Particles and syntax of Biblical Aramaic

The small words (the relative די, the object markers, prepositions, conjunctions, negation, the existential) and the way clauses are built. References: Rosenthal 1961 (particles; syntax); Bauer and Leander 1927 §§ 68–110 (particles and syntax); Kautzsch 1884; Greenspahn 2003; Buth 1987, Word Order in Aramaic from the Perspectives of Functional Grammar and Discourse Analysis (PhD, UCLA); Folmer 1995; Cook 2019. Examples from WLC (public domain).

1. The particle דִּי

דִּי (dī) is the most frequent word of Aramaic after ו "and". In Biblical Aramaic it is written as a separate word (often joined by maqqef); in later Aramaic it shrinks to a prefix ד־ (də-), written together with the next word (Particles and syntax of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic). MACULA tags 287 relative particles (Tr) in the Aramaic chapters, nearly all דִּי (2026-10-17).

It has five uses:

It also starts direct speech in some passages (like Greek ὅτι recitativum) and forms compound conjunctions: עַד דִּי "until", מִן־דִּי "after, since", כְּדִי "when, as", כָּל־קֳבֵל דִּי "because, inasmuch as", בְּדִיל דִּי (later) "in order that".

Resumptive pronouns. When the relativised noun is not the subject, a pronoun in the relative clause points back to it:

Aramaic:   אֱלָהָךְ דִּי אַנְתְּ פָּלַח־לֵהּ בִּתְדִירָא הוּא יְשֵׁיזְבִנָּךְ
Translit.: ʾĕlāhāḵ dī ʾant pālaḥ-lēh bi-ṯḏīrā hū yəšēzəḇinnāḵ
Gloss:     god-2MS REL you serve.PEAL.PTCP.ACT.MS-to-3MS in-continuity.DET he deliver.SHAPH.IPF.3MS-ENERG-2MS
English:   Your God, whom you serve continually — he will deliver you!
Source:    Dan 6:17 (WLC, public domain; Ketiv אנתה, Qere אַנְתְּ)

Here לֵהּ "to him" resumes אֱלָהָךְ, and הוּא resumes the whole fronted noun phrase (a casus pendens, §8).

2. Marking the direct object

Biblical Aramaic marks a definite direct object in four ways:

The object marker יָת (Hebrew אֵת) appears only once in Biblical Aramaic (Dan 3:12). Old Aramaic had אית; Imperial Aramaic used ל־ and יָת (Folmer 1995). In Onkelos יָת becomes the marker of almost every definite object, because the targum renders Hebrew אֵת word for word (Translation technique and syntax of the targums). In JBA ל־ is the rule and יָת is gone except in fixed phrases and with suffixes (Particles and syntax of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic).

The ל־ object marker is the same preposition as "to", so for a parser לְדָנִיֵּאל after הַיְתִיו "they brought" is ambiguous between object and goal; MACULA's syntax decides by the verb's frame (Aramaic in Mova: what it would need §4).

3. Prepositions

Checked 2026-10-18: Kautzsch 1884 §68, pp. 126–129 (each preposition with its attestations).

קֳדָם "before" deserves attention: it is the preposition the targums use to avoid direct contact between God and humans ("he prayed before the LORD" for "he prayed to the LORD"); Biblical Aramaic already uses it with kings and God (Dan 2:9; 6:11) (Translation technique and syntax of the targums §3).

4. Conjunctions and adverbs

Checked 2026-10-18: Kautzsch 1884 §67, pp. 123–125 (negations, adverbs of place and time, כְּעַן with the short כְּעֶנֶת / כְּעֶת only in letter headings, the Persian adverbs) and §69, pp. 129–131 (conjunctions). Corrected: "here" is כָּה, attested once. Second pass 2026-10-18: Bauer and Leander 1927 §70, pp. 262–266. Corrected: מִן־דִּי is temporal in both grammars (Bauer and Leander §70u: "as soon as", "after", Dan 4:23; Ezra 4:23; 5:12); neither lists it among the causal conjunctions (§70g′–h′: דִּי "because" Dan 2:47; 6:24, and כָּל־קֳבֵל דִּי), so the gloss "because" is a translators' inference, not a grammatical meaning, and the earlier disagreement is resolved. The other rows agree: כְּדִי "as soon as" (§70t), עַד דִּי (§70v), בְּרַם (§70o), לָהֵן "but" (§70q) and "therefore" (§68v, p. 256), the Persian adverbs אָסְפַּרְנָא and אַדְרַזְדָּא (§68y, p. 256).

5. Negation

Checked 2026-10-18: Kautzsch 1884 §67.1, p. 123: לָא, written לָה once (Dan 4:32, כְּלָה); אַל only before the imperfect (Dan 2:24; 4:16; 5:10).

Later Aramaic adds the fused לֵית "there is not" (Onkelos, JPA) and the JBA לָאו "not (it is not that)" and לֵיכָּא (The Aramaic family and the Jewish varieties §5).

