Reading Biblical Hebrew PoetryLinguistic Structure or Rhetorical Device?

Eep TalstraVrije Universiteit Amsterdam

1. Some Opinions about Linguistics and Poetics

Hebraists with an interest in text grammar cannot escape the question of how todefine the relationship between, on the one hand, grammar as a system guidingthe process of communication in human languages and, on the other hand, thepresence of rhetorical devices that are said to determine the architecture of poetictexts. Since it is difficult to clearly define this balance between system and device,between structure and strategy, one can observe a variety of standpoints aboutthis area where linguistics and literature touch. Some of these will be discussedin the following sections:

1.1. Discourse analysis and poetry

It is no secret that in the area of text grammar research concentrates mainly onthe analysis of narrative texts. It is not coincidental that Kirk Lowery (1995: 121)states in the final paragraph of his paper on discourse analysis:

"The analysis of poetic texts from a discourse grammar perspective has barelybegun."

As a result of the concentration on narrative and prose, the linguistic analysis ofpoetic texts tends to be formulated in terms of exceptions. One suggestion is thatthe effectiveness of poetry is precisely its non-observance of the rules and regul-arities assumed by text grammar. Since from the perspective of grammaticalstudies it is difficult to fully accept such a position, one is led to question whatcould be registered in poetic and in prophetic texts which would reflect a system-atic use of language, especially on the level of text linguistics. Should the syntaxof poetic texts be defined as a kind of negation of narrative syntax? Is poetry aspecial selection from a standard set of grammatical options? An additionalchallenge comes from the main research project I am involved in: the construct-ion of an Old Testament text database capable of presenting more extensivecategories than is thus far the case with the majority of computer projectscurrently used in biblical studies (Syring 1998). Some issues that have to be facedare, for example, how to distinguish between ’clauses’ and ’poetic lines’ and howto develop data structures capable of storing both grammatical and rhetoricalinformation.

1.2. Stylistic analysis

Frequently literary analists insist that more syntactic studies be done in the areaof poetics. Wilfred Watson (1993: 379), in a recent overview of various topics inthe study in biblical poetry, reserves in total two parallel lines for this:

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"Syntax, with a few exceptions, remains a neglected aspect of Hebrew verse.The verb, in particular, requires investigation".

His statement itself can be read as poetry, since it is a neat bicolon composed oftwo parallel statements with an internal semantic contrast. It is, however, also asomewhat regretful statement: syntax is a neglected aspect of Hebrew verse. IsWatson’s remark justified? His short paragraph does not indicate what he thinksof the possible interaction of grammatical and rhetorical research. Maybe it ismore effective to ask: what kind of position could the study of syntax have in thearea of stylistic studies?

1.3. Syntactic analysis

A view quite opposite to Watson’s is expressed by Adele Berlin (1985) in herstudy of parallelism in biblical Hebrew:

"Almost all current studies of biblical poetry center on syntactic analyses."Apparently one author or the other is exaggerating somewhat, though since themagnum opus by O’Connor (1997), one might be inclined to claim that Berlin’sremark is closer the truth than Watsons’. But the reader might give preference tothe more cautious statement by Michael Rosenbaum (1997: 2):

"Syntax, in particular word-order, remains a field which is open to furtherstudy."

Rosenbaum observes that traditional grammars do not present much grammatic-al analysis on the level of syntax. Secondly, he states that traditional grammarseasily mix prose and poetry. Therefore, he agrees with Niccacci (1997) that proseand poetry should be dealt with separately. To do so he has chosen Isa. 40-55 as’one of the finest examples of poetry in the Bible’.

The diversity of opinions concerning the role of syntax discloses the gap stillpresent between rhetorical studies and linguistic analysis. They also reveal thatscholars have different expectations. When Watson speaks of syntax as an aspectof Hebrew verse - be it a neglected one - it is clear that his priority lies withrhetorical analysis. In the past years we have seen literary or exegetical studiesproceed from form criticism to rhetorical criticism, i.e., from genre to style. In thismovement of literary studies it appears difficult to keep options sufficiently openin order to let linguistics assume its proper position. The main concentration inbiblical studies is on features of literary constructs, e.g., symmetry, identity orcontrast, expressed by assonance, lexical repetition, parallel lines, inclusion orchiasm (Walsh 1993: 352). The emphasis is thus on special devices of primarilylexical and semantic type. The challenge, however, is constituted by the fact thatlinguistic studies, and syntactic studies in particular, start from a different angle:language is analysed as a system and a text as a construct built of elements ofthat system, without there being preliminary assumptions made about genre orstyle. When O’Connor or Berlin emphasise the value of syntactic research ofpoetic text they do so from a perspective that is completely different from theapproach advocated by representatives of rhetorical approaches: to the former,

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syntax has priority over lexical or semantical analysis. This fact creates thedilemma formulated in the following section.

2. Linguistic System or Literary Device?

It is interesting to see that also for Hebrew grammar, poetry creates anuncertainty as of whether to start from certain assumptions concerning poetictexts and then to try to find a linguistic system, or whether to analyse thelinguistic system from phonology up to text syntax first and then to see nextwhether poetry reflects certain preferences.Niccacci (1997) clearly feels the need to make a choice. He rightly states thatanalysing poetry is not an easy task. In order to explain the reason why that is thecase, he mentions some features of poetic texts. In comparison to prose texts,according to Nicaccci, poetic texts have three special characteristics.First, poetic texts are segmented, not linear, that is, they are divided into versesor strophes and they exhibit much lexical or semantic repetition.Second, they show extensive parallel use of similar elements, not a sequence ofdifferent elements as do prose texts.To substantiate these two claims, Niccacci refers to R. Jakobsons’ statement aboutlinguistic features of poetry. Whereas prose texts are characterised by sequence,which demands the selection of linguistically diverse elements in order to carrythe text along, poetic texts are characterised by repetition, which requires theselection of linguistically equivalent elements for the creation of parallelexpressions. In summary, prose proceeds, poetry repeats; in stead of sequence,there is equivalence (cf. Berlin 1985: 7). When applied to ’words’ this idea of theselection of corresponding elements implies a predominant concentration onsemantics.In my view it remains to be seen how preponderate repetition and parallelismare in poetry, and whether prose is indeed primarily linear. It is my experiencethat both poetry and prose exhibit a strong hierarchical organisation, marked bylexical and syntactic features.A third feature of poetic texts in comparion to prose texts, according to Nicacci,is the presence of an undetectable verbal system.I wonder whether this last characteristic is really a feature of poetry or just oneof the Hebraists themselves. This third characteristic looks somewhat like a caseof blaming the victim, with implications that would be discouraging. Assumingan undetectable verbal system in poetry would mean that one gives up thepossibility of a syntactically based discourse analysis of poetic texts.Nevertheless, the grammatical differences between prose texts and poetry neednot be denied. Niccacci expresses formulates the dilemma as it is strongly felt inexegesis and in literary analysis: when we are unable to find a clear text-grammatical system in poetry, should we take that absence itself to be definingcharacteristics of poetry? Should we search for regularity in terms of semanticsand rhetorical devices?

