# אחרי יום שלישי הכי טבעי שפשוט  יכנס לו



## קטן

Hi all,


I'm digesting a Hebrew song centering on weekday names, and got stuck on the line which is cited in this thread's title.

Perhaps it's meaning is something to the effect 'After Tuesday, what will most naturally enter is simply... [Wednesday]'.

Well understood on my part is the beginning 'After Tuesday'.
Immediately following may be 'most naturally'.
שפשוט probably is a complex comprised of the clitic ש (some relative pronoun) and host פשוט ('simply' or 'simple').
לו may roughly mean 'to him'.

All in all, I'm unsatisfied with my understanding of the structure, overall meaning and individual words of this sentence.

Can anyone here provide details on these matters?

An audio video of the song can be found using Goggle, search phrase  שיר הימימ.


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## slus

Your translation is correct.


קטן said:


> Immediately following may be 'most naturally'.


  yes


קטן said:


> שפשוט probably is a complex comprised of the clitic ש (some relative pronoun) and host פשוט ('simply' or 'simple').


 Yes - "that simply".


קטן said:


> לו may roughly mean 'to him'.


 You can ignore the לו. It is sometimes added to make it look more poetic or just to balance the rhythm. It has no actual meaning here.


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## elroy

slus said:


> You can ignore the לו. It is sometimes added to make it look more poetic or just to balance the rhythm. It has no actual meaning here.


 I thought it was

יכנס לו = יכנס ליום שלישי

Is that totally wrong?


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## slus

Yes. לו refers to יום רביעי and not to יום שלישי.


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## elroy

אז יום רביעי יכנס ״לעצמו״? בגלל זה אמרת שבהקשר הזה ״לו״ אפשר לוותר עליה? זה אותו המקרה של למשל ״קניתי לי מה לאכול״ או ״ישנתי לי שלוש שעות״?


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## slus

בדיוק!


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## Abaye

elroy said:


> זה אותו המקרה של למשל ״קניתי לי מה לאכול״ או ״ישנתי לי שלוש שעות״?


מישהו יודע איך קוראים למבנה הדקדוקי זה?


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## elroy

באנגלית נקרא _ethical dative_. בעברית, אין לי מושג! אולי תמצא משהו אם תחפש בגוגל עם הביטוי האנגלי. 

אגב, יש בפורום ערבית שירשור על הנושא:
لك (ethical dative)


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## Abaye

elroy said:


> באנגלית נקרא _ethical dative_. בעברית, אין לי מושג! אולי תמצא משהו אם תחפש בגוגל עם הביטוי האנגלי.


תודה על הטיפ. מסתבר שיש שלושה מונחים דומים: dativus commodi, dativus ethicus, dativus reflexivus (בשמם הלטיני) אבל לא נראה שיש מונח עברי מקובל. 
הנה למשל עבודת מאסטר שמוקדשת לתופעה זו בדיוק ומשתמשת במינוח הלועזי.https://jstudies.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/jstudies/files/2._mkhqrym_blshvn_yd-tv_prq_.pdf


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## קטן

slus said:


> Yes - "that simply".


What does this instance of ש refer to, precisely?

@all:

Not my intention to ignore anything in the lyrics.
Such a לו could cross my way everywhere anytime.
If it's there, it's probably at least *grammatically correct*; this song is a learners' song.
If it does refer to יום רביעי (next line) then this is relevant for this line, too.

And what about יכנס ?

What I'm hoping for is:
a translation which hits the nail on the head while being maximally literal, including word order.
Precision does matter.


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## Abaye

The *ש* of שפשוט starts a dependent clause. Unlike Deutsche "das", ש cannot stand alone as a separate word so it's attached to the first clause word.

The *לו* is absolutely grammatical, God said to Abraham לֶךְ לְךָ (a biblical example of this phenomenon). The Hebrew discussion above is about this לו. It's common in Romance languages and exists in Hebrew and (as @elroy noted) in Arabic. The sentence will have nearly the same meaning without this לו, it's a decoration that makes the indicative יכנס somewhat reflexive.


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## Albert Schlef

קטן said:


> What I'm hoping for is:
> a translation which hits the nail on the head while being maximally literal, including word order.



אחרי יום שלישי, הכי טבעי *ש* פשוט יכנס לו יום רביעי

After Tuesday, the most natural is *that* Wednesday will simply walk in.

The reason the poet uses "יכנס לו":

It's a *children* song. The days are attributed *human* traits and actions (anthropomorphism). Wednesday doesn't simply "enter" (that'd be boring: this verb could be said of any inanimate object) but trods in of his own accord (i.e., "walks in", or "enters jauntily"). The "לו" adds this shade of meaning: it turns Wednesday into a human-like *Mister* Wednesday who is involved in what's happening. (Or, in the words of @Abaye: לו makes the יכנס "somewhat reflexive".)


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## elroy

Albert Schlef said:


> אחרי יום שלישי, הכי טבעי *ש* פשוט יכנס לו יום רביעי
> 
> After Tuesday, the most natural is *that* Wednesday will simply walk in.


