Aramaic Determined State

[jag3773]

Hi David,

As we are parsing the Aramaic portions we have run into a snag in the division of the Aramaic words that are in a determined state. In short, we would like to remove the / that divides the ending א on words that are in the determined state. See the more detailed description below:

Concerning the determined state: Wright (Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages, p.115,152) considers the determined ending a variation of the demonstrative particle, but different than the "definite article" of Hebrew. Thus, according to Wright, both the determined state ending in Aramaic and the definite article in Hebrew are derived from the same fundamental phenomenon (a demonstrative particle), but they are not full linguistic equivalents in their respective languages. Rosenthal considers the determined ending as having a demonstrative function, almost exactly like the word "the" in English. He speculates that the terminal א (and/or ה) originally served as a direct object marker. He does not comment on the similarity/dissimilarity of the Aramaic determined state and Hebrew definite article.

This would change the parsing of a word in the determined state from ANcmsd/Td to ANcmsd.

[joeldruark]

Hi David, Joel Ruark here. I'm one of the Hebrew specialists that's been working on the UHB/UHG/UAG projects, and I've been doing the legwork for researching this issue. To describe it shortly, in Aramaic the determined ending is a distinct morphological form (in contrast to the absolute and construct forms), whereas in Hebrew the definite article is a separate particle. So while perhaps the two might have come from a single earlier demonstrative particle (although Rosenthal doesn't think so), they ended up as different linguistic phenomena in each respective language. So in Aramaic, the determined ending is a legitimate ending to the word itself and not a separate morpheme (as it is parsed currently in the OSHB morphology). I hope that makes sense. I'm happy to discuss more, if necessary.

[DavidTroidl]

The morphological divisions in the Aramaic words originate with the WLC itself, so in my opinion any such drastic changes would have to begin there.

[joeldruark]

Hi David, I'm a little confused by your answer here. Can you help me understand? If we are locked into the current OSHB morphology codes/structure with the determined ending as an attached particle instead of a form of the noun itself, then what differentiates the determined state from the construct state (or even from the absolute state) in the parsing scheme? [This is going to be an issue when we write the UAG grammar, because we're going to have to explain the difference somehow.]

[DavidTroidl]

There is a value of 'determined' under state. This will indicate the status of the noun. However, the morphological division in the WLC text still has to be explained, at least until we can get the changes to be made from above.

[joeldruark]

OK, I see what you're saying. Do you know what steps need to be taken so that the necessary change can be made? When we talk to whoever we need to talk to about this, I can be available to participate and explain the linguistic error in the parsing structure and why it needs to be changed (if that's necessary or helpful). Thanks, David!

[DavidTroidl]

I looked a little further. The word מַלְכָּ/א֙ the first Aramaic word in Dan 2:4, is parsed in the Westminster Hebrew Morphology as ncmsd/Pa, indicating that the ending is an article. Based on that, if you still believe we should contact the Groves Center, maybe you could send me a brief statement of the question, perhaps using this occurrence as a concrete example. Then I could submit it.

[joeldruark]

Thanks, David. I'll write something up and post it here, probably sometime tomorrow. It's starting to get late here (I'm in South Africa), and will be going to bed soon. More tomorrow...

[joeldruark]

Here you go, David. Hope this gains some traction here...

"In using the WLC text, our language team has encountered a problem while working with the Aramaic portions of the OT. I'm writing to see what, if anything, might be done about this issue. In short, the problem is that the determined state ending of Aramaic nouns (i.e. qamets-aleph or qamets-he) is not marked in the WLC text as a nominal ending but rather as a completely separate particle (similar to the definite article in Hebrew). The determined state ending in Aramaic has a very similar function as the Hebrew definite article –– i.e. to make a noun definite instead of indefinite –– but they are different linguistic phenomena, and that makes a difference for the meaning and analysis of the text. For example, the word מלכא in Dan 2:4 is the noun מלך in the determined state, functioning as a vocative, "O king, ...". The issue is that the terminal aleph is separated from the noun in the text so that it must be parsed as a separate morpheme. But this terminal aleph is more like the terminal yodh that appears in the construct state rather than a separate affix. Generally, the construct yodh in nouns is not parsed as a separate morpheme, and rightly so. Since this is the case, it seems that the determined aleph then should also not be parsed as a separate morpheme but as part of the noun itself. I have researched this issue in various Aramaic grammars, and I am happy to discuss it further if that would be helpful. Thank you very much!"

