is a combination of ש=which And ל=belonging.
2. In the bible, it comes only linked to the next word or suffix.
3. מטתו שלשלמה = מטתו של שלמה
4. שלי=של+י
5. שלנו=של+נו
6. In the post-Biblical era, we see that they start writing this של as a word that stands alone
For example בדין של כסף שש From Qumran
Or: מן הפרנסין של בית משכו From the Bar-Kokhva letters

Can you please remind me of your claim, or what you're seeking.
Because I feel I didn't understand you maybe.

[Mira de Vries]

3. מטתו שלשלמה = מטתו של שלמה

I can't find this. Could you point me to this verse?

Can you please remind me of your claim, or what you're seeking.

I was responding to Ralph's message which opened this thread.

[ducky]

Song of Solomon (song of songs) Chapter3 - Verse 7
הִנֵּה מִטָּתוֹ שֶׁלִּשְׁלֹמֹה שִׁשִּׁים גִּבֹּרִים סָבִיב לָהּ מִגִּבֹּרֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

[Isaac Fried]

Mira writes

זרעו does not mean "seed of him." It means simply "his seed."

Yes. זַרְעוֹ בוֹ of Gen. 1:2 is זרע-הוּא ב-הוּא with the end-attached compacted personal pronoun הוּא referring to the possessor of the seed, with no need to any English.

ש as a prefix is short for אשר

Seems to me that - שֶ is short for זֶה.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Mira de Vries]

Thanks. There is what to English-speakers would seem like a redundancy here, but in Biblical Hebrew this is normal speech.

[ralph]

When you hear something that is unfamiliar to you - so it is undefined.

If you talk to someone and he speaks in an unfamiliar language
the you say: "He speaks in A languages that I can't understand".

(If you say: "He speaks in THE languages that I can't understand", then that's mean that you already heard him speak before, and you already defined that language with that description).

You seem to be explaining here what in English is known as the "indefinite article". The difference between 'a'(The indefinite article). and "The" (the definite article).

I was not asking what those were or the difference between those

[ralph]

my queston is, what is the construct?!

could it be defined as a noun followed by a noun or verb or sometimes ordinal , or noun with suffix, where there is a connection of some kind between the noun and what follows it.

When a noun and a noun, that connection is 'of'.

When a noun and suffix, that connection is 'of' e.g. Zaroh(Gen 1:11). זרעו his seed, seed of him.
(mira asked who lists that as construct. Groves wheeler morphological index, which is used by bibleworks, lists it as construct. And yeah obviously in English you don't say 'seed of him' nor in Hebrew. But perhaps the 'of' in meaning is why it's construct. ).

when a noun and a verb - specifically, NOUN followed by VSO(verb subject object). So it's not SVO. The connection between Noun and the VSO that follows it could have a number of possibilities.. (that I guess could be covered by particles)

In the case of Gen 1:1 Let's throw "interpretation" out the window and just look at basic translation being as close to the text as possible.

If Reishit is absolute(i.e. not construct) then would that mean that one would have to say that BeReishit is "In a beginning"?

[ralph]

Like זַרְעוֹ (Gen. 1:12). his seed. That's "seed of him". So is construct.

This is what I meant in my previous message about how you are confused when you translate to English. זרעו does not mean "seed of him." It means simply "his seed." Possession is expressed differently in Hebrew than in English. In English nobody says "seed of him." It sounds convoluted, stilted, unnatural. זרעו is not convoluted, stilted or unnatural.

Nobody is claiming that "seed of him" is what people say in English.

I speak English very fluently.

And by the way, on a related note, an English teacher once told me that people used to say "bus his wheels" prior to the use of the apostrophe bus's wheels. So if one were to say "bus his wheels" it's not valid in modern English, but is a valid explanation of the meaning of bus's wheels. Or wheels of the bus. "seed of him" is a bit redundant in English.. but does perhaps explain why zaroh is listed as construct.. Though if construct means a connection (between noun and suffix, noun and noun, noun and V of VSO, noun and sometimes ordinal), and doesn't require a particle or small connecting word in between, then even 'his seed' could justify a construct.

But there are some other cases of construct..

Yom HaShishi יוֹם הַשִּׁשִּֽׁי (Gen 1:31)

But Yom is listed as construct.

By whom?
Why would this be construct, anymore than without the definite article ה? I don't see a construct here.

groves wheeler morphological index. That is used by bibleworks. (and I have asked/questioned what exactly is the construct.)

The meaning is obvious, so does it matter what grammatical form it is?

to those that are interested in the grammar, yes.

[Mira de Vries]

an English teacher once told me that people used to say "bus his wheels" prior to the use of the apostrophe bus's wheels.

That's interesting and plausible.

The meaning is obvious, so does it matter what grammatical form it is?

to those that are interested in the grammar, yes.

Well, that's logic I can't refute.

It seems to me that the Hebrew language is to you like ballet is to me. When I go to the ballet, I'm so preoccupied identifying the steps and analyzing the technique, that I forget to sit back and enjoy the performance. Even more than ballet, Hebrew is so beautiful, what a shame to read it in a reductionistic way.