Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

As I feared, my formatting did not come out very well in an e-mail.  If 
anyone would like a Word Document showing the bracket diagram of Psa 
107, contact me off-list, and I will send it.
Bryan

B. M. Rocine wrote:
> Rolf Furuli wrote:
>
>
> > A fine test-case of temporal ambiguousness is Psalm 107.
>
>
> I think you understand that I do not view the BH verb forms as tenses. 
> On the other hand, I am not a Sperberite!  ;-)
>
> In a different post, I mentioned how critical it is to segment a poetic 
> text to comprehend the variety of verb forms used (it is true for a 
> prose text as well; it is just that the need to segment a poetic text is 
> less well understood).  We should not assume that the verb forms 
> represent one continuous string from the beginning of a poem to the end.
>
> In the other post I mentioned a mechanism by which to segment a poem, 
> performance deixis.  In Psa 107, a different mechanism segments the 
> poem; the performance deixis is consistent, bard > general audience, 
> except for, perhaps, 29a, which is YHWH > storm.
>
> Here is a schemeatic representation of the psalm's structure:
>
>            _____
> Hortatory |
> Discourse |
>            |  _____
>            |  |
>            |  | Historical Narrative 1
>            |  |_____
>            |
>            |
>            |  _____
>            |  |
>            |  | Historical Narrative 2
>            |  |_____
>            |
>            |  etc.
>
> IOW, a Hortatory Discourse, which may be characterized by the 
> exhortation, "Let them praise YHWH!" has embedded within it several 
> Historical Narrative sections that provide reason to praise YHWH.
>
> In addition, some of the Historical Narratives have embedded within them 
>    elaborative material that takes the form of other discourse types.
>
> *Within each section*, the distribution of the verb forms is mostly 
> conventional, that is, mostly just as we observe in prose texts *based 
> on discourse genre*.  IOW, in Historical Narratives we will find a 
> wayyiqtol mainline, in Expository sections we will see a noun sentence 
> and complex noun sentence (X-yiqtols and X-qatal) mainline, and in 
> Hortatory Discourse we will see an imperative and clause-initial yiqtol 
> mainline.
>
> Below is a verse by verse bracket diagram of Psa 107.  Note the pleasing 
> parallelism between the embedded Nistorical Narratives.
>
> Abbreviations:
> H = Hortatory Discourse (makes exhortations)
> HN = Historical Narrative Discourse (tells a story in the past)
> E = Expository Dicourse  (explains a truth)
> P = Procedural Discourse (for repeated actions in the past)
>
>
>        _____
> 1  H  |
> 2     |
> 3     | ____
> 4     | | HN 1
>        | | ____
>        | | | E
> 5     | | |____
> 6a    | |
> 6b    | | P
> 7     | |____
> 8     |
> 9     | ____
> 10    | | HN 2
>        | | ____
>        | | | E
> 11    | | |____
> 12    | |
> 13a   | |
> 13b   | |__P__
> 14    |
> 15    |
> 16    | ____
> 17    | | HN 3
>        | | ____
>        | | | P
> 18a   | | |____
> 18b   | |
> 18c   | |
> 19a   | |
> 19b   | |__P__
> 20    |
> 21    |
> 22    | ____
> 23    | | HN 4
>        | | ____
>        | | | E
> 24    | | |____
> 25    | |
>       ___________
> 26   | Parenthetical H
> 27   |__________
> 28    | |
> 29a   | | YHWH's H
> 29b,c | |
> 30    | |_____
> 31    |
> 32    |
> 33    |
> 34    |
> 35    | ____
> 36    | | HN 5
> 37    | |
> 38    | |
> 39    | |
> 40    | |
> 41    | |____
> 42    |
> 43    |_____________
>
> Shalom,
> Bryan Rocine
>
>
>
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