סדר המילים בשטרות ובאיגרות ממדבר יהודה

The research presented here examines two features of word order in the Aramaic and Hebrew documents from the Judean desert refuge caves: (a) subject-predicate > predicate-subject order (in verbal clauses); and (b) predicate (or infinitive)-complement order. It appears that the word order in the legal documents – both Aramaic and Hebrew – resembles the order in the eastern type of Official Aramaic, as described by E. Y. Kutscher: (a) the verb can either precede or follow the subject; (b) the predicate (or infinitive) can precede or follow its complements. The letters, however, show the “western” word order, the one accepted as the usual word order in Semitic languages, as represented in the western type of Official Aramaic, as well as in Old Aramaic, classical biblical Hebrew, and rabbinic Hebrew: (a) the verb precedes the subject; and (b) the predicate or infinitive precedes its complements. Namely, the legal documents follow an (eastern) legal tradition, and therefore do not reflect the word order of their scribes’ native tongue (Aramaic or Hebrew). The letters, on the other hand, are not bound to old traditions, and therefore reflect, to some extent, the natural languages of Judea between the first and the second revolts.