An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

3.
ה ָנּר֫ ֶ ְכּ ְמ ת־אֹ ִ ל רֹכ ָמוּ You must not sell her.
Deut 21:14
35.3 Nominal Uses
a The infinitive absolute is used most often as a noun in two distinctive roles: as an
absolute complement to a clause (in the nominative function; 35.3.1) 17 and as an
adverbial[Page 584] complement, that is, a complement to the verb (35.3.2). The
infinitive absolute may occur syntactically where a noun is expected, namely, as a
subject in the nominative case, or as a genitive, or in an accusative role (35.3.3).
35.3.1 Absolute Complement
a The earlier grammarians did not have any doubt that when the infinitive absolute
intensifies a verb it is used as a kind of internal accusative. As recently as 1978 Ernst
Jenni still referred to such a form as an inner object. 18 In Ugaritic, however, where
case can be formally identified in forms from final-aleph roots, which indicate the
final vowel, this use of the infinitive absolute occurs with the nominative case; for
example, ǵm˒u ǵm˒it (to be vocalized *ǵamā˒u, infinitive absolute with nominative u,
ǵami˒tī), ‘you (fem.) are certainly thirsty. 19 In this light Rudolf Meyer appropriately
treats the corresponding Hebrew use of the infinitive absolute as “a verbal-nominal
apposition, which stands in the isolated nominative.” 20 For this reason the
construction can be analyzed as an absolute in the nominative function.
b Because in this use the infinitive absolute shares the verbal root and (usually) stem of
the accompanying finite verb, the use is said to be paronomastic, that is, based in
word play, or to exhibit the schema etymologicum. 21 By bracketing the paronomastic
infinitive with the verb, the verbal idea is intensified. The effect of the infinitive refers
to the entire clause, whence comes the term absolute complement. The infinitive
usually emphasizes not the meaning denoted by the verb’s root but the force of the
verb in context. When the verb makes an assertion, whatever its aspect, the notion of
certainty is reinforced by the infinitive (e.g., with affirmation, contrast, concession, or
climax). By contrast, if the verb in context is irreal, the sense of irreality (e.g.,
17
Thus, e.g., 40 of the 51 infinitives absolute in Genesis are absolute complements,
according to S. J. P. K. Rieken, “The Struct [sic] Patterns of the Paronomastic and Coordinated
Infinitives Absolute in Genesis,” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 7
(1979) 69–83, at 69. This use is virtually unknown in late Biblical Hebrew; see, e.g.,
Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew, 43.
18
LHS 117–18.
fem. feminine
19
UT§9.27.
20
R. Meyer, Hebräische Grammatik (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972), 3. 63, 75; contrast the
approach of Hammershaimb, “Infinitivus Absolutus,” 89.
21
The cases in which the stems differ are noted below (cf. 35.2.1c-e). For further
examples as well as the latter term, see GKC §113m / p. 342, §117q-r / p. 367. T.
Muraoka usefully insists that it is misleading to call the infinitive absolute as such
emphatic; it is the doubling up in the paronomastic construction that is emphatic; see
Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew (Leiden: Brill, 1985) 86, 92.