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# Syntactic Variation in Masoretic Hebrew: The Object Clause Reconsidered

**Authors:** [Martijn Naaijer](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/martijn-naaijer/), [Dirk Roorda](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/dirk-roorda/) · **Year:** 2016 (indexed 2017) · **Venue:** Journal for Semitics 25/2, 961–971 **Link:** [doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/2566](https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/2566) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

[**1** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2612720341) openalex · 2026-10-18[**1** citations in our library](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/cited-by/hbo-2017-naaijer-syntactic-variation-masoretic-hebrew-object/) of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read[Journal for Semitics](https://openalex.org/S2764941181)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/2566)
- [PDF](https://pure.knaw.nl/portal/files/6097865/961_971NaaijerRoorda252Edit2.pdf)
- [DOI 10.25159/1013-8471/2566](https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/2566)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2612720341)

**Authors (2)**

1. [Martijn Naaijer](https://openalex.org/A5044518872) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3325-0614) · h 3 · 17 citations · 24 works
2. [Dirk Roorda](https://openalex.org/A5005303591) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2680-8724) · h 5 · 191 citations · 102 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex (2026-10-18); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

The full text is not in the library; this card rests on the publisher's abstract, so the ideas are provisional. The paper takes two features of object clauses that have been used to date biblical texts: the order of a subject pronoun and a nominal predicate inside certain object clauses, and the choice between כִּי and אֲשֶׁר as the word that introduces an object clause ("he saw that …"). Instead of arguing from a handful of examples, the authors query every case in the Masoretic Text with the SHEBANQ / ETCBC tools, and ask how much variation there really is and what it can say about the date of a book.

## Ideas

- I1. Count the complementiser of object clauses in the Torah trees: `ccomp` (or `obj` headed by a clause) introduced by כִּי vs אֲשֶׁר, per book and per governing verb (רָאָה, יָדַע, שָׁמַע, אָמַר). Expectation from the literature: כִּי dominates in the Torah, אֲשֶׁר as complementiser is rarer and later.
- I2. In verbless object clauses, count pronoun–predicate vs predicate–pronoun order ("that he is X" vs "that X he is").
- I3. Method point for chapter 12: a dating feature counts only when measured over all its cases with the conditioning factors (verb, genre) held apart, not from a few contrasting examples.

## For Mova

I1 and I2 are counts on torah-wlc-macula for [Syntax: the clause and the sentence](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/08-syntax/) (objects, subordination) and `05-pronouns-particles.md` (כִּי, אֲשֶׁר); they also check that `tools/macula` attaches כִּי/אֲשֶׁר object clauses as `ccomp` with `mark`. I3 belongs to the dating debate in `12-biblical-mishnaic-modern.md`.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.25159/1013-8471/2566](https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/2566)

```
@article{naaijer2017syntactic,
  title = {{Syntactic Variation in Masoretic Hebrew: The Object Clause Reconsidered}},
  author = {Naaijer, Martijn and Roorda, Dirk},
  journal = {Journal for Semitics},
  year = {2017},
  doi = {10.25159/1013-8471/2566},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/2566}
}
```

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- [next → Changes of Syntactic Patterns in the Textual Tradition of the Book of Isaiah: A Corpus-Linguistic Approach](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbo-2017-oosting-changes-syntactic-patterns-textual-tradition/)
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