SOME GRAMMAR NOTES

intransitive and transitive in the same construct. Posted at mentalblog.com, Thread: Sharpshooter Markovitz:

Empathetic sorrow:
ויבא אברהם לספוד לשרה וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ
(Genesis 23:2)

Ibn Ezra states that the word וְלִבְכֹּתָה translates as "to cry over her".

What’s Ibn Ezra’s question?
Well, he is trying to resolve a grammatical difficulty: The verb בנין פעל ) לִבְכֹּת ) is an intransitive verb ( פועל עומד ) "to cry". Whereas לְבַכֹּת ( with a pattach under the veis - בנין פיעל ) is a transitive verb ( פועל יוצא ) "to cry over, to bewail". You can either simply "cry" or "cry over something". But you can’t "cry something". So the proper word here should have been לְבַכֹּת (levakkois) and not לִבְכֹּת (livkois). Ibn Ezra’s answer means that, simply put, this particular verb can be both intransitive and transitive in the same construct ( בנין פעל ). To that end, he brings another example of such usage of this word.

The ארקוולטי ([not sure if it is Arikvalti or Arakvalti)] quoted by Avi Ezer), offers a beautiful explanation of this usage: the intransitive construct is used here to indicate the degree to which the mourner identifies with the mourned – they become as if one. (Thus in his crying over Soroh, Avrohom is also crying in her stead, not merely crying "over" her.)

berl, crown heights 11.22.05 - 5:37 pm Link: #