a transitive to an intransitive clause.
This concludes a very incomplete discussion of
isomorphic and homomorphic features. What has been
proffered is: (1) that observing of bi-colonic syntactic
matching (Line type II) should be complemented by the
scrutiny of sub-lineal elements of syntactic and even
morphological equivalence and variation; (2) that the six
box tagmeme provides an adequate tool for monitoring such
sub-lineal, syntactic and morphological equivalences and
variations, and also points one to surface and deep
structure equivalences and contrasts--moving the analysis
one step toward a scientific, semantic analysis of deep
meaning relationships; and (3) that the writer has
attempted to manifest his method of how one should
syntactically read poetry, based on the data reflected in
the corpus. The major goal of this study is to sensitize
readers to the syntactic equivalences and variations of
syntactic parallelism which are artistically crafted by
the sages and also to provide specific methodology as to
how such features may be scientifically isolated and
monitored. The goal is not the understanding of the
tagmeme per se but of the text--using the tagmeme as a
tool allowing the reader to pry open the door to an
appreciation of the poetic text. Hopefully, this allows
us to move one step closer to the recreation of the actual
thought processes of the inspired sages and, having moved
into their shoes, to better understand their sayings. The
above results and analyses were gleaned from the corpus,
almost at random. This should suggest how much potential
resides in such linguistic descriptions; they should not
be viewed simply as compilations of data which are mere
mountains of syntactic minutia. Perhaps, had space and
time allowed, it would have been of interest to provide a
syntactic commentary verse-by-verse in order to show
further how to read Hebrew poetry. But this will be left
for the reader to reconstruct from the above isolated
examples in conjunction with the discussions on the
literary cohesion of Proverbs 10. One final suggestion
for future study would be the integration of a
linguistically satisfying semantic approach to be embedded
in, and complementary to, the syntactic methodology
developed in this study. Though the quagmires of semantic
description make such analysis extremely tenuous, it is
hoped, nevertheless, that attempts (even facile ones) will
be made in that direction. Such semantic analyses will
provide for further, more accurate mappings between the
syntactic surface structures and the semantic deep
structures, which are well beyond the capacities of the
case grammar employed here. Semantic analyses may also
prove to be more palatable and relevant to those who
merely desire theological conclusions--to those who view
the recreation of the poetic moment as an irrelevant and
fruitless endeavor in the proclamation of divine truth.
An Examination of the Patterns of
Proverbial Noun Phrases
Noun Phrase Frequencies
One of the syntactic characteristics of Proverbs
10-15 seems to be the prominence of the two-member noun
phrase form. This becomes apparent either from a
sensitized familiarity with the syntactic texture of
Proverbs or from a contrastive comparison with the results
of O'Connor's non-proverbial poetic corpus. O'Connor
found that out of 633 nominal formations 550 (87%) were
single noun units and only 83 (13%) were two unit noun
phrases.1 The nominal phrase structure conspectus for
nominal sentences is considerably higher (out of 154, 82
are single nouns [53%]; 62 are two-member NP's [40%], and
10 are three-element NP's [7%]).2 In "normal" Hebrew
poetry one immediately perceives that there is a majority
of the single-unit nominals over the two-unit noun phrase.
In Proverbs, on the contrary, the two-unit NP dominates
(approximately 333 [59%] two-unit NP's; 233 [41%] single-
unit nominals).3 Moreover, one may discover that while
45% of the two-unit NP's fall in the subject slot, as do
43% of the single unit nominals, there is quite a contrast
____________________
1O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, p. 336.
2Ibid., p. 333.
