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THE FUNCTIONS of the SYRIAC PARTICLE D

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THE FUNCTIONS of the SYRIAC PARTICLE D THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SYRIAC PARTICLE d- THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SYRIAC PARTICLE d- 1. Introduction The Classical-Syriac particle d-), known from earlier stages of Ara- .is very widespread and performs diverse functions ,די and זי maic as Most of these have been carefully treated in the traditional descriptions of Syriac grammar1. Some of these traditional compositions are admirably accurate and ex- haustive. The different details concerning are, nevertheless, arranged there in what may nowadays seem an old-fashioned manner. They are scattered in various chapters and sections, mostly within short, unsatis- fying treatments of syntax, often without an attempt to find the unifying principle which might bring them all together2. The present study attempts to offer a solution for the above mentioned shortcomings — presenting the whole issue of the Syriac particle in a unified manner, and using for this purpose Tesnière’s notion of the translatif — the morphological marker of syntactic operations3. 2. The Diverse Functions of the Syriac Particle The Syriac particle fulfills various syntactic functions, such as break- ing up genitive constructions and introducing subordinate clauses — relative, adverbial, content clauses, etc. This diversity of functions may be illustrated by the following exam- ples: 1 See, for instance, T. NÖLDEKE, Compendious Syriac Grammar (trans. J.A. Crichton), London, 1904, Sections 69, 155, 205, 209, 235-236, 239, 341-371, 372-373 (= NÖLDEKE, Grammar). See also A. UNGNAD, Syrische Grammatik: Mit Übungsbuch2, Hildesheim, 1932, rpt. 1992, Sections 11, 15, 53b (= UNGNAD, Grammatik). 2 But cfr T. MURAOKA, Classical Syriac: A Basic Grammar with a Chrestomathy (Porta Linguarum Orientalium, Neue Serie, 19), Wiesbaden, 1997 (= MURAOKA, Classi- cal Syriac), which is a modern treatment of Syriac grammar, and which, as such, offers a special focus on syntax, ‘which is an area where Syriac, with its only deceptive simplic- ity, appears to be capable of expressing rather intriguing subtleties and niceties’ (MURAOKA, Classical Syriac, p. xv). The particle is appropriately presented there as ‘a linking word of vague nature’ (MURAOKA, Classical Syriac, p. 21), and is then treated in various sections, mainly Sections 73, 76-78, 91, 98, 111. Since it is a basic grammar book, not a monograph on the particle , the different treatments of this are still scat- tered in different sections. 3 For a discussion of the translatif see L. TESNIÈRE, Éléments de syntaxe structurale2, Paris, 1965, p. 80, 82-83 (Chapter 38 [Sections 7-8], and Chapter 40) (= TESNIÈRE, Éléments). For a treatment of the translation as a syntactic operation see TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 359 ff. See also Section 3 below. 260 A. WERTHEIMER – 4 ‘And he wrote to him thus: (that) the letter of your loyalty which [you have sent] to me I have received.’5 The first serves as the marker of direct speech (Section 6.2.4 below); the second breaks up the genitive construction (Section 5.1 below); the third marks the beginning of an elliptical relative clause (Section 6.1.2 below). Note that English would not use any form equivalent to the first , and would then use the preposition of and the relative pronoun which (or else no relative clause at all) for the remaining two appearances of , respectively. Hebrew would not use ש-/אשר and של any equivalent for the first either, and would then use (or else no relative clause) respectively. What is so special about Syriac is the fact that it uses the same form, namely , for all these roles, and for many others — a fact which sometimes leads to a certain ambi- guity. – 6 ‘Instead of the crucifixion of death it was appropriate that he should be honoured [or: he deserved that he should be honoured], and it was right that he should be worshipped by them, especially because they saw with their own eyes everything which he was doing.’ – 7 ‘And they were considering (that) what they should do to him. For they were distressed, because they realized that most of the people (who) [were] of them believed in him.’ 4 Syriac quotation from UNGNAD, Grammatik, p. 56*, lines 17-18. 5 The underlined parts of the examples in this study are those directly involved in the structures in question. Within the translations, round brackets signify words in the origi- nal which are superfluous in the English translation; square brackets signify words which do not appear in the original Syriac. An attempt was made to translate accurately (also providing the literal translation) those parts of the sentences which are directly involved in the patterns in question. The translation of the less relevant parts of the sentences is not always literal. 6 UNGNAD, Grammatik, p. 57*, lines 12-14. 