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In actual research the main point of difference between linguists and literary iswhether our starting point is in grammar or in stylistics.

One option might be to disengage linguistics and poetics. Research practiceseems to suggest that linguists must leave the reading of poetic texts to therhetorically well-equipped, to the exegete with artistic expertise.An example of that is the close reading of the text of Isaiah 41 by J.T.Walsh (1993)published in the same volume of VT as the survey article by Watson. In thisarticle Walsh reveals a great number of chiastic patterns, an architecturedominated by inclusion, and quite a few subtle thematic allusions. In § 3.2.2 I willcompare these results with thos of text grammatical analysis, but in the contextof this section I will restrict myself to a remark on methodology. Biblical exegetesspeak frequently of ’art’, ’device’ and ’strategy’. This recent trend of an almostexclusive concentration on rhetorical features effectively blocks a systematicsyntactic analysis of poetic texts. A first reaction to Watson’s statement could be:it is not possible to continue the concentration on phonological, rhetorical andsemantic features and to demand for insights based on syntactic system as well.By definition, rhetorical criticism concentrates on literary tradition and on anauthor’s skills of composition. Grammar and syntax, however, are about the’system’, and not about ’devices’. In research of the type which Walsh presents,it seems impossible to allow for more syntactic analysis, although that is whatWatson wishes.

Another option is to search for regularity in poetic texts in terms of thecomposition of lines and strophes.De Moor (1993: xiv), quotes and translates into English a statement by Van derLugt:

" The systematic analysis of Biblical-Hebrew poetry which arrives at theconclusion that a "regular architecture of strophes" often belongs to its formalcharacteristics is preferable over any other analytical method which arrives at theassumption that usually a regular architecture is absent from this poetry."

This implies that ancient Hebrew poetry is not to be viewed as primarily asemantic world, without linguistic regularities. However, the regularity is takento be in the first place a matter of textual art, rather than a component part of thelinguistic system. In this type of research one looks for a variety of linguisticphenomena that can contribute to the construction of verse, i.e., phonological,semantic and syntactic observations in combination with rhetorical patterns thatgovern the composition of lines and larger segments of text, such as strophes andstanzas.This approach entails syntax being studied as instrumental to textual art (DeMoor 1993: 191-202. On page 193 De Moor starts a paragraph headed: ’The Joyof Disorder’.). It opens many more possibilities, although it also raises somemethodological questions: Is structure built exclusively from parallel lines andstrophes? Are there other linguistic markers? Does the analysis of rhetorical

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design precede syntax? Clearly, it is not a matter of either ’linguistic system’ or’rhetorical skills’, of either text grammar or literary art. It is a matter of ordering:which comes first, and which comes later within the process of analysis.

A third option, the one adopted in this paper, is to concentrate on the analysis ofpoetic texts as discourse before analysing them as pieces of art. In this con-tribution, I intend to demonstrate that in poetic texts, as in other texts,morphological, lexical and syntactic data serve as guides in reading and under-standing the passage. My claim is that also in poetry it is possible to find a fairamount of formally registerable text-grammatical patterns. For a first list oflinguistic features that may help to detect linguistic structure in a poetic texts, seeTalstra 1994: 333f. In my view a discourse analysis of poetic texts implies thatlinguistic system comes before literary device, i.e. one does not start the analysiswith semantics or rhetorical criticism. The priority lies with the linguistic system.(O’Connor 1997: 640: "the primary force in parallelism is syntax, not lexicon".Poetic devices make use of the same grammar as do prose texts, though theyexhibit a different selection, making repeated and preferred choices from theavailable possibilities.The main challenge is to differentiate between a linguistic system in general andspecial markers which together create a specific poetic composition. It isnecessary to try to describe a poetic text as a discourse, as a process, rather thanas a beautiful, though more or less static, picture as is often done in proposals onrhetorical analysis. The challenge, therefore, is to begin the analyzis of pieces ofliterary art in terms of linguistic system: clause patterns, verbal system, pronom-inal reference, topicalisation, etc.

In the next paragraphs I will concentrate on the procedure of registratinglinguistic patterns in poetic texts:3.1. Phrases in poetic and in non poetic sections of the book of Deuteronomy;3.2. Clauses and Clause Types in Isaiah 41;3.3. Text structure and the interaction of syntactic, lexical and semanticobservations.

3. Some Projects and Procedures

3.1. Phrase Types in the book of Deuteronomy

Part of my present research in computer-assisted analysis of the Hebrew Bible isto produce a full text-grammatical analysis of the book of Deuteronomy. One ofthe necessary steps towards that goal is the grammatical analysis of phrases andphrase types. The registration of the phrase types in the book of Deuteronomyproduces material that can be used to compare the poetic sections in chapters 32and 33 (Dtn 32,1-43; 33,2-29) with the rest of the book.

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Do the poetic sections use completely different phrase types? Can one speak ofconsistency in the choices here? A well known general observation about poetryin grammars is that the definite article is avoided. To this statement a furtherquestion should be added: what kind of phrases are involved?Below, I present a list of the main phrase types in the book. The criterion for theselection made is that they should consist of at least two elements of the typeNoun, proper Name or Adjective.In discussing the use of the definite article in Biblical Hebrew, Muraoka (JoüonP and Muraoka T 1993: 507) states that "In poetry the use of the article is veryfree". He observes a tendency to leave it out when it would lengthen a word byone syllable and suggests that this might be due to metrical considerations.Although that may be true, it can also be observed that the length of a phrase initself does not seem to be a problem. The examples from Deuteronomy 32 and 33show that indeed the tendency is to avoid phrases with a definite article.However, long phrases, produced by repetition of elements, occur frequently.Maybe metre can account for this, but then without the aditional argument of’length’.The fact that phrases of almost any length occur in the poetic sections ofDeuteronomy indicates that the interaction of metre and length cannot accountfor the avoidance of the definite article. One can observe, however, that thelonger phrases found are all segmented by a conjunction

�. This indicates that

also at phrase level the use of parallel elements is a strong feature. It may be thecase that longer phrases strung together by ’

�’ and the repetition of elements can

easily be divided over poetic lines, whereas phrases with a genetive construction,using ’ � ’ can not. This helps to describe the poetic ’freedom’ in linguistics moreprecisely: rhetorical constraints having to do with the performance of a text, leadto preferred morphosyntactic choices. This would indicate that the poetry inDeuteronomy does not create special phrase types, but makes a certain selectionfrom the options offered by the Hebrew grammar in general.In my opinion, these insights at the level of morphosyntax indicate that it isadvantageous to begin the analysis of poetic texts by the observation ofgrammatical phenomena. Data such as phrase structure can be described interms of the linguistic system, not in terms of understanding the special strategyemployed by an artist, the author. It implies that special features in poetic textsmay be the result of a preference in the choices made possible by a regularlinguistic system rather than the result of a skilful production. Clearly, moreresearch in the transmission of texts is needed, especially about instances inpoetic texts where the punctuation suggests the presence of an article (Barr 1989).

