An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

claimed may be quite distinct from the surface structures of sentences as they
actually appear”. It follows that “the findings of modern linguistics…are not
inconsistent with the hypotheses of universal grammarians”. Once again Roger
Bacon’s famous statement about universal grammar is being quoted with approval
by linguists: “Grammar is substantially the same in all languages, even though it
may vary accidentally.” 40
Since there are many things and experiences in the extra-linguistic realm that
people share universally, Bacon’s medieval view is perhaps not surprising. 41 Thus
in part because of the universal properties of language in its deeper, abstract, nonphysical
dimension, we, as speakers and readers of English, are able to understand
Hebrew.
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Word
2.1 Definition
2.2 Parts of Speech
4.3 Phrase and Clause
4.4 Subject
[Page 63] 4 Grammatical Units
4.1 Expressions of the Subject
4.2 Indefinite Subject
4.5 Predicate
40 Lyons, Theoretical Linguistics, 333. The exact history of the idea of general
grammar as distinct from particular grammar is much disputed. The respective roles
of the Port Royal grammarians (17th century) and the French Encyclopedists (18th
century) are discussed by S. F. D. Hughes, “Salutary Lessons from the History of
Linguistics,” The Real-World Linguist, ed. P. C. Bjarkman and V. Raskin (Norwood,
New Jersey: Ablex, 1986) 306–22; and P. Swiggers, “L’Encyclopédie et la
grammaire,” Acta Linguistica Hafniensa 20 (1987) 119–56, esp. 127–31.
41 Since languages are codes for a message, there is in theory (but only in theory) no
reason why sentences in different languages cannot be semantic equivalents: “For two
sentences of different languages to be exact translations of each other they must be
semantically related to other sentences of their respective languages in exactly the
same way”; E. L. Keenan, “Logic and Language,” Language as a Human Problem,
ed. E. Haugen and M. Bloomfield (New York: Norton, 1974)187–96, at 193.