3Appendix VI presents 329 NP's for analysis (96 are
in isomorphic settings, 73 in homorphisms, and 160 are lone
NP's).
in terms of the distribution in the object slot. Only 10%
(35) of the two-unit NP's fall in the object slot, while
31% (72) of the single unit nominals fall in the object
slot. Thus, the subjects tend toward either single or
double unit nominals (100 single, 150 doubles), while the
object shows a definite favoring of the shorter single-
unit. The 31% of the single unit nominals being found as
objects is further heightened when it is realized that
only 33% of the lines contain a sentence pattern which
allows for an object, while virtually all contain a
subject tagmeme (SVO=101, SVM=53, SV=39, SVOP=13,
Nom.=134). The distributions in the prepositional phrases
(39 [16.7%] single units, 69 [21%] two member NP's) and
subject complements (Psc: 45 [19%] single units, 52 [16%]
two member NP's) are fairly close proportionately. One
wonders whether the contrast between O'Connor's corpus
dominated by single nominal units and the clear margin of
majority in Proverbs 10-15 favoring the two-membered noun
phrase could be suggested as another grammatical feature
which may reflect genre differences?
Four Major Noun Phrase Tagmemes
There are four, two-member noun phrase tagmemes
which are conspicuously dominant in Proverbs 10-15. There
are 73 (22%) tagmemes of the following type:
Hd : N Mod : N[Adj]
-------- + --------------
It : Pos :
[Qual]:
Examples of this structure may be found in Proverbs 10:4,
16, 20, 24, 28, 32 et al. The tabulation of the verse
locations where such tagmemes may be found is in Appendix
VI, which gives a compilation of the two member NP's from
the corpus. It will be noticed immediately that this
tagmeme is found principally in the subject slot (58 times
[79%]) and only rarely as an object (9 times [12%]) or in
a prepositional phrase (5 times [7%]). It occurs
predominantly in isomorphic constructions (54 times
[75%]). This will provide a subject-dominating tagmeme,
the semantic fillers of which will be examined
subsequently. This tagmeme parallels the development of
two other tagmeme groups.
First, there is the
Hd : N Mod : N/Adj/Ptc
-------- + -----------------
It : Qual :
group, which occurs 69 times (21%) and is found 14 times
in isomorphic constructions, 12 times in homomorphisms and
23 times in non-homomorphic patterns (vid. 11:1, 18, 30;
12:19; 14:5, 27 et al.). Thus, while It + Pos[Qual] types
are characteristic of isomorphic constructions, It + Qual
is found predominantly in non-homomorphic mappings. The
grammatical slots which It + Qual take are largely
subjects (40 times [58%], 7 times as objects [10%], 6
times in prepositional phrases [9%], and 16 times as Psc's
[23%]).
The second variation of the It + Pos[Qual] type is
the It + Pos tagmeme:
Hd : N Mod : Ps/N/PN
------- + -------------
It : Pos :
While it is less frequent than the previous tagmemes (30
times [9%]) it is found mostly in non-homomorphic settings
(19 times) and rarely in isomorphic constructions (4
times; vid. 12:11, 15; 14:10, 12, 21, 24, 26 et al.).
Though the two previous tagmemes were Subject fillers,
this one tends toward objects (9 times), prepositional
phrases (8 times), and Psc's (5 times), although it occurs
in subjects as well (8 times).
The fourth major NP tagmeme is of the type:
Hd : N Mod : PS/PN/N
------- + ---------------
It : Sp :
It occurs 55 times, 35 of which are in non-homomorphic
constructions (vid. 11:9, 12, 19, 28, 29; 12:10, 16, 26).
It is used heavily to fill Psc slots (17 times) with the
subject slots (14 times), object slots (12 times), and
prepositional phrases (11 times) all closely behind. The
high percentage of the number of occurrences in the Psc
slot is multiplied when one adjusts for the greater
frequency of the subject slot. An interesting phenomenon
occurred with the non-homomorphic proper noun (PN) tagmeme
of this type. It was found only in first line
constructions, which may represent a tendency to put the
PN (usually the divine name) in the first line while
sometimes pronominally referencing back to it in the
second line (vid. 10:27a, 29a, 15:9a, 16a, 33a et al).
These, then, are the four major NP tagmemes. The
first, It + Pos(Qual), is characteristically used in
isomorphic constructions in the subject slot. The second,
It + Qual, is found largely in the subject slot and in
non-homomorphic mappings. The It + Pos is often
discovered in non-homomorphic mappings and is not as
subject-bound, more frequently filling object slot, Psc,
and prepositional phrase usages. The fourth, It + Sp, is
utilized strongly in Psc and object positions, although it
also occurs in the subject slot. When the specifier is a
proper noun (PN), this tagmeme is always in the first line
of the bi-colon.
