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  • From: decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Cc: jrevell1 AT compuserve.com
  • Subject: jonah and qinah (pentameter): stats
  • Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 20:13:39 -0400 (EDT)


finally finished the paper for sunday morning <big sigh> on the pentameter
in jonah. the new idea in recent work is the prediction of meter based on
the language's prosodic properties: deductive/axiomatic. the unmarked will
emerge from a consideration of ranked preferences (optimality theory with
a twist). anyway.

a pentameter will optimally be (WWW) (WW), ie, 3+2; further the long half
will optimally be (WW)(W). this is based on my work with the accent
system.

jonah: 7 verses, 15 lines of strict 5 beats (one enjambement).

10/75 beats strictly iambic (how does that compare with random prose?)
10/15 3+2; 8/10 ((WW)(W)) (WW)

pretty much looks like stats from studies in russian and german metrics,
etc. very nice. maybe i can get this into a journal, but can't think
which wouldn't reject this as too linguistic/technical. think we should
take another crack at lamentations.

which reminds me. did you know that a couple psalms are also quoted in
prose books: which means we have parses in both accent systems. does
anyone know of a comparison on that basis?

cheers
V
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dr Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Last night we couldn't even find a sleeping bag for a woman. Now we are
looking at collecting cardboard for the homeless...
--Cathy Crowe, street nurse, Toronto Disaster Relief Committee



  • jonah and qinah (pentameter): stats, Vincent DeCaen, 10/07/1999

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