6. Existence and possession

"There is" is אִיתַי; "X has Y" is "there is to X Y" (ל־ + possessor):

Aramaic:   וַחֲבָל לָא־אִיתַי בְּהוֹן
Translit.: wa-ḥăḇāl lā-ʾīṯay bəhōn
Gloss:     and-harm NEG-EXIST in-3MPL
English:   and there is no harm in them
Source:    Dan 3:25 (WLC, public domain)

Aramaic:   דִּי חָכְמְתָא וּגְבוּרְתָא דִּי לֵהּ־הִיא
Translit.: dī ḥoḵmətā ū-ḡəḇūrtā dī lēh-hī
Gloss:     for wisdom.DET and-might.DET REL to-3MS-COP.3FS
English:   for wisdom and might are his
Source:    Dan 2:20 (WLC, public domain)

7. Nominal clauses and the copula

Aramaic, like Hebrew, has nominal clauses without a verb "to be" in the present: מַלְכוּתֵהּ מַלְכוּת עָלַם "his kingdom (is) an everlasting kingdom" (Dan 3:33). Three devices make the link explicit:

1. A 3rd-person pronoun as copula (§ in Pronouns in Biblical Aramaic §1): אֱלָהֲכוֹן הוּא אֱלָהּ אֱלָהִין "your God is the God of gods" (Dan 2:47); דִּי־הוּא אֱלָהָא חַיָּא "for he is the living God" (Dan 6:27).
2. אִיתַי with a suffix for "is (in fact), exists": לָא אִיתֵיכוֹן פָּלְחִין "you do not serve" (Dan 3:14).
3. הֲוָה in the past and future: הֲוָת בָּטְלָא "it was stopped" (Ezra 4:24); לֶהֱוֵא "let it be" (Dan 2:20).

The pronoun copula becomes enclitic in JBA (ניהו, נינהו) and a hallmark of the Zohar (איהו), The Aramaic family and the Jewish varieties §5.

8. Word order

Biblical Aramaic word order is freer than Hebrew's. The basic orders found are verb-initial (VSO, VOS), subject-initial (SVO) and object before verb (OV). Object-before-verb order is especially common in Ezra's official documents and in Daniel, and is often explained by contact with Akkadian and Old Persian (both verb-final) in the imperial chancery (Kutscher 1970; Folmer 1995; Buth 1987 argues for a functional account: the fronted element is a topic or a focus).

Aramaic:   וְלִקְצָת יוֹמַיָּה אֲנָה נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּר עַיְנַי לִשְׁמַיָּא נִטְלֵת
Translit.: wə-li-qṣāṯ yōmayyā ʾănā nəḇūḵaḏneṣṣar ʿaynay li-šmayyā niṭlēṯ
Gloss:     and-at-end.CST day.M.PL.DET I Nebuchadnezzar eye.DU-1SG to-heaven.DET lift.PEAL.PF.1SG
English:   At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven
Source:    Dan 4:31 (WLC, public domain)

Inside the noun phrase the order is fixed: noun – adjective – demonstrative; possessed – (דִּי) – possessor; numeral before or after the noun (אַמִּין שִׁתִּין "sixty cubits", but תְּלָתָה גֻּבְרִין is also possible).

8.1 Fronting and casus pendens

A noun phrase is often put first and picked up again by a pronoun (casus pendens, left dislocation): אֱלָהָךְ דִּי אַנְתְּ פָּלַח־לֵהּ … הוּא יְשֵׁיזְבִנָּךְ (Dan 6:17, §1). The same device marks the shift of topic in the visions: קַדְמָיְתָא כְאַרְיֵה "the first (beast) — like a lion" (Dan 7:4).

9. Complex sentences

Aramaic:   הֵן אִיתַי אֱלָהַנָא דִּי־אֲנַחְנָא פָלְחִין יָכִל לְשֵׁיזָבוּתַנָא
Translit.: hēn ʾīṯay ʾĕlāhanā dī-ʾănaḥnā p̄ālḥīn yāḵil lə-šēzāḇūṯanā
Gloss:     if EXIST god-1PL REL-we serve.PEAL.PTCP.ACT.MPL able.PEAL.PTCP.ACT.MS to-deliver.SHAPH.INF-1PL
English:   If our God whom we serve exists (= is able), he can deliver us
Source:    Dan 3:17 (WLC, public domain)

10. Agreement

• The verb agrees with its subject in person, gender and number; a verb before a plural subject may be singular (as in Hebrew).
• Collective nouns (עַם "people", חַיִל "army") take singular or plural verbs.
• Feminine plural subjects often take masculine plural verbs in later texts; Biblical Aramaic still keeps the feminine plural: אֶצְבְּעָן … וְכָתְבָן "fingers … and they wrote (f. pl.)" (Dan 5:5).
• The Ketiv/Qere system sometimes corrects agreement: Dan 5:5 Ketiv נפקו (m. pl.) → Qere נְפַקָה (f. pl.) to agree with אֶצְבְּעָן "fingers" (f.).

11. What the later varieties change (pointers)

The Elamur team

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