[DavidTroidl]

I received a response from Steve Salisbury:

I have forwarded your message to my Aramaic expert but my initial thought is that the analogy with the definite article in Biblical Hebrew is very strong.

I don't understand why the definite article as a marker of the vocative is an argument for joining the final Alef into the noun since the same phenomenon in Biblical Hebrew.

I would be glad to hear your further arguments.

[joeldruark]

Thanks for passing this on, David. On Monday, I will compose a thorough response to Steve and post it here.

[joeldruark]

Hi David, here is the message I've drafted for Steve. Thanks!

"Hi Steve, first of all, thanks for your reply to my message and for your invitation to talk more about this issue. So you know specifically who you're talking to...my name is Joel Ruark, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in OT at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). I've been studying here with Christo van der Merwe, specializing in Hebrew linguistics using a cognitive semantic approach. I'm also working part-time with Wycliffe Associates as a content writer, helping to put together Hebrew and Aramaic tools for use by their language teams.

Before I continue with the discussion at hand, I'll say that, besides the usual Aramaic grammars available, there are two books in particular that I have found very helpful concerning this issue, one old and one new. The old book is entitled, "Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages" by William Wright, published by Cambridge University Press in 1890. The new book is entitled, "Studies in Semitic Grammaticalization" by Aaron Rubin, part of the Harvard Semitic Studies series (No. 57) and published by Eisenbrauns in 2005. Chapter 4 of Rubin's study (on 'Definite Articles' in Semitic languages) is especially fruitful for the current discussion. [Another book worth looking at is the Porta Linguarum Orientalium series (No. 6) published in 1964 by Otto Harrassowitz, entitled "An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages", cf. pp.96-102.]

In agreement with Rubin and others, I have no qualms with the notion that the qamets-aleph/qamets-he ending originated in Aramaic as a suffix attached to the construct ending of nouns and adjectives (as treated by your WLC text). I also have no qualms with the notion that the determined ending in Aramaic performs the same basic pragmatic function as the definite article in Hebrew (i.e. to make a noun/adjective/participle definite instead of indefinite). What we are discussing is how to classify the morphological form –– should the terminal aleph/he in Aramaic be considered a "suffix" or an "ending"? The issue we are discussing can be reduced to two questions. In Biblical Aramaic, does the qamets-aleph/qamets-he function simply as an affix attached to the construct ending? Or does the qamets-aleph/qamets-he affix in Biblical Aramaic function as a distinct grammatical ending (i.e. a "determined ending" as opposed to the "construct ending" and the "absolute ending")? This is the question that must be answered. If the first option is correct, then the WLC is correct to separate the terminal aleph/he as an affix, in the same way that pronominal suffixes are also separated from the noun itself as affixes. But if the second option is correct, then the terminal aleph/he should NOT be separated from the noun but should be considered as part of the nominal ending itself. I hope to convince you that this second option is correct –– i.e. that in Biblical Aramaic, the language has progressed to the stage where the terminal aleph/he has become grammaticalized as a distinct morphological ending. But I will first list the implications of each option.

If the first option is correct, then we must conclude that Biblical Aramaic contains only two distinct nominal forms ("construct" and "absolute") instead of three. Thus, there is no "determined state", only the "construct state" and the "absolute state", and the presence of the terminal aleph/he functions simply to make a noun definite instead of indefinite. [Here, and throughout this discussion, I will use the terms "determined state" and "definite" distinctly. I will use the term "determined state" to refer to the actual morphological terminal aleph/he ending itself, where I will use the term "definite" in its usual sense of a kind of referent in opposition to an "indefinite" referent.] Of course, this would be exactly the same as Biblical Hebrew; the only difference between the two languages is location of the affix – in Hebrew the article is a prefix, and in Aramaic the article is a suffix. But we must be clear about this issue: if the terminal aleph/he in Aramaic is simply an affix, then there is no such thing as the "determined state" in Aramaic. There is only the "construct state" and the "absolute state" as distinct morphological forms.

