Towards a Comprehensive Model for Interpreting Word Order in Classical Biblical Hebrew
What it is about
A model of fronting (a core argument before a finite verb) built on all finite verbal clauses of 1 Samuel. Verb-first is the dominant order because wayyiqtol and weqatal must stand first; fronted clauses are marked. The authors use Sasse's distinction between categorical sentences (a base plus a predication about it) and thetic ones (a single undivided situation), and sort every fronting into three types: (i) narrow constituent focus, with subtypes (completive, as the answer to a question; exhaustive; restricting, with רַק; selective; replacing; expanding; scalar); (ii) selecting a topic from a set, which marks a boundary and breaks continuity, akin to left dislocation; (iii) thetic sentences, mostly subject + qatal, which give circumstances, grounds or background to the mainline. Thetic S-qatal is resultative (best rendered by an English pluperfect or "when X had…"), while topic-selecting S-qatal reports a perfective event; that difference is their test. Types (i) and (iii) share one focus domain and a supporting discourse role, so thetics are treated as extensions of narrow focus (XVx), while (ii) is X—Vx and mainline wayyiqtol is Vx.
Ideas
- I1. A three-way label for each fronted finite clause in the trees: focus if the fronted item answers a preceding question word or follows רַק/גַּם/אַךְ; topic-selecting if the fronted noun contrasts with a parallel noun in the previous clause (same verb or same frame, different subject); thetic otherwise when the fronted subject precedes a qatal or participle inside a narrative stretch. Count over the Torah.
- I2. A tense rule for the English gloss and the world: thetic S-qatal → pluperfect/resultative ("had captured"), placed before the current mainline event in time; topic-selecting S-qatal → simple past in sequence. Check against JPS 1917, which often uses "had".
- I3. Use the thetic label in
pragas background/off-line (not mainline), and its fronted subject as a participant activation cue for the next clauses. - I4. A thetic sentence is not always fronted (event-central thetics such as "you sent him away and he went"); keep that as a known gap.
For Mova
I1 and I4 go into Syntax: the clause and the sentence (word order) and 09-discourse.md (mainline and background); I1–I3 are candidate rules in tools/macula/src/prag.rs (the close-offline family), each measured with --with/--without. I2 also bears on 06-verb.md (qatal as pluperfect) and on how the world places events in time. It refines the van der Merwe 2018 card (hbo-2018-merwe-fronting-exhaustive-exclusion-biblical-hebrew).
Cite
@article{khan2020comprehensive,
title = {{Towards a Comprehensive Model for Interpreting Word Order in Classical Biblical Hebrew}},
author = {Khan, Geoffrey A. and Merwe, Christo H. J. van der},
journal = {Journal of Semitic Studies},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1093/jss/fgaa025},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/fgaa025}
}References
- (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 17, Tübingen 1996); S. J. Floor, ‘From Information Structure, Topic and Focus, to Theme in Biblical Hebrew Narrative’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Stellenbosch 2004); N. P. find our card
- Lunn, Word-Order Variation in Biblical Poetry (Paternoster Biblical Monographs, Bletchley 2006); A. Moshavi, Word Order in the Biblical Hebrew Finite Clause: A Syntactic and Pragmatic Analysis of Preposing (Winona Lake, IN 2010); P. J. P. Van Hecke, From Linguistics to Hermeneutics: A Functional and Cognitive Approach to Job 12-14 (Studia Semitica Neerlandica 55, Leiden 2011); R. D. Holmstedt, ‘The Typological Classification of the Hebrew of Genesis: Subject-Verb or Verb-Subject?’, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 11 (2011), 2-39; and A. find our card
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