Although the idea of a poetic preference in the choices from the regular systemmay be found valid on the level of morpho-syntax, more important for thepresent paper is the question, to what extent this is also valid on the level ofclauses and texts.

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Phrases in the book of Deuteronomy:

Phrase Patterns Poetic Totals DtnNm Nm 38 167Nm NmPr 13 37Nm Adj 2 2 *Ng Nm 1 1 *

Nm Art Nm 1 61Nm Art NmPr -- 5Nm Nm Adj 1 6Nm Cj Nm 5 72

Art Nm Art DemP -- 20Art Nm Art Adj -- 10Nm Nm Art Nm -- 8Nm Nm Cj Nm 2 7

[{ (������� ) � ( ��� � ) } ����� ] Dtn 32,36Nm Adj Cj Adj 1 8

[{ ( ��������� ) � ( � ��� ) } ��� ] Dtn 32,05Art Nm Cj Art Nm -- 13Nm Art Nm Art DemP -- 9Nm Nm Cj Nm Nm 2 17

[{ ( ����������� ) � ( �! "�$#%� ) } �&� ] Dtn 32,04Nm Adj Cj Ng Adj 1 1 *

[{ ( '�(%)*�&� ) � ( �+�+ ) } '�� ] Dtn 32,06Art Nm Cj Art Nm Cj Art Nm -- 6

Prp Nm Nm 9 146Prp Nm NmPr 11 170Prp Nm Adj 2 24Prp Ng Nm 2 2 *

Prp Nm Art Nm -- 112Prp Nm Art NmPr -- 12Prp Nm Art Adj -- 5Prp Nm Nm Nm 8 37Prp Nm Nm NPr 3 20

Prp Art Nm Art DemP -- 91Prp Art Nm Art Adj -- 17Prp Nm Nm Cj Nm 3 7

[{ ( ����,�$� ) � ( �.-/� ) 0�!� } �&� ] Dtn 33,28Prp Nm Art Nm Art DemP -- 38

Prp Nm Nm Art Nm Art DemP -- 1Prp Art Nm Cj Prp Art Nm -- 21Prp Nm Art Nm Cj Art Nm -- 4

Prp Nm NmP Cj Prp Nm Nm Nm 1 1 *[ { (���$)��12���3 4�&�&�&� ) � } � { ( 5&�+���6�7�& ) � } ] Dtn 33,16

Comparable phrases in the non poetic sections:Prp Nm NmSfx Cj Prp Nm Nm Nm -- 2

[ { ( 8&�9�:)�����#;�9( ) � } � { ( 8�<=��# �+( ) � } ] Dtn 15,10[ { ( 8&�9�:��<7��#;�9( ) � } � { ( 8����������*�9( ) � } ] Dtn 16,15

* phrase patterns present only in the poetic sections.

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3.2. Clause types: word order, parallelism

At clause level the registering of data can begin similarly to that at phrase level,i.e., by concentrating on form and distribution. What kind of clause types andwhat kind of clause sequences occur? An important additional demand is, topostpone a paradigmatic (or taxonomic) approach, where one collects sets of sim-ilar, though more or less isolated data, thus sorting individual clauses by partic-ular features of word order or of predication type. Clauses should be taken froma full text because the special contribution clauses could make to a text can onlybe described on the basis of the sequence of clauses found, not the clause typealone. The text chosen as illustration is Isaiah 41. The segment of text listed hereis Isaiah 41:21-24. The text is presented here as it has been produced with thehelp of computer programmes for syntactic analysis. The first column at the leftgives the colometric labels, the second column the clause types according to thestudy of Rosenbaum (1997).

Isaiah 41, 21-24: Clauses and Clause Types

Colon Clause Pattern Grammatical Parsing Text.Ref.21Aa V-O [<Ob> >@?!ACBED ] [<Pr> F3ADHG ] Is 41,21.a21Ab V-S [<Su> I2F�I,B ] [<Pr> DHJHK2B ] Is 41,21.b21Ba V-O [<Ob> >@?CB�L2F�J@M+N ] [<Pr> F�O!BQP"I ] Is 41,21.c21Bb V-S [<Su> A�GHN2BSR�T@J ] [<Pr> DHJHK2B ] Is 41,21.d

22Aa V [<Pr> F�O!BQP�B ] Is 41,22.a= w-V-PP [<Co> FVU�T ] [<Pr> F�W,BQP�B ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,22.b22Ab [O] [<Pr> IXU�BEDHG!L ] [<Cj> DHO9KYLHK ] Is 41,22.c

22Ba P2 [<Fr> L2FVU"O9KZDHI ] Is 41,22.d= [O] [<Su> IXU"I ] [<PC> I!J ] Is 41,22.e= V [<Pr> F�W,BQP"I ] Is 41,22.f22Ba’ w-V-O [<Co> FVU�A9T ] [<Pr> I!J,B�[,U ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,22.g22Bb w-V-O [<Ob> \3L,BEDH]HK ] [<Pr> IHNCWXU ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,22.h

22Bb’ F�K -P1 [<Fr> L2F�K,A�I ] [<Cj> F�K ] Is 41,22.i= V [<PC> FVU$N2B�J!O+I ] Is 41,22.j

23Aa V [<Pr> F�W,BQP"I ] Is 41,23.a= [O] [<Aj> D,F�]HKHT ] [<PC> L2F^B�LHK ] [<Re>- I ] Is 41,23.b23Ab w-V [<Pr> IHNCWXU ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,23.c= [O] [<Su> _!`Ha ] [<PC> >,B�I�TCK ] [<Cj> B^? ] Is 41,23.d

23Ba Pdp-V [<Pr> F3ACB�b2B�L ] [<Mo> cHd ] Is 41,23.e= w-V [<Pr> F�NZDHL ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,23.f23Bb w-V [<Pr> IHNCL!O,U ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,23.g= w-V-P3 [<Mo> F�W!],B ] [<Pr> KZDU ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,23.h

24Aa Pdp-S-PC [<PC> \eB�KCJ ] [<Su> f!gHh ] [<Ij> i3j ] Is 41,24.a24Ab w-S-PC [<PC> N,k+KCJ ] [<Su> >@?9TCN,k ] [<Cj>-F ] Is 41,24.b24B PC [<PC> I@A+NF�L ] Is 41,24.c= [S] [<Co> >@?!A ] [<Pr> DH]@ACB ] Is 41,24.d

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With respect to the tension between ’linguistic system’ and ’literary device’, twoobservations are relevant:a. It is crucial to make a precise distinction between linguistic categories andpoetic categories of description. From a linguistic point of view the basicsyntactic unit of analysis is not the poetic line (or colon), but the syntactic clause(§ 3.2.1.);b. Once the ’clause’ has been chosen as fundamental linguistic category, it isquestionable whether one should describe clauses in terms of variations of onebasic clause type, such as V-S-O. As the text presentation makes clear, if clausesused in poetry should be explained in terms of their relation to a default clausetype, it would appear that the majority of clauses deviate from that pattern. Forexample, if one scans the entire chapter Isaiah 41 for full clauses of the type V-S-O, one would find only one case (41,7a). Working from a standard only creates’exceptions’ in poetry. It would seem more appropriate to start from registrationand distribution of actual forms (§ 3.2.2.).

