Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew. (Briefly Noted).Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew. By Gary A. Long (Hendrickson, $19.95). The subtitle sub·ti·tle n. 1. A secondary, usually explanatory title, as of a literary work. 2. A printed translation of the dialogue of a foreign-language film shown at the bottom of the screen. tr.v. discloses the approach: "Learning Biblical Hebrew Grammatical Concepts through English Grammar English grammar is a body of rules specifying how meanings are created in English. There are many accounts of the grammar, which tend to fall into two groups: the descriptivist ." Way back when, we used to say that we first understood the structure of English when we took high school Latin. This book turns that epigram epigram, a short, polished, pithy saying, usually in verse, often with a satiric or paradoxical twist at the end. The term was originally applied by the Greeks to the inscriptions on stones. on its head and uses analysis of English expressions to help beginning Hebrew students understand direct objects, nominal sentences, verb tenses, etc. The book is laid out well, and the graphics are both pleasing and clarifying. As the book moves on and things get more complicated, I fear that the struggling student who needs a book like this may get lost in an explanation such as: "The vayyiqtol commonly functions to discourse a story's mainline mainline Drug slang verb To inject a drug , yet it may also denote something we can label SIDELINE sideline See on the sidelines. or EXPOSITION. In written etic discourse, which is, after all, a linear string of syntagms, one may need to 'break off in order to 'enflesh' a character...." I'll confess I have nev er used "discourse" as a verb. |
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