 Oh, I see!  I totally mis-parsed it.  I would have expected הכי טבעי* הוא/זה* שפשוט.  Wouldn’t that be more likely in spoken Hebrew?

A few comments based on your literal breakdown, which has massively helped clarify things:

- In English (but not in German), we still need a noun after “most natural”: “the most natural *thing*”. 
- I believe יכנס here is subjunctive, not future: “for Wednesday to enter” or “that Wednesday enter” [subjunctive]. 
- To try to convey the flavor of לו, I might say “saunter in.”

A free translation:

After Tuesday, it only follows that Wednesday would just saunter in.

Closer to the original:

After Tuesday, it’s only natural for one day to just saunter in: Wednesday.


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## Albert Schlef

elroy said:


> I would have expected הכי טבעי* הוא/זה* שפשוט.  Wouldn’t that be more likely in spoken Hebrew?



People commonly drop it. (Whether it's gramatical? Hmmm..... I believe it is: otherwise I'd have heard something to the contrary.)



elroy said:


> - In English (but not in German), we still need a noun after “most natural”: “the most natural *thing*”.



Yeah, I had doubts about that (I'll need to ask this in the English forum).

Better still, instead of "The most natural thing is that ..." we can say "It's most natural that ...". It'd look much better. (The OP asked for a literal translation, so I didn't pay attention to my style.)

I agree with everything else you wrote.


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## elroy

Albert Schlef said:


> People commonly drop it. (Whether it's gramatical? Hmmm..... I believe it is: otherwise I'd have heard something to the contrary.)


 I may be hypercorrecting!  My impression is that Hebrew is more stringent than Arabic with regard to using things like הוא and זה in a copular function.  In Arabic, it would be completely natural (no pun intended ) and unremarkable to say this sentence without an overt copula.


Albert Schlef said:


> I had doubts about that (I'll need to ask this in the English forum).


 You can ask here too!


Albert Schlef said:


> "It's most natural that ...". It'd look much better.


 I would say "It _would be _most natural _for_..."


Albert Schlef said:


> (The OP asked for a literal translation, so I didn't pay attention to my style.)


 Yes, I think your very literal translation was super helpful (to me, at least)!  I was only commenting that if we wanted to move toward an idiomatic translation, we would at least need to add "thing."  English is pretty inflexible when it comes to using adjectives nominally.  It's certainly possible (for example, "I want to help the poor and needy") but it's nowhere near as productive as it is in other languages, like Hebrew (and Arabic and German).

Another difference between English and the other languages is that English tends to prefer replacing "that" + [subjunctive] with "for" + [infinitive].  To make this clear using our example (without לו since that doesn't translate into all languages*):

Hebrew: הכי טבעי שפשוט יכנס יום רביעי
German: Das Natürlichste ist, dass der Mittwoch einfach reingeht.
Standard Arabic: الأكثر طبيعية أن يدخل ببساطة يوم الأربعاء
Palestinian Arabic: الطبيعي أكتر إشي إنو يدخل ببساطة يوم الأربعا

English: The most natural thing is for Wednesday to come in.
_(The most natural is for Wednesday to come in.  -- illicit)
(The most natural thing is that Wednesday come in.  -- licit but stilted/marked)_

In all the non-English languages, the colored constructions match with regard to adjective nominalization and subjunctive use, whereas English uses/prefers different constructions.

*In Arabic the equivalent of לו works in Palestinian Arabic but not in Standard Arabic.


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## Albert Schlef

elroy said:


> English is pretty inflexible when it comes to using adjectives nominally.
> _(The most natural is for Wednesday to come in.  -- illicit)_



Oh, I see what you mean, about "using adjectives nominally". Thanks.

(BTW, as for the word "פשוט" in the original sentence: some might say it refers to the whole clause (as if it were written "טבעי פשוט שיכנס") instead of referring to the verb יכנס alone. I don't see much point in making a distinction. This word doesn't carry here much meaning, if at all, to begin with.)


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## Drink

In English you could either say "The most natural thing is (that) ..." or "It is most natural (that) ..."


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## elroy

Albert Schlef said:


> referring to the verb יכנס alone


 That’s how I read it.


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## קטן

Albert Schlef said:


> אחרי יום שלישי, הכי טבעי *ש* פשוט יכנס לו יום רביעי
> 
> After Tuesday, the most natural is *that* Wednesday will simply walk in.



Thank you for making clear this basic fact:
ש is a conjunction here, neither pronoun nor determiner alias demonstrating adjective.
(Look at my opening statement, and you'll find a momentous error.)



Abaye said:


> The *ש* of שפשוט starts a dependent clause. Unlike Deutsche "das", ש cannot stand alone as a separate word so it's attached to the first clause word.


This ש is exactly not a German 'das', but German 'dass' (written 'daß' until the most recent German orthography reform).
However, their English synonyms ('that', respectively) are full homonyms.
See Albert's explanation.

At all:
I'm still digesting the rest of the line. When finished, I may give a summary of my insights...


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