3.2.1. Clause or Colon?

The conventional way of analysing poetry is to start from special basic units forthe description of poetic texts, i.e., the poetic line or colon and to describesequences of colons in terms of parallel lines: the couplet (Berlin 1985: 6f. 25). Seethe use of the term ’line’ in the discussion reported by Korpel and De Moor, 1988:4-14 and 60; Berlin 1985: 19ff. and O’Connor 1997: 32, 297, 643. This reliance onpoetic categories creates problems for a grammatical approach, not because itwould be unfitting for poetry, but because it is premature in the procedure. Therelationship between syntactic units (clauses) and poetic lines is not ont-to-one.As the listed texts show, there is often more than one clause within a colon(22.a.b, 22.d.e.f), frequently there is a colon that is not parallel, but is related asan attribute or as an object of the preceding colon (22.a.b and 22.c), andsometimes there are larger sequences of parallel sections (21.a.b and 21.c.d). Thisleads us to the question of how basic the poetic line is and how basic parallelismis. I do not suggest that the existence of rhetorical categories should be denied,but that they cannot be a proper basis for linguistic analysis (Berlin 1985: 18-27on Collins, O’Connor and others; Talstra 1978). Rosenbaum (1997: 26f., 157) in away conceals and, therefore, also reveals the problem by the more or less silentshift within his book from linguistic categories to poetic categories. Chapters 2to 5 of his book analyse linguistic features in terms of word order, i.e., as clause-level patterns such as topic, focus, parenthesis, etc. At the beginning of thatsection (p. 27) he writes:

"The clause is the basic information processing unit and chains of clauses may becombined into a larger unit called discourse span, ..."

In chapter 6 of his book he concentrates on poetic features, such as parallelism,gapping, etc. At the beginning of that section (p. 157) he writes about parallelism:

"As a consequence, the basic unit of Is 40-55 is not the single line but the couplet".

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My main objection is not to the category ’couplet’, but to the introduction of thecategory ’line’ instead of the category ’clause’ used by him initially. Rosenbaumdoes not clarify the relationship between ’clause’ and ’line’, nor does he explainwhy this transition has been made. Up to this point, his analysis dealt with’clauses’, not with lines. Rosenbaum did complicate matters somewhat bypresenting the examples of his clause analysis not in clauses but in poetic lines.Nevertheless, his analysis clearly treated clauses, including the position of Pred.,Subj., Obj., or the phenomenon of topicalisation. His analysis in chapters 2 to 5represents the model of functional grammar, in which the phenomena of a partic-ular language are explained by explicit reference to universal linguisticphenomena.1 In that context, the clause is taken as the basic unit of description.When in chapter 6 Rosenbaum shifts from universal phenomena of linguisticcommunication to language-dependent poetic features, the ’clause’ as a categoryof description is replaced by ’line’. The poetic line comes into focus, and, due toparallelism, the sequence of two lines, the couplet as well.In this way, Rosenbaum, perhaps unintentionally, demonstrates the problem:once poetic categories have been chosen, an analysis in text-linguistic or text-grammatical terms becomes very difficult.In spite of that, an analysis that proceeds in the contrary direction, i.e., fromlinguistic to poetic categories, is. in my view, a very plausible and fruitfulapproach (Talstra 1996). Rosenbaum, I think, begins on that road, and his bookdeserves much credit for this, nonetheless his chapter 6 is confusing because itslack of further motivation of the categories used.My suggestion is that, also at the level of syntax, we should continue the line ofthinking which Adele Berlin follows in her study of parallelism: there is not justone type of parallelism, e.g., a semantic type, but many types, including syntacticand phonological parallelism. Moreover, parallelism is not the only feature ofpoetry: there are other features, the most important of which being ’terseness’ -the compact, concentrated way of using language in poetry. In analogy one couldstate that lines and couplets may be fundamental to the presentation, theperformance, of poetry, but that from a linguistic point of view, they are not clearanalytical categories. There are many kinds of poetic lines, constructed in avariety of ways from different kinds of grammatical building blocks. It may bemore effective to counter the existing scholarly tradition and to analyse poetryfirst in syntactic terms, i.e., in clauses, rather than in terms of lines or colons. Thesegment of text presented above has been thus analysed. In spite of the criticism

1 Rosenbaum (1997: 17ff) describes his usage of the Functional Model. It works empirically,analysing an attested human language by explaining its phenomena from "universal patterns ofstructure", not in "abstract structural terms". From language universals four preferentialtendencies influencing word order can be observed:- elements with the same communicative function will have the same structural position;- topicalised information is posited before less topicalised information;- special categories will have special positions;- the order of a clause follows from left to right an order of increasing complexity.

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expressed above, I consider Rosenbaum’s study to be a significant contribution.His book is a serious attempt to describe linguistic system prior to rhetoricaldevices or poetic skills. The fact that he marks the transition from linguistic topoetic analysis as he proceeds to chapter 6 of his book is helpful, even though, inmy view, he does not address the shift of categories properly. His study can becompared to an estafette: Rosenbaum may come close to losing the stick at theexchange, but his race - starting from linguistics and going to poetics - is certainlythe race to be run.

3.2.2. Default Clause Type?

The decision to start the analysis of poetry in terms of categories of grammarentails addressing yet another problem. Should one start from assumptions aboutdefault clause types, e.g., the claim, basic to Rosenbaum’s work (1997: 21ff.), thatthe default word order in classical Hebrew is V-S-O? Would this help: to explainclauses as variations with respect to a ’basic order’? Such a method implies thatfrom special patterns of word order, or from deviations from the default pattern,one could describe the syntax of poetry and the pragmatic effects of special cases.Special patterns, e.g., a fronted NP with Subject or Object, would imply a specialfunctional or pragmatic contribution to a text.In an Appendix Rosenbaum (1997: 217ff. 223) gives some interesting statistics onclauses and patterns of word order which reveals the tension between a defaultfunctional model and the actual surface texts. In Isaiah 40-55 the default V-S-Opattern is used less frequently (31.37% of all the full clauses) than the S-V-Oclauses are (42.48%). Rosenbaum: "this is an example of how surface statistics ofword-order can be deceptive. (...) such surface statistics may be the result of thefrequent use of special positions." For the confessional distributionalist readerthis statement on ’deceptive’ is a painful admission. Why would the registrationof a low frequency be ’deceptive’? Maybe the method of functional linguisticsshould be slightly amended from clause grammar to text grammar, beforecomplaining about the data’s insufficient cooperation. One should not count andtest individual clauses against a proposed standard model, rather one shouldregister actually occurring clauses and their connections.A critical look at the segment of text presented above shows that there are noexamples of the basic V-S-O type occurring int this poetic text? Would that meanthat by definition all the clauses used here have a special function? It would seempreferable to describe the occurring clauses in comparison to their context, ratherthan in comparison to a model.In order to facilitate the discussion on methods, I have added a labelling of word-order patterns similar to Rosenbaum’s type of analysis. One difference withRosenbaum’s approach remains: I do not present or rearrange clauses into theformat of poetic lines.

