Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/401



1. In general. As is the case with regard to the looser subordination of nouns to the verbal idea (§ 118), so also their subordination by means of prepositions is used to represent the more immediate circumstances (of place, time, cause, purpose, measure, association, or separation) under which an action or event is accomplished. In the case of most prepositions some idea of a relation of space underlies the construction, which then, in a wider sense, is extended to the ideas of time, motive, or other relations conceived by the mind.

On the origin of the prepositions and the original case-relation in which they stand to the nouns governed by them, cf. § 101, where a list of the prepositions is given with their original meanings. Cf. also § 102 on the prefixes, and § 103 on the union of prepositions with suffixes.

2. A not unimportant part is played in Hebrew by the compounding of prepositions to represent more accurately the relations of place, which either precede or follow the action. In the former case, and in the latter (which is not so frequent) occurs before other prepositions of place; cf. e.g. the Lord took me ;  turn thee, i.e., turn thee behind me; ,  ..., as in French de chez, d’après quelqu’un. For further examples, see c.

Rem. 1. We must not regard as combined prepositions in the above sense either those substantives which have become prepositions only by their union with prefixes, as, , (but e.g. , , &c., is such a compound); nor adverbs, which are also formed by combining words which were originally substantives (also used as prepositions) with prepositions, as ,  in the sense of below, Hence not to be confounded with , in such examples as , which is a real compound preposition. In the above-mentioned adverbs also the was originally by no means pleonastic;  denotes properly the locality, regarded primarily as a place from beneath which something proceeds, and so on. This original sense of the, however, has become so much obscured by its regular combination with words of place to form independent adverbs, that it is even prefixed (evidently only on the analogy of such common adverbs as , ) in cases where it is really inadmissible, owing to the meaning of the adverb, e.g. in , , cf. also such examples as, , , (there), &c. Since a is not usually repeated after, it appears as if  by a transposition of the  stood for the usual. In reality, however, the preposition which forms the adverb into a preposition is omitted here, as in, without a following  (see above). Properly has a purely adverbial meaning=taken by itself, like  (Syriac men le‛ēl) above (adv.), as distinguished from  or  (Syriac le‛ēl men), over, upon something.—Also  is not for, but the  serves merely (just like the Latin usqus in usque a, usque ad, usqus ex) to indicate expressly the starting-point, as an exact terminus a quo (of place or time).