Step 4b – Analyzing Cognate Nominatives: Hifil Denominatives

In our search for cognate nominatives, there were five examples in which the verb was realized in the Hifil stem. We can search for these specifically with the following Hebrew construct:

 

Here are the results:

 

These all seem to be examples of denominal verbs—verbs that are derived from a noun. Remember that the Binyanim are primarily derivational rather than inflectional, meaning that their main function is to create new vocabulary. While Binyan generally interact with roots in predictable ways, it is not so simple as Hifil = causative. Both the Piel and Hifil stems are productive for forming denominatives.

For instance, פרס (Qal) is glossed “to divide s/t;” therefore, we may expect פרס (Hi) to be glossed “to cause s/o to divide s/t.”  In this case, however,  פרס (Hi) is a denominative of פרסה “(divided) hoof” and should be glossed as “to have (divided) hooves.”

In each of these cases, therefore, the cognate nominative is the base nominal from which the Hifil verb was derived. On closer inspection, however, I think that the examples from Lev 11:5 and 6 have been mis-tagged. Note that the verbs יַפְרִיס (Lev 11:5) and הִפְרִיסָה (Lev 11:6) agree with וְאֶת־הַשָּׁפָן “the rock badger (ms)” and וְאֶת־הָאַרְנֶבֶת “the hare (fs)” respectively rather than פַרְסָה “(divided) hoof (fs).” I suspect that these are actually cognate accusative constructions (cf. כֹּל מַפְרֶסֶת פַּרְסָה “all that have a divided hoof” in Lev 11:3). Likewise in Psa 80:10, ‏וַתַּשְׁרֵשׁ שָׁרָשֶׁיהָ , the fs verb agrees with the fs pronominal suffix whose antecedent is גֶּפֶן “vine” in verse 9 while שרש is mp in form. I think that this also is better analyzed as cognate accusative.

Step 4a – Analyzing Cognate Nominatives: Passive Clauses

A common behavior of the grammatical relation object is that an argument realized as an object in an active clause is promoted to subject in the comparable passive clause. My interest in the possibility of a cognate nominative was prompted by the question of whether cognate accusatives behaved as objects in this regard.

Our search for adjunct cognate accusatives returned a few hits in passive clauses. In these cases the cognate accusative is not promoted to subject, but remains a cognate accusative. Consider the following examples:

‏לֹא יִמָּכְרוּ מִמְכֶּרֶת עָבֶד

“They shall not be sold the sale of a slave” (Lev 25:42)

‏וְאִנָּקְמָה נְקַם־אַחַת מִשְּׁתֵי עֵינַי

“And I shall be avenged one vengeance for my two eyes” (Judg 16:28)

Our cognate nominative search also returned a few passive examples. We can search for these specifically by specifying the verbal stem in our Hebrew construct:

Here are a couple of the hits on this search:

‏וּפְקֻדַּת כָּל־הָאָדָם יִפָּקֵד עֲלֵיהֶם

“The fate of all humankind falls upon them” (Num 16:29)

‏ וּמִקְצָת יָמִים עֲשָׂרָה נִרְאָה מַרְאֵיהֶם טוֹב

“At the end of ten days their appearance appeared good…” (Dan 1:15)

In what way do these examples differ from the previous two cognate accusatives? The verb ראה selects a stimulus which is realized as object and promoted to subject under passivization. Compare this active clause:

‏וְאֶרְאֶה אֶת־הַמַּרְאֶה הַגָּדֹל הַזֶּה

“I saw this great vision” (Exod 3:3)

Therefore, Dan 1:15 seems to be following the typical behavior for objects under passivization with the cognate nominative מַרְאֵיהֶם filling the semantic role stimulus.

Num 16:29 is a little more complicated, but there are comparable examples of פקד governing an object accusative with a causative sense:

‏וּפָקַדְתִּי עֲלֵיהֶם חַטָּאתָם

“I will assign their sins onto them” ≅ “I will punish them for their sins” (Exod 32:34)

I think that Num 16:29 is analogous to this construction with פְקֻדַּת כָּל־הָאָדָם ‘the fate of all humankind’ filling the same semantic role as חַטָּאתָם ‘their sins’ (note also that it is the nature of חטא that produces the reading ‘punish’ for פקד, while Num 16:29 has a more neutral connotation). If this is the case, then this cognate nominative is also behaving like a typical object under passivization. In both of these cases the cognate nature of the argument seems incidental to the syntax.

Step 3 – Finding Cognate Nominatives

So, now that we have done a brief overview of the cognate accusative, is there a cognate nominative? On the most basic definition—a nominative that shares the same root with the verb—yes. [1] The [AGREE] command only works below the same level of hierarchy (phrase, clause, etc). Because the subject is at the clause level while the verb is nested within the predicate phrase we will not be able to take full advantage of the syntax DB beyond the fact that we have NPs tagged as subjects. This is the search I devised to find cognate nominatives:

This resulted in 103 hits, but some of these are garbage (a few involving Ketib-Qere; Robert it seems that the syntax tag of the previous element is bleeding over into the member of the Ketib-Qere pair that we left unmarked; is this the way it was expected to work?). There are also some puns on names that I am not interested in. Paring the set down, I come up with about 35 examples of cognate nominatives. Here is a screen shot of the first few results:

I can make a few brief observations on the results. About 20 are bare indefinites while 15 are qualified in some manner—a similar distribution to our cognate accusatives. Overwhelmingly the phenomenon was found in formally intransitive clauses which may or may not be significant. There are four cases involving Nifal stems and five involving Hifil stems that may merit further comment.

Note that this search did not produce hits for phrases such as ‏וּבְכָל־הָרֶמֶשׂ הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל־הָאָרֶץ “and over all the creepers that creep on the earth” (Gen 1:26). In this case, הָרֶמֶשׂ is not properly the subject of רֹמֵשׂ due to the relative clause structure, but I suspect the construction may be relevant or at least interesting in its own right.

So technically there are cognate nominatives. The omission of such a category from the grammars suggests that nobody has found anything particularly interesting about this construction that merits further discussion, but I’m sure we can find something to talk about.
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[1] The label nominative is borrowed by the grammars from the classical Greek tradition for convenience, but Biblical Hebrew, of course, does not have an inflectional case system. Therefore, technically, we are searching for cognate subjects here since all the zero-coded non-subjects are usually grouped with ‘accusatives’.