# את



## Omerik

Hi evreyone,

Well, this isn't exactly a Hebrew-related question, rather a question about every language except Hebrew...

As you Hebrew speakers all now, we have the word את (et), which is untranslatable to any language I know, and used before proper nouns and definite noun phrases  in the accusative case.
I hope my definition is okay, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, is it correct to say that the word את in Hebrew is an "accusative article"?
And my second question - do you know of any language that uses anything similar?

I've always wondered how it's explained to native speakers of other languages, where this thing doesn't exist... As far as I remember, in linguistics studies in the TA University, in the first year at least, while we are told in some assignments to mention the "purpose" of each word in a given sentence, את is the only word that we were told to ignore. For instance, if I say הילד הלך לים:

הילד הלך לים = S

הילד = NP
ה = Det
ילד = N

הלך לים = VP

הלך = V

לים (ל+הים) = PP
ל = P
הים = NP
ה= Det
ים = N

(I hope it's clear. If it isn't, ask me and I'll draw it and try to take a picture and then upload...)

So - what's the deal with this word?
Is it really only in Hebrew?
And now do grammar "experts" analyse/treat it?


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## berndf

Omerik said:


> Now, is it correct to say that the word את in Hebrew is an "accusative article"?


I'd regard it as a preposition, not as an article.


Omerik said:


> And my second question - do you know of any language that uses anything similar?


Not that I know of. Historically, את means "to" or "with". I believe there are still remnants of this older meaning, e.g. for "with me" you still say איתי rather than עםי*, if I am not mistaken. But in its modern meaning as a _definite direct object marker,_ I think it is unparalleled.


Omerik said:


> I've always wondered how it's explained to native speakers of other languages, where this thing doesn't exist...


As I described it above: as a _definite direct object marker__. _What is difficult to understand for us non-Hebrew-native-speakers is why you mark only definite direct objects this way.


Omerik said:


> הילד הלך לים = S
> 
> הילד = NP
> ה = Det
> ילד = N
> 
> הלך לים = VP
> 
> הלך = V
> 
> לים (ל+הים) = PP
> ל = P
> הים = NP
> ה= Det
> ים = N


I'd analyse הילד ראה את הים the same way:
הילד: NP
ראה: Verb
את הים: PP
את: P
הים: NP


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## Flaminius

Omerik said:


> And my second question - do you know of any language that uses anything similar?


I use one of such languages everyday.  Japanese marks the grammatical case by means of postpositions (usually one syllable long).  They are used to mark even the most basic ones such as nominative (either for subject or topic) and accusative.

Differences between the Japanese case marker and the Hebrew one are:
1. The Japanese one is uninflected.
2. The Japanese one is used both for indefinite and definite nouns.
I cannot, however, tell how big the difference is, as gender, person, number and definiteness have hardly any role in Japanese.

I shan't discuss Japanese grammar in depth but theoretical linguistics has revealed that there are levels for the Japanese case system.  Some of nouns suffixed with a case marker may be treated as PP (postpositional phrase in Japanese but does not make too much difference if you read it prepositional phrase), while others need to be interpreted as NP.  The latter are often nouns in the most basic cases such as nominative and accusative.

My guess is that your professor has evidence both for an _et_-marked noun as NP and as PP.  That's the reason I think you were told to spare them analysis.  



berndf said:


> Historically, את means "to" or "with".


Traditional Hebrew scholars used to relate the accusative preposition with אות (letter, originally sign).  They would argue that it presents the modified noun as the target of an action as a mark for an arrow.  Maybe it's etymologically unfounded but I like it.  It makes me wonder if a definite noun would not like to be an object if unmarked by את.  It probably wants to be the subject.  For a very wild guess, I think את is used to suppress the subjecthood which is automatically assumed for a definite noun.


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## Tazzler

שלום​
What you're asking about is whether other languages mark a definite accusative. There are other languages that do something similar. Persian uses the postposition "ra" to mark definite direct objects. Turkish has an accusative suffix (i/u/ü/ı) to mark the definite direct object. However, what's at question is rather specificity rather than directness, which is why in the English translation the indefinite article could be used in some contexts (also the Turkish indefinite article "bir" can occur with the definite object suffix).

