# Syriac: adjective in construct state



## zaw

Hi,

Nouns have three states: emphatic, construct, and absolute. What about adjectives? Do they ever have a construct state? It is hard to imagine them being in such a state.

Toda raba


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## Ali Smith

Only a substantivized adjective can be in the construct state, just as in Hebrew.


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## radagasty

Ali Smith said:


> Only a substantivized adjective can be in the construct state, just as in Hebrew.


This is true of neither Hebrew nor Syriac.

When an adjective is followed by a genitive of specification, for example, it is construed in the _status constructus._ Thus Hebrew יְפֵה תֹאַר ‘beautiful in form’, which has a parallel construction in Syriac, ܫܦܝܪ ܚܙܘܠ. This is one of the (few) mandatory uses of the construct state in Syriac.


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## fdb

zaw said:


> Nouns have three states: emphatic, construct, and absolute. What about adjectives? Do they ever have a construct state? It is hard to imagine them being in such a state.


In Arabic it is called إضافة غير حقيقة


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## radagasty

fdb said:


> In Arabic it is called إضافة غير حقيقة



One would do well to note, however, that there are significant differences between the إضافة غير حقيقة and the Hebrew construction, wherein the adjective cannot take the article (or emphatic ending) and the genitive noun need not be determinate. That's in part why it is characterised as غير حقيق in Arabic, whereas, in Hebrew, there is nothing improper about the construction.


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