An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

a The impetus for a comparative-historical approach to Hebrew grammar came
from the study of the Indo-European family of languages, which includes most of
the languages of Europe and many languages of Asia. The discovery of regular
correspondences between Greek, Latin and its Romance relatives (French,
Spanish, Italian, and others), and the Germanic tongues, including English, was
followed by work on Sanskrit. The tracking of correspondences by scholars was
one of the principal factors in the development of comparative-historical
philology. It became clear that two related languages may develop from a single
earlier language and that the historical development from the earlier stage through
its evolutionary changes into later stages could sometimes be stated. In sum,
comparative philology was replaced by historical-comparative philology. This
most significant achievement of nineteenth-century linguistic scholarship was
applied to the Semitic family. 45 The comparative-historical study of the Semitic
languages reached monumental proportions in Carl Brockelmann’s two-volume
work, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (1908;
Guide to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages) and in Gotthelf
Bergsträsser’s Einführung in die semitischen Sprache (1928; translation,
Introduction to the Semitic Languages, 1983). 46
b By comparing Hebrew with the other Semitic languages and by working with the
internal evidence of Hebrew itself it became possible to penetrate back to earlier
stages of the language and to trace various later developments—Mishnaic,
Medieval, and eventually Modern Hebrew. This revolutionary approach to
Hebrew first appeared in the grammars of Justus Olshausen (1861), 47 and
Bernhard Stade (1879). 48 It reached classic proportions in Eduard König’s syntax
45 On the development of historical philology and linguistics and applications to
Semitic, see Merritt Ruhlen, A Guide to the World’s Languages. 1. Classification
(Stanford, California: Stanford University, 1987) 4–22 (method), 25–35, 38–56 (Indo-
European), 87–89 (Semitic and Afroasiatic). See also Barr, “Literature,” 1396–97.
46 Carl Brockelmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen
Sprachen (Berlin: Reuther und Reichard, 1908–13; rpt. Hildesheim: Georg Olms,
1961); Gotthelf Bergsträsser, Einführung in die semitischen Sprachen (Munich:
Hueber, 1928); Introduction to the Semitic Languages, trans. and sup. P. T. Daniels
(Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1983); cf. S. Moscati et al., An Introduction to
the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
1964).
47 Justus Olshausen, Lehrbuch der hebräischen Sprache, 2 vols. (Braunschweig:
Vieweg, 1861). For the list of grammarians given here, see Barr, “Literature,” 1397,
and note also the valuable surveys in C. Rabin, “Hebrew,” Current Trends in
Linguistics. 6. Linguistics in South West Asia and North Africa, ed. T. A. Sebeok et al.
(The Hague: Mouton, 1970) 304–46; and N. M. Waldman, “The Hebrew Tradition,”
Current Trends…13. Historiography of Linguistics (1975) 1285–1330.
48 B. Stade, Lehrbuch der hebräischen Grammatik (Leipzig: Vogel, 1879).