If the second options is correct, then we must conclude that Biblical Aramaic contains three separate nominal forms: the "determined state", the "absolute state", and the "construct state". Nouns and adjectives in the "determined state" are always definite, whereas nouns/adjectives in the "absolute state" or the "construct state" can be either definite or indefinite. Thus, Biblical Aramaic contains a class of nouns (i.e. the "determined state") that is not present in Biblical Hebrew. [We could still debate whether "definiteness" and "indefiniteness" are the same in Biblical Hebrew versus Biblical Aramaic, because the concept of "definiteness" is not the same in every language. For example, the concept of "definiteness" is different in Hebrew than in English. But this is a separate issue, even though it is related; we don't need to know whether definiteness is same in Hebrew vs. Aramaic in order to see that the terminal aleph/he is an "ending" in Aramaic but that the definite article is an "affix" in Hebrew.]

So now I'll present some of the arguments why the terminal aleph/he should be considered a "determined ending" and not merely an "affix". First, all the standard Aramaic grammars affirm that Biblical Aramaic has three distinct nominal forms instead of merely two, and they all consider the terminal aleph/he as a "determined ending" and not as an "affix". [I don't have access to Van Pelt's "Basics of Biblical Aramaic", so I have not consulted that particular grammar. He might come to a different conclusion, but it seems unlikely that he would disagree with all the other standard grammars (Greenspahn, Rosenthal, Johns, etc).] I grant that this evidence is anecdotal and not directly from the text itself, but the fact that all the grammars consider Aramaic to have 3 classes of nouns instead of simply 2 is extremely significant. Other Aramaic grammarians have universally taken a side on this issue; it seems really odd for the WLC text to deviate from this without linguistic proof, or at least very convincing reasons for doing so.

Secondly, to the contrary of the previous sentence, we see linguistic evidence in Biblical Aramaic itself that the "determined state" truly is a separate class of noun distinct from the "construct state" and the "absolute state". Chiefly, this evidence is seen in how construct phrases are built with nouns in the various classes. As a language, Biblical Aramaic has developed a way to build construct phrases from two determined nouns (via a specialized use of the relative particle) as opposed to simply attaching the terminal aleph/he to the absolute noun of a construct phrase (like what happens in Hebrew construct phrases). In the first place, the terminal aleph/he doesn't attach to the absolute state at all in Aramaic, but rather to the construct state; and secondly, it would be completely unnecessary for the first construct noun to have the definite affix at all, since it would be made definite by the affix on the second construct noun. Simply put, it makes no sense of the actual linguistic data we see in Biblical Aramaic concerning construct phrases. Rather, it makes perfect sense that Aramaic developed a separate third class of noun (i.e. the "determined state") from the definite affix, and then developed a specialized way of indicating when two determined nouns form a construct chain, because the standard way of doing it (construct-state noun followed by an absolute-state noun) wasn't available.

Thirdly, the consistent use of the determined state in Aramaic for vocatives also provides further linguistic evidence that the terminal aleph/he is not simply an affix, like the definite article in Hebrew. Again, it makes perfect sense. Since vocatives are terms of direct address, it makes sense they vocatives would be definite; and most of the time they are, because most vocatives are proper names. And if Aramaic has a third class of nouns that are used specifically to indicate definiteness, then it makes sense that Aramaic would utilize that class of noun for its vocative use (as seen in the term מלכא in Dan 2:4). But this is different than Hebrew, where vocatives do NOT need the definite article (e.g. Gen 18:3 and 19:2) but can be made definite by a pronominal suffix. The point here is that, if the definite article was simply an affix in both Hebrew and Aramaic that functions in precisely the same way in both languages, then we should expect to always see the affixed article on vocatives in both languages. But that's not what we see. Rather, we always see the determined ending with vocatives in Aramaic, and rarely do we see the definite article with vocatives in Hebrew. How do account for this difference? Like I said, it makes perfect sense when we understand that terminal aleph/he in Aramaic is NOT merely an affix to the construct state but is, in fact, a completely separate class of noun with its own ending, i.e. the "determined state".

I hope all this makes sense. As I said before, I am happy to continue discussing this issue for as long as necessary. Thank you very much for your attention to this issue. I appreciate your openness!"

[DavidTroidl]

Steve said he understood most of your argument, and has passed the document on to his Aramaic expert.