Source:Echoes:Ch7:14:Cognate accusative

Cognate Accusative

Parent page: Book of Mormon/Anthropology/Language/Hebraisms/Cognates

Cognate Accusative

Donald W. Parry:

The cognate accusative is a direct object noun that shares the same root as the preceding verb, as in Joseph "dreamed a dream" (Genesis 37:5) instead of the more customary English rendering "Joseph had a dream." The Hebrew Bible contains numerous ex-amples of the cognate accusative (e.g., Genesis 1:11; 9:14; Numbers 11:4; Psalms 14:5; 144:6; {{b||Isaiah 35:2; {{b||Joel 3:1), although literal representations of this form is generally not used in translation.

The Book of Mormon contains many instances of the cognate accusative, including "I will curse them even with a sore curse" ({{s|1|Nephi|2:23; see {{s|2|Nephi|1:22; Jacob 3:3), "Behold I have dreamed a dream" (1 Nephi 3:2; 1 Nephi 8:2), "yoketh them with a yoke" (1 Nephi 13:5), "I will work a great and a marvelous work" (1 Nephi 14:7), "build buildings" (2 Nephi 5:15; Mosiah 23:5), "this was the desire which I desired of him" (Enos 1:13), "succor those that stand in need of your succor" (Mosiah 4:16), "taxed with a tax" (Mosiah 7:15), "work all manner of fine work" (Mosiah 11:10; Ether 10:23), "judge righteous judgments" (Mosiah 29:29,43), "sing the song" (Alma 5:26), and "fear exceedingly, with fear" (Alma 18:5).[1]

Notes

  1. Donald W. Parry, "Hebraisms and Other Ancient Peculiarities in the Book of Mormon," in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, edited by Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002), Chapter 7, references silently removed—consult original for citations.