The Syntactical Status of Exceptive Phrases in Biblical Hebrew

I.

This paper examines the syntactical status of exceptive phrases following negative sentences in Biblical Hebrew. The most frequent pair of particles used for this syntactical construction is M) yk, but one also finds yk alone, ytlb, M) ytlb, and rarely qr and ytlwz ¹. In many languages exceptive phrases after negative sentences are usually considered restrictive appositions to the sentence part from which they are excepted. Being appositions to a previous sentence part, exceptive phrases should consequently gain a syntactical status equal to that of the sentence part to which they stand as appositions. If an exceptive phrase is an apposition to a subject it is a subject, if it is an apposition to an object it is an object, if it is an apposition to an adverb it is an adverb, etc. The following are instances of exceptive phrases in Biblical Hebrew standing in syntactical apposition to various types of syntactical roles:

Subject

Nwn-Nb (#$whyw hnpy-Nb blk-M) yk #$y) Mhm rtwn-)lw

Not one of them survived, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun (Num 26,65) ²

Direct object:

wdbl l)r#&y Klm-t)-M) yk lwdg-t)w N+q-t) wmxlt )l

Don"t attack anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel (1 Kgs 22,31)

Indirect object:

Kl) ytdlwm-l)w ycr)-l)-M) yk Kl) )l wyl) rm)y

"I will not go," he replied to him, "but will return to my native land" (Num 10,30

Adverbial phrase:

l)r#&yb-M) yk Cr)h-lkb Myhl) Ny) yk yt(dy )n-hnh rm)yw

Another instance of adverbial phrase is not cited from the Bible but from a Biblical inscription, namely, letter number 4 from Lachish: w(bdk. )yn[ ] y[ ] s]lh[ s]mh )th (w[] ky )m. btsbt. hbqr. =

 rqbh tbstb M) yk [Myh d]w( ht) hm#$ xl#$ y[n] ny) Kdb(w

"I do not send there your servant today but at dawn" ³

II.

 The syntactical status of exceptive phrases is commonly considered similar to that of the sentence parts from which they are excepted. This view is parallel to a common understanding of another syntactical situation in which sentence parts take a position outside the sentence to which they originally belong, and actually stand as appositions to a new member of the original sentence fulfilling their role. In fact, these words refer to the well known structure of extraposition. In extrapositions a sentence part is usually put in frontal position, less frequently in final position, and it is replaced by a retrospective pronoun fulfilling its role in the main sentence.

 A situation in which two sentence parts play the same syntactical role is usually regarded as apposition. The extraposed sentence part might be regarded as a special kind of apposition and in many syntactical studies its syntactical role is defined as similar to that of its retrospective pronoun ⁴. The following are instances of extrapositions in which extraposed sentence parts play various syntactical roles in a manner similar to that of exceptive phrases ⁵:

Subject:

 )wh Kynpl Myrcm Cr)

The land of Egypt is open before you (Gen 47,6)

Direct object:

ht) Mylk) Myrz Mkdgnl Mktmd 

Before your eyes, the yield of your soil is consumed by strangers (Isa 1,7)

Indirect object:

K(rzlw hnnt) Kl hyl( bk#$ ht) r#$) Cr)h

The ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring (Gen 28,13)

Adverbial phrase:

M#$ wm#$ Nk#$l wb Mkyhl) hwhy rxby-r#$) Mwqmh hyhw
  Mkt) hwcm ykn) r#$)-lk t) w)ybt hm#$

Then you must bring everything that I command you to the site where the Lord your God will choose to establish his name (Deut 12,11)

Attribute:

Mktbib w#$pn hq#$x ynb Mk#$

My son Shechem longs for your daughter (Gen 34,8) ⁶

 The comparison between exceptive phrases on the one hand and extrapositions on the other is important for the thesis suggested in this paper, since in both syntactical constructions the syntactical status of the outside phrases, either exceptive or extraposed sentence parts, is considered similar to that of an inner sentence part to which they are appositions. This point of view regarding the syntactical status of the outside members is common to both constructions. However, a true consideration of exceptive phrases shows that in terms of logical understanding of their role they actually are opposites. Exceptive phrases after negative sentences truly present the new information exhibited by the speaker or writer, that is, the logical predicate or the comment of the sentence, while the extraposed parts of extrapositions give special status to the known information of the sentence, that is, the logical subject or the topic, to which the speaker or writer wants to add more ⁷. Following this line of thought, exceptive phrases and extrapositions should be syntactically considered complementary structures rather than parallel ones.

 Such a view also arises from many syntactical treatments of extraposition that regard extrapositional phrases in extrapositions as topics, and even use the term subject ⁸. By contrast, such syntactical definitions are usually not made regarding exceptive phrases, which are generally referred to as appositions and are not treated in terms of functional grammar. My suggestion is to consider exceptive phrases by the same means that consider extrapositions, namely those of functional grammar, and to see them as comments of the sentence to which they belong ⁹.

