The Translation of the Causative Constructions of ḥyh

Abstract

Both Biblical Hebrew and Modern Korean have analytic, morphological, and lexical causative constructions. Biblical Hebrew uses the morphological causative productively while its use is more restricted in Modern Korean. The Hebrew morphological causative takes the form of a piel or hiphil. Both forms can signify either direct or indirect causation. In Korean, however, morphological causatives have become associated with direct causation while analytic causatives tend to represent indirect causation. The Hebrew causative of ḥyh generally means either ‘let live’ or ‘bring to life’. In most cases, the three recently revised Korean translations, New Korean Revised Version (1998), the Common Translation of the Holy Bible (1999), and the Revised New Korean Standard Version (2001) render these causative forms into morphological causative constructions involving ‘salida’, which can be optionally followed by an auxiliary verb such as ‘juda’ or ‘duda’. While ‘salida’ without an auxiliary and ‘sallyeo juda’ express a direct causation and non-durative aspect, ‘sallyeo duda’ expresses an indirect causation and durative aspect. This study finds that Korean translations do not always faithfully render the Hebrew causative ḥyh: they use ‘salida’ or ‘sallyeo juda’ in places where ‘sallyeo duda’ or ‘salge hada’ (an analytic causative) is appropriate. One reason is that these translations often overlook the meaning of the verb in context. Another is that they do not fully incorporate recent semantic changes in Korean morphological causative constructions: they often resort to the morphological causative of ‘salda’ to indicate an indirect causative while this usage has lost ground in the contemporary Korean language.