Tamar Zewi, «The Syntactical Status of Exceptive Phrases in Biblical Hebrew», Vol. 79 (1998) 542-548
Exceptive phrases are usually considered appositions to the sentence parts from which they are excepted. This paper considers the syntactical status of exceptive phrases from a functional point of view. It indicates the similarities between exceptive phrases, extrapositions and cleft sentences. It compares the Biblical construction of exceptive phrases to that of Classical Arabic, and learns important facts from the syntactical status of the parallel Arabic construction as reflected in the Arabic case system. Considering all the evidence, the paper asserts that exceptive phrases after negative sentences actually present the new information exhibited by the speaker or writer, that is, the logical predicate or the comment of the sentence.
Direct object:
ht) Mylk) Myrz Mkdgnl Mktmd
Before your eyes, the yield of your soil is consumed by strangers (Isa 1,7)
Indirect object:
K(rzlw hnnt) Kl hyl( bk#$ ht) r#$) Cr)h
The ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring (Gen 28,13)
Adverbial phrase:
M#$ wm#$ Nk#$l wb Mkyhl) hwhy rxby-r#$) Mwqmh hyhw
Mkt) hwcm ykn) r#$)-lk t) w)ybt hm#$
Then you must bring everything that I command you to the site where the Lord your God will choose to establish his name (Deut 12,11)
Attribute:
Mktbib w#$pn hq#$x ynb Mk#$
My son Shechem longs for your daughter (Gen 34,8) 6
The comparison between exceptive phrases on the one hand and extrapositions on the other is important for the thesis suggested in this paper, since in both syntactical constructions the syntactical status of the outside phrases, either exceptive or extraposed sentence parts, is considered similar to that of an inner sentence part to which they are appositions. This point of view regarding the syntactical status of the outside members is common to both constructions. However, a true consideration of exceptive phrases shows that in terms of logical understanding of their role they actually are opposites. Exceptive phrases after negative sentences truly present the new information exhibited by the speaker or writer, that is, the logical predicate or the comment of the sentence, while the extraposed parts of extrapositions give special status to the known information of the sentence, that is, the logical subject or the topic, to which the speaker or writer wants to add more 7. Following this line of thought, exceptive phrases and extrapositions should be syntactically considered complementary structures rather than parallel ones.