Here at the end of Alma’s discourse to his son Helaman, the question arises whether the noun phrase “my son” should be attached to the preceding imperative (“and be sober”) or to the following word of valediction, farewell. From the 1830 edition on, “my son” has been attached to the farewell (“my son, farewell”). But the phraseology can be parsed so that the text reads “and be sober, my son”.
The same issue comes up at the end of Alma’s letter to his son Shiblon:
In this case, one could argue that since “my son” already occurs near the beginning of the sentence (“now go, my son”), there is no need to have it at the end (as “be sober, my son”). On the other hand, one could argue that there is a difference here in Alma 38:15: “be sober” has no and separating it from the preceding imperatives, so we end up with two sentences and each one has the phrase “my son”. Thus when there is an and (as in Alma 37:47), there is only one instance of “my son” for the sentence, at the end; but when there is no and (as in Alma 38:15), there are effectively two sentences, and each one has an instance of “my son” at the end of the sentence.
Generally speaking, there is evidence for “my son”, as a term of address, coming at either the very beginning or ending of a finite clause, as in these two examples:
In the second of these examples, we note that the main clause is an imperative, “therefore go / my son”, just as with the clause “(and) be sober / my son”.
More specifically, however, usage elsewhere in the text argues for attaching noun phrases of direct address to the word of valediction:
The first example (Jacob 7:27) is supported by usage in the King James Bible: “finally, brethren, farewell” (2 Corinthians 13:11). In the second example (Moroni 8:30), the word order is the opposite (that is, “my son” follows the word of valediction). Interestingly, in the printer’s manuscript for Moroni 8:30 Oliver Cowdery started to write the expression with “my son” coming before farewell, but he then corrected the reading so that “my son” follows farewell. Yet with either order, in Moroni 8:30 the phrase “my son” belongs with farewell. Thus usage argues that we should maintain the current phraseology at the end of Alma’s discourses to Helaman and Shiblon. Even so, the placement of “my son” with “(and) be sober” seems to read more fluently.
Summary: Maintain the current punctuation at the end of Alma 37:47 and Alma 38:15, where the phrase “my son” is attached to the word farewell.
Here, in two places, the phrase should read “in your own wisdom”, not “in my own wisdom”; that is, the my is an error for your.
For discussion of the nonstandard use of grievious in Alma 39:3, see under 1 Nephi 17:25.
In the citation of Alma 40:2, the first dash should occur earlier, as follows:
A more complete discussion covering this issue can be found under 2 Nephi 13:14 rather than under 2 Nephi 15:25.
Remove the slash in this line of the citation, as follows:
and thus we see they became subjects to follow after their own will
Remove the dashes and slash from this line of the citation and combine it with the previous line, thus:
now if there was no law given if a man murdered he should die
When I refer here to legal language “contemporary with the Book of Mormon translation”, I mean legal language in the 1830s.
Since the 1920 LDS edition restored the original came here in Alma 43:35, the past-tense form came should be maintained rather than restored.