Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them–to the Israelites. – Joshua 1:2
Build sentences in the order of 5W1H
The family of Abraham spent 400 years in Egypt. After the kings who were friendly with Joseph died and a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt, they became slaves. It was at this time that God helped Moses to rescue them from Egypt, but they suffered in the wilderness for 40 years. This story is recorded in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in the Bible.
Although the exact years are uncertain due to discrepancies between the Bible and other historical records, it seems to be between around 1400 BCE to 1250 BCE. At that time, in the land of Canaan (today’s Palestine) and its northern part (today’s Lebanon), there were several city-states and tribal states belonging to Phoenicia. Moreover, in the northeast Mesopotamian region, after the ancient Babylonian Empire was destroyed by the Hittite Empire, city-states like Assyria were growing, and in today’s Turkey region, the Hittites were gradually weakening and competing for survival with newly emerged kingdoms like the Phrygian Kingdom.
The people of Israel escaped from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. However, they could not enter the Promised Land of Canaan right away and suffered in the wilderness for 40 years after leaving Egypt. After the leader Moses died, a new leader named Joshua was chosen. In the above scene, God is commanding them to get ready, as the time has come to enter the land of Israel, the land promised to them by God. He is specifying the territories of that land following His word.
“I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. – Joshua 1:3~4”
In the sentence “Moses my servant is dead,” the subject and verb(S+V) are “Moses my servant is.” Hearing this expression would likely arouse some curiosity. It is said that the order of curiosity for English speakers follows the principles of the “5 Ws and 1 H” (Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How), guiding our sentence structure based on priority of curiosity. Let’s reiterate our principle and the standard English sentence structure.
The first principle of English is to start with the subject (S) + verb (V), speaking the conclusion first. The second principle is that after stating the subject and verb, the sentence explains the curiosity in the order of the “5 Ws and H.” These two principles can be summarized into one formula:
S + V + (Who + What) + [Where + Why + How + When]
The expression “Moses my servant is” does not convey a complete message and is not grammatically a complete sentence on its own. Therefore, an explanation must necessarily follow. Such verbs that evoke curiosity are called incomplete verbs. Similarly, nouns or adjectives that follow an incomplete verb and assist it are called complements, meaning they complete the verb. It’s fine to think of the complement as having the concept of “subject = complement.” Moses my servant is dead.
Here, “dead” corresponds to “who” in our formula because it concerns a person. However, there’s a bit of confusion since it seems for “subject = complement” to hold, the complement should be a noun. To resolve this confusion, one can think of the adjective “dead” as having a noun omitted after it. In other words, the above expression can be considered a simplified form of the following:
Moses my servant is a dead person.
To clarify this concept further, let’s review the parts of a sentence and the types of verbs.
Two conditions for classifying verbs, two properties for classifying words
Verbs are broadly classified into two conditions: those that require an object and those that require a complement. If a verb needs an object, it’s a transitive verb; if it doesn’t, it’s an intransitive verb. If a verb requires a complement, it’s an incomplete verb; if not, it’s a complete verb. This highlights another reason why the verb, not the subject, is considered the “owner” of the sentence, as the verb largely determines the sentence.
Words, as parts of a sentence, are classified by two properties. One is by the word’s individual attributes and roles, which we call parts of speech. Another method of classification is based on the word’s components or roles within a sentence. This classification is not about the word’s individual attributes but about its characteristics as components within a sentence. Therefore, these can be called sentence elements or parts of a sentence in English. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that in English, sentence elements are essentially distinguished by their position, as each component has a predetermined place. Mapping parts of speech to sentence elements follows this understanding.
| Parts of Sentence | Parts of Speech |
| Subjective | Nouns |
| Verb (Predicate) | Verbs |
| Objective | Nouns |
| Complements | Nouns (Adjectives) |
Let’s invoke the sentence structure formula again.
S + V + (Who + What) + [Where + Why + How + When]
There has always been a plan behind separating this single pattern of the “5 Ws and H” formula in a manner akin to factorization. The plan is none other than to insert different parts of speech into the brackets accordingly. In other words, the parts of speech that can be inserted are limited by the brackets.
The first bracket ( ) following the verb is reserved for nouns. Sometimes adjectives enter as complements, but these adjectival complements are to be considered with an omitted noun following them. Therefore, due to the omitted noun, adjectives can also enter the noun-exclusive area. The second bracket [ ] is exclusively for adverbs.
If a different part of speech wants to enter a space not allowed for it, it must disguise itself in the form of the permitted part of speech. Although this disguising makes English complex, knowing the principles discussed above significantly simplifies the rules of the English language game. Visually represented, it would look like this.
| S | V | Who | What | Where | Why | How | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun Zone | Verb Zone | Noun Zone (Adjective) | Adverb Zone | ||||
| Moses my servant | is | dead | |||||
In the single sentence structure mentioned above, the verb determines the form of the sentence. Regardless of the verb used, the interests that need to be addressed next are about “Who” and “What,” and only after resolving these curiosities do we move on to address questions in the order of where, why, how, when. This means that regardless of the verb that appears, the interest in “who” and “what” takes precedence.
Especially with incomplete verbs like “be,” curiosity about “who” and “what” naturally arises first. However, there are cases, in fact, quite many, where an adjective follows an incomplete intransitive verb. But as mentioned earlier, it becomes simpler if we consider that the noun following the adjective is omitted.
The Being of Be
The representative verb that requires a complement among incomplete intransitive verbs is “be.” However, in the Bible, this “be” verb occasionally appears as a complete intransitive verb. Let’s look at the record in John 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God – John 1:1)
In the sentence above, “was” is used as a complete intransitive verb meaning “existed.” Thus, “The Word was.” becomes a complete sentence meaning “The Word existed.” There’s no need to ask “Existed in what sense?” Questions like “When?” or “With whom?” are more natural. Hence, it’s explained as “in the beginning.” Rewritten in normal word order, the sentence would be “The Word was in the beginning.” And then comes the additional explanation, “The Word was with God.” The being of the “be” verb can also be found in one of God’s names.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.’” – Exodus 3:14)
The one who sent Moses to the Israelites is “I AM,” so God’s name becomes “I AM.” The Bible introduces several names for God, among them Jehovah (Yahweh or YHWH), which refers to “I AM,” meaning “to exist by oneself.”
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