7 C. BROCKELMANN, Syrische Grammatik: mit Litteratur, Chrestomathie und Glossar (Porta Linguarum Orientalium, 5), Berlin, 1899, p. 13*, lines 8-10 (= BROCKELMANN, Grammatik). THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SYRIAC PARTICLE d- 261 3. Tesnière’s Translation and Translatif Tesnière uses the French term translation8 for the syntactic operation which transfers a word from one grammatical category to another9. The translatif is the morphological marker of such translation10. These syn- tactic operations may take place either within the simple sentence or within the complex sentence11. To illustrate, a translation ‘of the first degree’12, i.e., within the sim- ple sentence, takes place in: ‘the king’s house’, where the substantive ‘king’ serves as the attribute of ‘the house’. Since the position of the at- tribute is ordinarily held by an adjective (as in: ‘the big house’), the sub- stantive ‘king’ is, according to Tesnière’s view, transferred to the cat- egory of adjectives. This translation is marked by him as O>A (O= sub- stantive, A= adjective)13, and the translatif is ’s14. Another example of the same kind is: ‘a rainy day’, where O (rain) > A (rainy), a translation marked by the translatif -y. In ‘run quickly’, ‘quick’, which is an adjective, becomes, so to speak, an adverb: A>E (E = adverb)15. This translation is marked by the translatif -ly. A similar process may take place within the complex sentence, in- volving the subordination of a verb. This is a translation of the second degree16. Such a syntactic operation involves nominalization, i.e., turn- ing a verb (marked by the letter I)17 into another part of speech — a noun (substantive or adjective)18. Thus, for instance: ‘He heard that they would come’, where ‘that’ is the translatif marking the nominalization of the verbal sentence ‘They would come.’19 The nominalized sentence 8 Not to be confused with the English word ‘translation’, which is not a syntactic term. 9 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 364: ‘…la translation consiste donc à transférer un mot plein d’une catégorie grammaticale dans une autre catégorie grammaticale, c’est-à-dire à trans- former une espèce de mot en une autre espèce de mot.’ 10 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 80. 11 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 386. 12 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 386, Chapter 164, Section 13. 13 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 64. 14 It should be emphasized that ‘king’ does not become an adjective: there is no real change here into another part of speech; but ‘king’ here fulfills a role which is generally fulfilled by an adjective. See also G. GOLDENBERG, Nominalization in Amharic and Harari: Adjectivization, in S. SEGERT and A.J.E. BODROGLIGETI (eds), Ethiopian Studies Dedicated to Wolf Leslau: On the Occasion of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, Wiesbaden, 1983, p. 170 (bottom), including footnote no. 1 there. 15 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 64. 16 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 386, Chapter 164, Sections 14ff. 17 TESNIÈRE, Éléments, p. 64. 18 More accurately: letting the verb fulfill the role which is regularly fulfilled by a noun — cfr footnote no. 14 above. 19 Bearing in mind that a finite verb is syntactically the equivalent of a sentence, as it includes a pronominal element, a verbal lexeme, and the predicative relation which binds 262 A. WERTHEIMER becomes a complement clause (= an object clause), fulfilling the role which is regularly fulfilled by a substantive (‘He heard the news’). Hence this translation would be marked by Tesnière as I>>O. Similarly, in ‘They are repairing the window which you broke’, the relative clause is the product of the translation I>>A (since a relative clause is basically an adjective clause, i.e., it fulfills the role which is regularly fulfilled by an adjective)20. The translations of the first and second degree are described by Tesnière in identical terms and symbols (the only difference is in the ar- rows, which are either single [>] or double [>>], respectively). This identity of terminology originates from the conception of the complex sentence as an elaboration, or complication, of the simple sentence: To create a complex sentence, one of the elements of the simple sentence is substituted by a subordinate clause21. To illustrate the complication in question, consider the following two sentences: (1) He heard the news. (2) He heard that there was an accident. The subordinate content clause in sentence (2), ‘that there was an ac- cident’, is obviously of a more complex nature than the substantive ‘the news’ in sentence (1), but they fulfill the same syntactic role: both of them are complements of the verb ‘heard’. Since this role is regularly fulfilled by a substantive (in the simple sentence), we may describe the parallel translation in sentence (2) in Tesnière’s symbols I>>O. In other words, it is possible to syntactically analyze the most complex sentence in terms of a simple sentence. 4. The Syriac Particle as a Translatif The notion of Tesnière’s translatif may be used to overcome the diffi- culties created by the diversity of functions which the particle fulfills these two.
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