B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Hi

I understand that when you have a sequence of nouns,

nounA nounB nounC nounD then no definite article goes on nounA,B,C and regarding noun D, if it's definite then the whole thing is definite and if it's indefinite then the whole thing is indefinite.

So you get either

The A of The B. the The fish of Shimon (Shimon being a name and a name being definite hence we don't say The Shimon)

If we say Dag Ish would that be "A fish of a man" ?

Dag HaIsh would be "the fish of the man"?

I say the above partly based on this article by Miles Van Pelt here http://hebrew.billmounce.com/BasicsBibl ... rew-10.pdf

Would it be wrong to translate Dag HaIsh as "a fish of the man"?

And is the situation the same in biblical hebrew as in modern hebrew?

There might be some situations in which that would be necessary. Some suggest that מלאך יהוה should sometimes be translated as "an angel of YHVH" rather than "the angel of YHVH," for example.

The normal way to do this in Hebrew is to use what amounts to the "dative of possession" by inserting the lamed prefix before the noun in the "absolute" form. So, דָּג לָאִישׁ dāḡ lātʾîš "a fish of the man."

It is indeed the same in modern Hebrew, but we use שֶׁל with far more frequency to mean "of." So, דג של האיש dāḡ šel hāʾîš means "a fish of the man." We can also double up the possession with דגו של האיש dāḡô šel hāʾîš "the man's fish." In other words, we have three options for definite possession in modern Hebrew:

1. בית האיש "the man's house."
2. הבית של האיש "the man's house."
3. ביתו של האיש "the man's house."

For indefinite expressions, we have:

4. בית איש "a man's house" (feels odd).

For a mixed expression, we have:

5. בית של האיש "a house of the man."
6. בית לאיש "a house of the man" (less colloquial).

That's my perhaps incomplete perspective. Ducky would be the better person to ask.

Thanks.

Do you have source books / references for mention of the dative of possession? Ans any examples in tanach of it?

And any idea which verses where some say that Malach YHWH should be translated An rather than The? And who says it should be translated as that?

And how would you say something of the form "The noun of a noun", e.g. "The tail of a cat"?

(without shel)

ralph wrote:Thanks.

Do you have source books / references for mention of the dative of possession? Ans any examples in tanach of it?

And any idea which verses where some say that Malach YHWH should be translated An rather than The? And who says it should be translated as that?

And how would you say something of the form "The noun of a noun", e.g. "The tail of a cat"?

(without shel)

Ralph,

You would do well to read the section on the "Expression of the Genitive by Circumlocution" in Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (section 129). It has all of the relevant information contained in it. Read the entire section.

My reference to "dative of possession" was technically a comparison to Greek grammar. Greek can say either:

(1) ὁ ἄνθρωπος οἰκίαν καλὴν ἔχει. = The man has a fine house. (normal possession)
(2) ἔστι τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκία καλή. = The man has a fine house. (dative of possession ["There is to the man a fine house."])

Hebrew can use the lamed prefix in the same way. For example, many of the Psalms are prefixed with the expression מִזְמֹר לְדָוִד "a song of David." Gesenius gives the example of בֵּן לְיִשַׁי "a son of Jesse."

"The tail of a cat" seems to be something that you say in English and not in Hebrew. It would probably be definite as a representative of a class of animals. זְנַב הֶֽחָתוּל could refer not only to a specific cat's tail, but also to the generalization of the idea of the tail of a cat (as we say in English). If you absolutely wanted to form the phrase, you would certainly use either a relative clause (הַזָּנָב אֲשֶׁר לְחָתוּל) or simply with the lamed (הַזָּנָב לְחָתוּל). You could also see the plural used to generalize the cat and make it refer to the category of animals (הַזָּנָב אֲשֶׁר לַחֲתוּלִים).

There are plenty of options in Hebrew.

Jason

You can say a noun's noun (in an undifined construct state) - there is no problem with that.

There is a nice song that starts with the words of
צל עץ תמר ואור ירח
ומנגינת כנור תקסים את הלב
"A palm-tree's shadow and (a) moon's light.
And a violin's melody that charms the heart".

So it has a few construct state like that one after the other.

**
so you can say זנב חתול for a cat's tale

But it is more common to say זנב של חתול
to add the של between the words.

The word של is actually a combination of two prefix letters.
ש & ל
as in מטתו שלשלמה in Song of Songs.

But these two prefix letters, in time, got their "own life" and became a word in the meaning of "of".