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Relation to the basic V-S-O pattern.

The text has no full V-S-O clauses; 2 times a VCl with Subject marking [V-S]occurs: 21.b 21.d; and 3 times a NCl with Subject marking: 23.d 24.a.b.(Unfortunately, Rosenbaum does not deal with Nominal Clauses.)Furthermore, 3 times a VCl with a NP Object [V-O]: (21.a 21.c 22.h ) and 4 timesa VCl with a clause as Object (22.c 22.e 23.b 23.d). In these cases the combin-ation of clauses results in rather common complex sentences without parallelism.The parallelism is on a higher level: three object clauses are connected to pluralimperative clauses.It may be better to start from the observation that usually clauses do not have allthe slots filled. The implication is, that usually ’gapping’ is not a special case, theactual filling of all of the slots of a clause model would be much more of aconscious choice! This would mean that much of the textual cohesion2 isachieved by the absence of new marking, e.g., verses 22 and 23 take over theperson number and gender from the imperatives and pronominal suffixes inverse 21. In the process of reading, rather than being a problem, the absence ofcertain constituents is helpful. It is the exceptional case where verb, subject andobject slots have been filled that requires a description of the textual effect. Thus,when the object slot is filled by a clause, and this pattern is repeated, this mayhave the same effect of markedness as would a ’special’ word order.

Examples of special positions.

Rosenbaum (1997: 135ff.) presents the basic functional clause pattern found inIsaiah 40-55. As the main additional elements around the V-S-O kernel he lists:P2 (initial position, external to the predication: Theme), P1 (initial special position,e.g., Topic), Pdp (discourse particles), [V-S-O], P3 Tail, e.g., adverbial expressions).

Model: P2 | Pdp | P1 | V S O | P3

P2 (initial position, external to the predication: Theme),Pdp (discourse particles),

P1 (initial special position, e.g., Topic),V-S-O kernel,

P3 Tail, e.g., adverbial expressions).

When applied to the text segment presented above, one finds:two cases of Pdp (discourse particles): in 23.e lnm and in 24.a o�p ;two cases of fronted NP’s: P2 (Theme, external to the predication) in 22.dand P1 (Obj = Topic) in 22.i;one case of P3 (Tail): q/rts7u in 23.h (cf. 20).One could add the explicit marking of actors: Topic in the NCls of 23.d 24.a.

2 Lyons (1995: 263) cohesion, corresponds to ’form’, coherence to ’content’.

13

This type of clause analysis limits our possibilities of explaining the contributionof these phenomena at text level. For example, according to clause level analysisthe fronted elements of 22.d and 22.i will receive different labels: P2 and P1

respectively. Would it help textual analysis to know that in 22.d we have a caseof an extra-clausal constituent and in 22.i a case of topicalisation? In such casesa description in terms of formal parallellism (fronted elements) may be moreeffective than an analysis in terms of ’functional slots’. Here again Rosenbaumis heading into the direction of text-level linguistics. In his discussion of the Tailslot being filled by word

�wvyx{z, he mentions examples where

�wvyx{zhas an impact

on a set of parallel clauses, not just on the last one (Rosenbaum 1997: 111f. Cf Isa.41,18-19; 41,20). In my view, research should indeed proceed in this direction.One may want to use a model to describe clauses, but one needs the full linguis-tic context to explain them. It is regretable that Rosenbaum only mentiones the’discourse particle’ (p. 22 N.35) in his clause model, but does not integrate it intohis study. For example, |y} is present in 23.e, used to introduce the final pluralimperative of the text; ~�� is used in 24.a in combination with a direct address ofthe opponents ( ����} , introducing the conclusion). (Cf. Talstra 1994: 334f.) In asimilar way one could ask why a shift of actors (verse 22.b.c), or the imperativeclauses without any conjunction, should not be treated as discourse markers aswell.

There are two conclusions to be drawn from this section:1. A grammatical study of poetic texts should postpone the analysis in terms ofpoetic lines or parallelism until after the syntactic analysis.2. The great variety of clause patterns requires an explanation not in terms ofdecisions made with respect to a model, but in terms of linguistic mechanismsused to construct and decode a text. Phenomena such as word order, discourseparticles or topicalisation are related to text structure, not to clause type.

3.3. Discourse markers, Sentences, Tenses, Textual Hierarchy.

The text-grammatical approach proposed here implies that it is not effective tohave a preliminary division of grammar into poetic and narrative grammar. Themechanism for reading poetry is in principle the same as the mechanism forreading other text types.Poetry makes its own selection of phrases and clauses, showing a preference forcombinations of linguistic possibilities and a great variety of lexical expressionsand clause building patterns to construct the world of the text. Following Berlin,I find that the special feature of poetry is the coprocessing of syntactic, lexical andphonological patterns. This certainly includes extra-grammatical elements:metrical patterns used to rearrange syntactic patterns for reason of performance.The same holds true for the use of refrains or for an acrostic structure.

14

Below, I present again the same segment of text, now in its text grammaticalorganisation: the hierarchy of clauses. To facilitate comparison I have againadded labels indicative of the poetic lines. After the overview of the text, thelinguistic arguments are listed. It is an attempt to understand what linguisticfeatures are available to help the reader follow the build up of the world of thetext and to define its internal network of grammatical and lexical relations.At text level, lexical and syntactic marking cooperate. In poetic texts this is evenstronger due to the features of ’terseness’ and ’parallelism’ mentioned by Berlin.The task is to understand the ’coprocessing’ of grammatical, syntactic, semanticand phonological features. Parallelism is an important feature, but only withinthe text-grammatical patterns and then it is not the only one. One also has toobserve text-grammatical or discourse markers that are not repeated in a parallelclause since they structure the discourse at a level beyond the individual clauses.

An overview of the set of markers used for analysis is listed below (Cf. Talstra1994). Once a structure has been established with the help of linguistic argu-ments, it is worthwhile to compare the results with textual divisions as presentedby the Massoretic text or with an analysis of a rhetorical-thematic type aspresented in exegetical studies. If regular patterns of a rhetorical nature are usedin the text, such as chiasm, inclusion or parallelism, they should be detected bytheir linguistic characteristics, and not be assumed in advance as an overallpoetic feature. Examples pf such linguistic markings are new sections in the textwhich start without a conjunction, or by being marked by a discourse particle,such as ~�� . Parallel lines can be detected on the basis of combined fetaures:semantic overlap, similar word order, use of the conjunction

�. The text

grammatical analysis also may make clear that from a linguistic point of viewthere is no argument to assume a regularity of text divisions in a poetic text. Textsegments need not be equal in length or organised sequentially; they may as wellbe different in length and be syntactically dependent on each other.The aim of this presentation isa. to demonstrate that also at the level of text poetry makes use of generalsyntactic and lexical markers to help the reader navigate through a text. Textgrammatical analysis is needed to find the linguistic architecture of a text. Thisin turn may help to reveal the text’s rhetorical device as the result of a numberof preferred choices from among the grammatical options.b. to compare the text-grammatical approach critically with a stylistic-thematicapproach. A grammatical approach may disturb the neat rhetorical balanceaimed at by a stylistic approach, but it may contribute more to the understandingof the text as a poetic discourse.

