Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/478

 Of (b): naturally this does not apply to the examples, in which, in the sense of to become, to fare, to exist, still retains its full force as a verb, and where accordingly the sentence is verbal, and not a noun-clause; especially when the predicate precedes the subject. On the other hand, such examples as and the earth was  waste and emptiness, can scarcely be regarded as properly verbal clauses;  is used here really only for the purpose of referring to past time a statement which, as the description of a state, might also appear in the form of a pure noun-clause; cf. . This is especially true of the somewhat numerous instances in which occurs as a connecting word between the subject and the participial predicate; e.g.,  (immediately afterwards a pure noun-clause). The imperfect of announces what is future in, &c.; cf. . However, especially in the latter case, is not wholly without verbal force, but comes very near to being a mere copula, and this use is more frequent in the later books than in the earlier.

Rem. On the employment of, and , which were originally substantives (on their tendency to be used as verbs, equivalent to est, and non est, cf. , and the Negative Sentences, § 152) as a connecting link between a pronominal subject and a participial predicate (especially in conditional and interrogative sentences, , 49, 43:4, &c.), see above, , and the various kinds of subordinate clauses mentioned in §§ 150, 159.

4. The natural arrangement of words in the noun-clause, as describing a state, is subject—predicate; the principal stress falls on the former since it is the object of the description. Very frequently, however (and not merely in poetry, where greater freedom is naturally allowed in the arrangement of words), the reverse order is found, i.e. predicate—subject. The latter order must be used when special emphasis is laid on the predicate, or when it consists of an interrogative word; thus with a substantival predicate, e.g. ; 4:9, 12:13 (my sister, not my wife); 20:2, 12, 29:14, Is 63 b,, ; with an adjectival predicate, e.g. Is 63 a, 28:21, ; with a participle, , ; with an interrogative pronoun, e.g. ; with an adverbial interrogative, e.g..

Rem. On the above cf. the exhaustive investigations of C. Albrecht, ‘''Die Wortstellung im hebr. Nominalsatze'',’ vii. 218 ff. and viii. 249 ff.; with a complete list of the exceptions to the order subject—predicate, p. 254 ff. The predicate must precede for the reasons stated (an adjectival predicate is particularly emphatic when it has the force of a comparative, e.g. ; the predicate expressed by means of a preposition precedes most frequently when it serves to convey the ideas of having, possessing, e.g., , &c.; cf. also 26:20, 31:16, 43).

The predicate may precede: (a) when the subject is a pronoun, for ‘the person assumed to be generally known, does not excite the same interest as