Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbs, text-segmenting and clause-types
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 11:06:09 -0400
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:
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)