15

’colon’ Text syntactical Hierarchy T12 Ln § DCl rel MCl VPNG Txt.ref

21Aa [<Ob>

��� � �

] [<Pr>

�� � �

] 0.# 98 2 imp. << imp. 2plM 41,21.a21Ab [<Su>

� � � �

] [<Pr>

��� �

] | 1m. 99 2 MSyn << imp. 3sgM 41,21.b21Ba [<Ob>

�� � � ��� �

] [<Pr>

� � � � �

] 0.. 100 2 imp. << imp. 2plM 41,21.c21Bb [<Su>

� � � � � � �

] [<Pr>

��� �

] | | 2m. 101 2 MSyn << imp. 3sgM 41,21.d==============================================+ | |

22Aa [<Pr>

� � � � �

] | | | 3.q 102 20 0yqt << MSyn 3plM 41,22.a= [<Co>

�� �

] [<Pr>

�� � � �

] [<Cj>

�

] | | | 4.. 103 20 Wey0 << 0yqt 3plM 41,22.b22Ab [<Pr>

� � � � � �

] [<Re>

� �� ��

] | | | 5.. 104 20 Xyqt [object ] 3plF 41,22.c==============================================+ | |

22Ba [<Fr>

� �� �� � �

] | 1c. 105 2 CPen << imp. ---- 41,22.d= [<Su>

� � �

] [<PC>

� �

] | | | 4.\ 106 2 NmCl [object ] ---- 41,22.e= [<Pr>

�� � � �

] | | 3.. 107 2 imp. [resumpt] 2plM 41,22.f22Ba’ [<Co>

��� �

] [<Pr>

� � � ��

] [<Cj>

�

] | | 4.. 108 2 WeyX << imp. 1pl- 41,22.g22Bb [<Ob>

� � � ���

] [<Pr>

� � � �

] [<Cj>

�

] | | 4.. 109 2 WeyX << WeyX 1pl- 41,22.h22Bb’ [<Fr>

� �� � �

] [<Cj>

��

] | 2c. 110 2 CPen << CPen ---- 41,22.i= [<PO>

�� � �� � �

] | 3.. 111 2 imp. [resumpt] 2plM 41,22.j23Aa [<Pr>

�� � � �] 0.. 112 2 imp. << imp. 2plM 41,23.a

= [<Aj>

� ��� �

] [<PC>

� � � ��

] [<Re>

�

] | | | 3.. 113 2 ptc. [object ] -plF 41,23.b23Ab [<Pr>

� � � �

] [<Cj>

�

] | | | 4.. 114 2 Wey0 << ptc. 1pl- 41,23.c= [<Su>

� ��

] [<PC>

� � � ��

] [<Cj>

��

] | | | 5.. 115 2 NmCl [object ] ---- 41,23.d23Ba [<Pr>

�� � � � �

] [<Mo>��

] | | 2.. 116 2 0yqt << imp. 2plM 41,23.e= [<Pr>

� � � �

] [<Cj>�

] | | 3.. 117 2 Wey0 << 0yqt 2plM 41,23.f23Bb [<Pr>

� � � ��

] [<Cj>

�] | | 4.. 118 2 Wey0 << Wey0 1pl- 41,23.g

= [<Mo>

�� � �

] [<Pr>

� ��

] [<Cj>�

] | | 4.. 119 2 Wey0 << Wey0 1pl- 41,23.h24Aa [<PC>

� �� �

] [<Su>� ��

] [<Ij>

� �

] | 1.# 120 21 NmCl << imp. ---- 41,24.a24Ab [<PC>

�� � �

] [<Su>

�� � ��] [<Cj>

�

] | | 3.. 121 21 NmCl << NmCl ---- 41,24.b24B [<PC>

�� � � �

] | 2.. 122 21 NmCl << NmCl ---- 41,24.c24B [<Co>

���] [<Pr>

��� �

] | 3.. 123 21 0yqt [subject] 3sgM 41,24.d

15

16

3.3.1. Isaiah 41, 21-24: Analysing Textual Hierarchy

This overview lists the arguments for the text segments and the resulting textualhierarchy.

I.21.a+b /Ø/ 21.c+d

morphological, syntactic and lexical parallelsactors: ’you’(plur) and ’He’

22.a /� / 22.b + Obj.Cl 22.c 3plFactors: ’they’; ’us’; ’the things that happen’ 3plFdifferent audience; definition of ’the case’

22.d-f /��� / 22.i-j 3plF + imp. pluractors: ’you’ (plur); 3plF (from 22.c)new (22.j): 1st plur: ’we’syntactic parallel; semantic contrast: ’the first things’ ↔ ’the thingscoming’; combined set of actors

� 22.g /� / 22.h’we’ ’the things’ 3plFsyntactic parallel; lexical change

II.23.a-23.d, repeating part of 22.f-h; Ø-imp // Ø-imp

asyndetic imp 2 plur (���H-/� ); We-yiQtol 1 plur ( ���H "� )syntactic parallel; lexical parallelactors: ’we’ and ’you’ ( '&��� )

23.e /� / 23.f5�� + imp referring to 23.aactors: ’you’ (plur)syntactic parallel; lexical parallel

� 23.g /� / 23.h’we’ we-yiQtolsyntactic parallel; lexical parallelrelated to 23.e.f:syntactic sequence imp → WeyiQtollexical marking: 5�� (begin) → ���&)9� (end)

III.24.a � 24.b + closing N.Cl

�"� + Parallel nominal clauses;Syntactic parallel, lexical variationactors: ’you’ (plur) '&���

The description of this segment of text may help to clarify what is meant by the’coprocessing’ of various linguistic patterns. The text architecture is built up ofthe combined effects of different sets of linguistic markers.

17

Grammatical markers:- asyndetic clauses: imperative clauses and yiQtol clauses, starting

segments; nominal clauses in the closing section making the concludingstatements.

- We-clauses: indicate parallels (WeyiQtol → WeyiQtol) or sequences (imp→ we-yiQtol 23).

Lexical markers of discourse segments:~�� (renewing the address);|�} (begin) →

��vyx�z(end)

Shift of actors:The first lines of the text report two different dialogues implying twodifferent sets of actors: the speaker ( � � � z and referred to by 3rd personsingular  7¡�} z ) addressing a 2nd person plural;and the same speaker(?) referring to ’them’ and to ’us’.From 22.d the two sets of actors are combined: ’you’ (plural) shoulddemonstrate past things and future things to ’us’. Is this ’us’ marking aprocess of identification of the speaker � � � z with the audience Israel,mentioned earlier in the text? This change of the set of actors is more orless hidden by the fact that the plural imperatives are continued and by thefact that ’prior things’ and ’coming things’ are presented in frontedposition.At the end one finds a newly introduced 3rd person, ’anyone who chosesyou’.