Flaminus, doesn't Japanese mark indefinite and definite objects the same way with を?

Keep in mind that I don't have that broad of experience with any of these four languages (though I wish I did with Hebrew!).


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## Flaminius

Tazzler said:


> Flaminus, doesn't Japanese mark indefinite and definite objects the same way with を?


Yes.  Was my "The Japanese one is used both for indefinite and definite nouns" unclear?


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## origumi

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you, berndf and Flaminius. It seems that you bring some concepts which require further deliberation.

1. את = עם (with). This is speculative. There are 3 ways to vowelize את: _et_ (before a definite direct object, long or short "e"), _ot_- (_et_ constructed with body/number, e.g. אותם) and _itt-_ (with, e.g. איתם).

It's clear that the first two are related, for the following reasons:
* The meaning is identical - marking a definite direct object.
* There are mixed forms, for example אותך (the vowel is "o") vs. אתכם (the vowel is "e").
* The Aramaic equivalent is ית yat, with a long "a", which could become "o" during the Canaanite Vowel Shift, so -אות makes sense.

On the other hand, the _itt-_ words are not sure to be related. The vowel is different, the ת has strong dagesh which hints that there was historically a double ת or נת or something similar, unlike the את of direct object.

2. Early Hebrew employed את differently than modern Hebrew: this is not accurate. reading the Bible, the vast majority of את are exactly like in modern Hebrew. It's difficult (possible though) to find examples of different usage. This starts with Genesis and goes over the whole Bible until the newest parts like Esther. I don't think that the few exceptions justify far-fetched theories, unless there are good arguments for that.

3. The Hebrews (or Canaanites) changed the way את is used: I dont think so. The Aramaic equivalent ית _yat_, with conjugations like יתהון _yathon_ etc. behaves similarly to Hebrew את _et_. There are some possible explanations to this similarity: את _et_ evolved in the same way and parallelly in both Hebrew and Aramaic (I don't think it's likely), mutual influence (also not likely), or that את / ית existed in Proto-Aramaic-Canaanite with identical or very similar use to biblical and modern Hebrew(plausible IMHO).

I looked for את in Ugaritic and didn't find for any of the meanings (but this was a short heuristic attempt, there are also chapters in the Bible where את is almost absent).

4. -אות ot- (e.g. אותך) is derived from אות = sign: this sounds like a misunderstanding of language students who do not possess yet good control of the language and get confused by same-sound-same-spelling words. Until backed-up by convincing explanations I cannot see how it's reasonable.


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## berndf

Origumi,

ad 1: accepted. The relation, if any, between _et/ot-_ and _it/itt-_ is unclear.
ad 2&3: I am not quite sure what you are replying to. I didn't find this being contended in this thread.
ad 4: In addition, we shouldn't base the comparison on 20th century spelling and pronunciation. אותך = _thy sign_ and אתך = _thee_ were not spelled the same.


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## Flaminius

origumi said:


> 4. -אות ot- (e.g. אותך) is derived from אות = sign: this sounds like a misunderstanding . . . .


I found this opinion in _Hebrew Grammar_ by M. M. Kalisch (1865: London).

I read it again.  Kalisch has no more backing for את being derived from אות other than a few inflections of the former having _ʾot-_.  This theory is also mentioned in Strong's Concordance; the reason I thought it was safe to qualify it as traditional.

Sign like mark, however, was my misunderstanding. What Kalisch meant by "sign" was the demonstrative power of the preposition.

He argues (§76.3, 4) that Biblical passages like ואת-הברזל נפל אל-המים; (II Kings 6:5) and היש את-לבבך ישר (II Kings 10:15) used את that "in some degree, evidently retained its original demonstrative meaning _that_."  In fact, ואת פאת צפון etc. (Ezekiel 47:17-19) seem to be used in the same way as זאת פאת־ים (Ezekiel 47:20).  In the former,  את is almost the definite article.


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## MuttQuad

>>
                                                                     Originally Posted by *Omerik* 

 
                 And my second question - do you know of any language that uses anything similar?
<<

Japanese uses this kind of word (or suffix) extensively; and there are different ones for different purposes, such as _-o, -wa, -ga, -no_, etc. They are known grammatically as particles, and I suspect the Hebrew _et _marker of direct objects could also be so described.


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