III.

 Classical Arabic grammatical rules regarding exceptive phrases contribute more to the understanding of these constructions as comments. Classical Arabic employs case markings of syntactical positions for most sentence members. Extrapositional phrases, for instance, take nominative case marking, thus revealing, the inside view of Arabic grammar regarding their syntactical status, that is, topic, or in terms of Arabic grammar mubtada), of the whole sentence ¹⁰.

 With exceptive phrases the situation is more complex. In Classical Arabic, unlike Biblical Hebrew, there exist not only negative sentences that include exceptive phrases but affirmative as well ¹¹. Exceptive phrases behave differently grammatically in affirmative sentences and in negative sentences. In affirmative sentences the case marking is usually accusative ¹². In negative sentences, the construction most similar to the Biblical Hebrew one examined here, the regular case marking might also be an accusative, but more frequently it changes according to the status of the sentence member to which the exceptive phrase stands in apposition, or badal in Arabic ¹³.

 These two options actually reflect the dual nature of the syntactical status of exceptive phrases. On the one hand, the case marking of exceptive phrases in affirmative sentences is normally accusative, reflecting a special syntactical status different from the status of the sentence member to which they stand in apposition. On the other hand, the case marking revealed in negative sentences, which is similar to that of the sentence members to which exceptive phrases stand in apposition, clearly reflects the fact that these phrases are appositions.

 Moreover, the accusative case marking of exceptive phrases in affirmative sentences reminds one of the accusative case marking of the Arabic xabar ka4na. This Arabic term refers to the predicate of sentences employing the Arabic verb "to be" as a copula ¹⁴. The predicate that follows this copula is not in the nominative case as expected from predicates, but in the accusative. Still, the syntactical role of this sentence member is undoubtedly that of a predicate, and in terms of functional grammar it is that of a comment. The accusative case of the predicates of ka4na and a few other similar words might be considered parallel to the accusative case of exceptive phrases in affirmative sentences in that in both structures it indicates the comment of a sentence. In this way, Arabic grammatical rules reflect the true nature of exceptive phrases, and they support the thesis suggested here that exceptive phrases are appositions that add new information to their sentence, thus being its comment.

 It is interesting to note here the view of the Arab grammarian Si!bawayhi regarding the role of xabar ka4na in constructions in which ka4na is a copula. According to Levin, Si!bawayhi finds many similarities between the role of xabar ka4na and a direct object after a transitive verb. Considering this view, and the fact that a predicate cannot also be an object, one should not understand the term xabar when employed after ka4na in Si!bawayhi"s writings as a regular verbal predicate. Si!bawayhi himself regards this xabar as parallel to several other structures, including a second object of verbs of )af(a!l al-qulu!b, which take two objects related to each other as subject and predicate and to a subject and predicate of a nominal sentence ¹⁵. The two objects of )af(a!l al-qulu!b and subject and predicate of a nominal sentence actually are in functional grammar terms topic and comment ¹⁶. Thus, this view suits the thesis suggested here, that the accusative member following )illa! in affirmative sentences is parallel to xabar ka4na not only in using the accusative but in being similar to a second object of )af(a!l al-qulu!b or to a predicate of a nominal sentence. In functional grammar terms this accusative member is a comment.

IV.

 Finally, one more structure is relevant to this discussion. Another structure that makes the comment of a sentence syntactically prominent is a cleft sentence ¹⁷. In this type the comment actually takes a position of a predicate in a nominal sentence by putting the verbal predicate in a subordinate clause. The clause itself takes the position of the subject. Therefore, contrary to exceptive phrases or to extrapositional phrases, which might be considered appositions or comments for the former and topics for the latter, cleft sentences are transparent constructions in terms of functional grammar, eliminating doubts about the role of their components.

 Nevertheless, cleft sentences are mentioned here for the sake of presenting a more complete picture of syntactical structures reflecting the functional structure of a sentence in terms of topic and comment. In this picture, on the one hand stand extrapositions, in which the topic is isolated, and on the other stand both exceptive sentences and cleft sentences, in which the comment is isolated.

Summary

Exceptive phrases are usually considered appositions to the sentence parts from which they are excepted. This paper considers the syntactical status of exceptive phrases from a functional point of view. It indicates the similarities between exceptive phrases, extrapositions and cleft sentences. It compares the Biblical construction of exceptive phrases to that of Classical Arabic, and learns important facts from the syntactical status of the parallel Arabic construction as reflected in the Arabic case system. Considering all the evidence, the paper asserts that exceptive phrases after negative sentences actually present the new information exhibited by the speaker or writer, that is, the logical predicate or the comment of the sentence.