Semantic changes, pragmatic effects:the first sequence of: ’announce, that we may know’ mentions: ’their end’(22.h). The second sequence directly refers to the opponents: ’whether you( ����} ) are gods’ (23.d). At the start, the gods are mentioned in 3rd personin an aside to Israel(?). At the end, the idolator is mentioned as a 3rdperson in connection with the gods. Apparently, the unnamed participant’Israel’ is to watch closely.

As a result of these linguistic observations we see parallels of various kinds withinthe text patterns. The combined sets of linguistic markers create larger segmentsof texts containing embedded smaller sections. We also see a text which is not tobe regarded as a well-balanced unity composed of ’couplets’ or other elementsof equal length. Rather than as ’a thing of beauty’ the text is to be approached asa process; the reader proceeds from one argument to the next and from one setof actors to another. A regular or balanced surface text is not the main feature ofits architecture. Parallellism, certainly a part of the architecture, does not createthe overall structure, but is used in various ways and at different levels. For thatreason O’Connor (1997) prefers the term ’matching’, to avoid the semanticconnotation of the word ’parallelism’.

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3.3.2. Linguistic Structure and Rhetorical Device

A text-grammatical analysis of a prophetic-poetic text provides a concrete basisfor further discussion of translation and interpretation. In my view it is importantto distinguish carefully between a discussion of a colometrical presentation of apoetic text and one of a more general stylistic-rhetorical interpretation of a poetictext. In the first case it is fruitful to discuss interpretation on the basis of aregistration of linguistic data, whereas with interpretations of a more generalstylistic type, based on word-level semantics, inclusions or chiasms, it is hardlypossible to agree upon a common linguistic ground needed for the discussion.

Commentators and translators are uncertain about the structure of the text ofIsaiah 41, 21-24 in terms of colometry. Is the clause in verse 22.i starting with

� }a main division in this section, or is it with the clause in verse 23.a. (Ø-imp.) ?NIV (New International Version) starts a new sentence at 22.i: "Or declare us thethings to come." If one makes this choice, one may also be tempted, as somecommentators do, to move verse 22.h to after 22.i. (Beuken 1979: 96f., and Koole1985: 127). The argument is that it seems strange to say about the ’former things’[22.d] ’that we may know their end’, whereas saying such a thing about the’coming things’ would fit better. If one postpones 22.h, the result at the rhetoricallevel would be three bicola: one about the past (22Ba) and two about the future(22Bb and 23A).Attractive as it may be from the point of view of poetic parallelism andregularity, text-grammatical arguments do not support this. In the hierarchypresented above, clause 22.i, starting with

� } , has a lower position in thehierarchy than clause 23.a. The clause with

�wv{z�¢ � has no conjunction, whichindicates a new start (cf. 21.a.c) and it has a word order that differs from theclauses with fronted elements in 22.d and 22.i. In 23.a the verb is in initialposition, the object follows and has the form of an object clause. The format of23.a-23.d and the explicit addressee �y�y} closing it indicate that this is the mainchallenge to the gods: explain to us what is going to happen! As the descriptionof text segmentation demonstrates, we have two main segments in verse 21-24:21-22 (including smaller sections) and 23. After that a short closing statementconsisting of nominal clauses (24), again with an explicit adressee �y�y} .In this way the text is analysed by emphasising the linguistic elements in theprocess of reading. Through reading one gains access to the text as discourse. Thereader is guided by grammatical markers and relations and by lexical parallels,but also becomes involved in the pattern of actors: the reader is being locatedsomewhere in the audience, where he is spoken to by questions, challenges andconclusions. In my view this linguistic approach need not necessarily conflictwith a colometric analysis. I will restrict myself here to one single remark. Anumber of differences existing between syntactic and colometric analysis couldbe explained by referring to performance, i.e., the recitation of a text. A rhetorical,sequential procedure presents the text in more or less regular segments, whereas

19

a syntactic analysis in the approach defended here, aims at a description of howthe text is organised as discourse, as a hierarchy of actors and arguments,independent from how the text has been written down as a document or mayhave been performed orally. No doubt the question of how poetry makes use ofsyntax as an instrument, or how it contrasts syntax to achieve a rhetorical effectis an interesting challenge for further research.

The comparison of a text-syntactic analysis with a stylistic-rhetorical inter-pretation, concentrating on themes and semantic concepts that are presented orcontrasted in the text, is in my experience much less fruitful. Here we see twoconflicting methods of discourse analysis, the one based on arguments of textlinguistics, the other based almost exclusively on word-level semantics and ontheological themes. A syntactic analysis relies on linguistic markers guiding theprocess of reading, whereas the semantic-rhetorical analysis gives most credit towhat it perceives as the texts’ architecture: a well-balanced text structured bythemes, inclusions and chiasms.The table below compares the results of a text-grammatical analysis of Isaiah 41with a stylistic-rhetorical analysis (Walsh 1993).

20

Syntactic Marking ↔ Thematic-Rhetorical Segmentation

41,01 Ø-imper.(+Voc) [+yiQtol] A introduction------- [questions]

41,02 Ø-Intrg.Pron.( �"# )-Qatal41,04 Ø-Intrg.Pron.( �"# )-Qatal

-------41,04 Ø-Pers.Pron.(�^ £� )-Adj NCL ____41,05 Ø-Qatal-NP [weyiQtol ..] B idolators

Ø-Qatal [wayiQtol; NP-yiQtol; [theme is: strength]wayiQtol ..]

------- ____ C Consolation41,08 � -Pers.Pron. �&�&� (+Voc) C1 announcement [2nd person]41,10 Ø- �&� -yiQtol C2 reassuring41,11 Ø- �"� -yiQtol ____ C3 future41,13 ��( -Pers.Pron. �. £� -Ptc D emphatic "I" between "you" in verses 8

and 16 [center; inclusion]

------- ____ C’ Consolation41,14 Ø- �&� -yiQtol (+Voc) C2’reassuring [repetition]41,15 Ø- �H �� -Qatal, 1Sg yiQtol C3’future [assymmetry]41,16 � - �&��� -yiQtol C1’announcement

------- ____41,17 Ø-NP-ptc B’ God helps the poor and weak41,17 Ø-Pers.Pron. �^ £� -yiQtol ____ [alliteration; synonymy]41,20 �$��#%� -yiqtol 3rd person A’ conclusion41,20 ��( -NP-Qatal [repetition of �$�&)9� , vs1]

------- ________________________41,21 Ø-imperative-Obj.dir. Speech [+yiQtol 3rd person + yiQtol 1st plur]

-------41,22 fronted NP-imperative-Obj [+yiQtol 1st plur]41,22 ��� -fronted NP-imperative-Obj41,24 �"� -Pers.Pron. '����

-------41,24 Ø-Qatal 1st person [WayyiQtol]41,26 Ø-Intrg.Pron.�"# - Qatal [WeyiQtol]41,28 We-yiQtol 1st person41,29 �"� -NP '��9(From a linguistic point of view the stylistic and thematic argumentationpresented by Walsh (1993) is ad hoc, either using or skipping grammatical-linguistic arguments as needed for the text’s assumed semantic symmetry.An example is his argument for the central position of ’D’ (verse 13) positedbetween the ����} of verse 8 and of verse 16. This inclusion is a ’regularity’ fullybased on word semantics. Grammatically speaking ’D’ can not be a mainstatement since it is a

z/¤clause, closing a section. Walsh neglects this type of

argumentation.

