Interrogatives in Biblical Hebrew: a case study in the Joseph narrative

What it is about

Not read: the PDF could not be fetched. What follows is from the title and the thesis's known place in the Stellenbosch school (Van der Merwe's students, cognitive-functional approach), and must be checked against the text when it arrives. The thesis studies the question sentences of the Joseph story (Genesis 37–50): the interrogative words and particles (הֲ־, מִי, מָה, אֵיךְ, לָמָּה, אַיֵּה …), the kinds of question (yes/no, content, alternative) and what the questions do in the dialogue (asking for information, accusing, rebuking, rhetorical assertion).

Ideas

• I1. (to check against the text) Classify every question in Gen 37–50 by form (particle or word) and by function (information, rhetorical, accusation); this gives a gold set for the rhetorical and ask-first rules.
• I2. (to check) Measure how often a question in the Joseph story is answered in the next speech turn; an unanswered question is a cue for a rhetorical reading.
• I3. Add the Joseph-story question inventory, with counts from our trees, to the questions section of the syntax chapter.

For Mova

I1–I2 apply to tools/macula/src/prag.rs (the rhetorical and ask-first rules) and its comparison with the English reading; I3 to Syntax: the clause and the sentence (questions) and 05-pronouns-particles.md (interrogatives). Re-read and correct this card once the PDF is in the research library.

Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

@inproceedings{meister1996interrogatives,
  title = {{Interrogatives in Biblical Hebrew: a case study in the Joseph narrative}},
  author = {Meister, Mauro Fernando},
  booktitle = {SUNScholar (Stellenbosch University)},
  year = {1996},
  url = {https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/55146}
}

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