21

The fact that Walsh ends his analysis at verse 20 is also doubtful, from a syntacticpoint of view. The argument that

�wvyx{zwhich occurs in verse 1 is repeated here

is not relevant. This word is also used in verse 23 with a first person plural,where the speaker, JHWH, is included, as is the case in verse 1. Moreover it is notverse 20, but the section of verse 21f. that resumes the situation of verse 1.In this way, the thematic-rhetorical analysis performed from an theological biasruns counter to the text-linguistic markings present in the text. There is no reasonto deny the existence of rhetorical instruments such as inclusion, chiasm, etc., butthey should not be assumed to function contrary to the linguistic system of gram-matical marking. It is certainly true that poetry tends to exploit linguisticinstruments extenesively, but it is unlikely that within one text the linguisticsystem and literary devices should be in conflict.

4. Conclusions

Give priority to the analysis of poetic texts in terms of rhetorical or semanticanalysis and simultaneously demanding for more syntactic analysis of poetrycreates a paradox. When the textual analysis is approached in terms of rhetoricaldesign, it becomes impossible to allow syntax its proper place as a part of thelinguistic system.

Syntactic or text-grammatical analysis of poetry can be performed in terms ofgeneral grammatical categories, without making a priori assumptions about aseparate grammar for poetic texts. Poetry shows preferences in its selectiongrammatical forms from general grammar. It differs with prose texts in itsselections, but not in its grammatical system.

When neglecting grammar, rhetorical or stylistic analysis tends to freeze a textinto an artistic, but static picture. Giving priority to a text-grammatical analysisallows for access to the text as a discourse, as a communicative process.

Text-grammatical analysis can help clarify exactly how rhetorical or sticho-metrical techniques enhance the structure and the performance of a text. Furtherresearch is needed to analyse the relationship between categories of grammarand categories of rhetorics.

prof. dr. E. TalstraVrije UniversiteitFaculteit der Godgeleerdheid, ’Werkgroep Informatica’De Boelelaan 11051081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands

22

Literature

Barr, J 1989’ ¥Determination¦ and the definite article in Biblical Hebrew’, JSS 34 (1989) 307-335

Berlin, A 1985The Dynamics of Biblical Parallellism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985

Beuken, W A M 1979Jesaja, IIA (POT), Nijkerk, 1979

Joüon, J and Muraoka, T 1991A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Subsidia Biblica 14/1-2), Rome, 1991

Koole, J L 1985Jesaja II/1 (COT), Kampen, 1985

Korpel, M C A and De Moor, J C 1988’Fundamentals of Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry’, in: W. van der Meer, J.C. deMoor (ed.), The Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry, JSOT Suppl.Series 74, Sheffield, 1988, p.1-61

Lowery, K 1995’The Theoretical Foundations of Hebrew Discourse Grammar’, in: DiscourseAnalysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers (SBL, Semeia Studies),Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995, p.103 - 130

Lyons, J 1995Linguistic Semantics. An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1995

De Moor, J C and Watson, W G E 1993’General Introduction’, in: J.C. de Moor, W.G.E. Watson (eds.), Verse in AncientNear Eastern Prose (AOAT 43), Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1993, ix-xviii

De Moor, J C 1993’Syntax Peculiar to Ugaritic Poetry’, in: J.C. de Moor, W.G.E. Watson (eds.), Versein Ancient Near Eastern Prose (AOAT 43), Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1993, 191-205

Niccacci, A 1997’Analysing Biblical Hebrew Poetry’, JSOT 74 (1997) 77-93

NIV: The Holy Bible. New International Version, Grand Rapids, 1973, 1978, 1984.O’Connor, M 1997

Hebrew Verse Structure, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 19972

Rosenbaum, M 1997Word-Order Variation in Isaiah 40-55. A functional Perspective (SSN (Studia SemiticaNeerlandica)), Assen: Van Gorcum, 1997

Syring, W-D 1998’QUEST 2 - Computergestützte Philologie und Exegese’, Zeitschrift fürAlthebraistik 11 (1998) 85-89.

Talstra, E 1978review of: T. Collins, Lineforms in Hebrew Poetry. A grammatical approach to thestylistic study of the Hebrew prophets, Rome, 1978, in: Bibliotheca Orientalis 41 (1984)453-457

Talstra, E 1994’Dialogue in Job 21. "Virtual Quotations" or text grammatical markers?’ in: TheBook of Job (BETL (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium)) 94

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(1994) 329 - 348Talstra, E 1996

’Singers and Syntax. On the Balance of Grammar and Poetry in Psalm 8’, in: J.W.Dyk (ed.), Give Ear to My Words. Psalms and other Poetry in and around the HebrewBible. Essays in honour of Professor N.A. van Uchelen, Amsterdam/ Kampen, 1996,p. 11-22

Waltke B and O’Connor M 1991An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Winona Lake, 1991.

Walsh, J T 1993’Summons to judgement: a close reading of Isaiah xli 1-20’, VT 43 (1993) 351-371

Watson, W G E 1993’Problems and Solutions in Hebrew verse: A Survey of Recent Work’, VT 43(1993) 372-384

24

Eep TalstraReading Biblical Hebrew Poetry. Linguistic Structure or Rhetorical Device?

Summary

The question of this paper is how to find a proper balance of linguistic ’structure’and rhetorical ’strategy’ in the analysis of biblical Hebrew poetry.The question is: what kind of position could the study of syntax have in the areaof stylistic studies? What are the options of a syntactically based discourseanalysis of poetic texts? Research practice often seems to suggest that linguistsmust leave the reading of poetic texts to the rhetorically well-equipped, to theexegete with artistic expertise.This paper proposes the following line of argumentation:Poetic devices make use of the same grammar as do prose texts, though theyexhibit a different selection, making repeated and preferred choices from theavailable possibilities.One should differentiate between linguistic system in general and specialmarkers which together create a specific poetic composition. This will help in thedescription a poetic text as a discourse, i.e., as a process rather than as a ’thing ofbeauty’, i.e., a more or less static, picture as is often done in proposals onrhetorical analysis. The task, therefore, is to begin the analyzis of pieces ofliterary art in terms of linguistic system: clause patterns, verbal system, pronom-inal reference, topicalisation, etc., before entering the world of lexical repetition,chiasms and inclusions.The discussion of the composition of Isaiah 41 is taken as an example of theprocedures of the discourse analysis proposed.