Matching Noun Phrase Morphological Patterns
The morphological variations of the NP should not
be ignored. There are cases where, for example, there is
a perfect syntactical isomorphism manifesting a total
syntactic equivalence on the surface and deep levels yet
traces of variation are frequently found embedded in the
morphology. Thus, it may be suggested that morphology and
syntax are played off against one another, since
syntactical equivalence is not allowed to stifle
morphological variation. The shifts of gender are more a
product of the word choices themselves than of a poetic
use of gender shifts although that may be the case in rare
instances.1
A more definite creative manipulating of
morphology may be seen in the sages' use of number
variations. The morphological number variations have been
examined in all two-member isomorphic noun phrases. It
was observed that out of 33 isomorphic mappings-only 11
times (33%) was there equivalence of number (7x plural; 4x
singular). What was more significant was that 22 times
there was what appears to be a purposeful variation in
number and that 18 of those were from first colon singular
to second colon plural with only 4 examples in the reverse
direction (vid. Appendix VI). Thus, in the NP
isomorphisms examined there seems to be a clear preference
for number variation--possibly to off-set the syntactical
repetition--and the order preferred is singular nouns in
the first colon and plural ones in the second. The
singular-to-plural movement almost always takes place on
the noun which modifies the item (i.e., the second noun in
the phrase) which tells of the character quality of the
possessor. It should also be noted that the evil
____________________
1Berlin, "Grammatical Aspects of Parallelism," pp.
27-29.
characters are not exclusively the ones designated by the
plural (vid. 10:3, 4, 6; 14:8; 15:19). This proverbial
poetic propensity should be documented further, but is
substantial in the corpus of Proverbs 10-15.
Four Noun Phrase Examples
To facilitate an appreciation for the sage's use,
both in terms of equivalence and variation, of the two
membered noun phrase, four examples shall be observed from
the corpus. First, a two-membered isomorphism from the
subject slots of Proverbs 10:4 will be examined. כַף־רְמִיָּה
[lazy hand] and יַד חָרוּצִים [hand of the diligent] clearly
provide a match. They are two nouns in a construct
relationship--both composed of an item being described
(hand [ כף]; hand [ יַדa ]), followed by the one who possesses
the hand in terms of the character quality of the
possessor ( רְמִיָּה [lazy]; חָרוּצִים [diligent]). The
"synonymous" semantic parallel between כַף / יַד is well
established, being antithetically turned by the presence
of the antonymic contrast of the character of the
possessor רְמִיָּה / חָרוּצִים. Thus, the sage uses syntax as well
as semantics to draw these two noun phrases together for
contrast. Note, too, that both noun phrases fill subject
slots, both of which are causers (cf. 10:6 for the same
type of example, although the isomorphic noun phrases are
embedded in different non-syntactically parallel positions
[PP,O]). The syntactic equivalence, however, is varied
via the morphological shift from the singular רְמִיָּה
(sluggard) in the first colon to the plural חָרוּצִים
(diligent) in the second colon. Other similar examples
are abundant (vid. 10:8, 11, 17, 20, 24, 28 et al.).
Proverbs 10:16 provides a good example of a
perfect matching isomorphism where the subjects contain
the two membered isomorphic noun phrase ( פְּעֻלַּת צַדִּיק [wages
of the righteous]; תְּבֻאַת רָשָע [income of the wicked]) and
the subject complements contain a single noun in
prepositional phrases ( לְחַיִים [to life]; לְחַטָאת [to
punishment]). This illustrates not only the poetic
mapping of equivalent syntactic structures from the first
colon onto the second, but also the tendency, as noted
above, to have the subject filled by a two-membered noun
phrase while the object or subject complement is a lone
noun. Notice, too, that the isomorphic lone nouns also
exhibit morphological number variation beginning with a
plural and going to a singular (isomorphic lone noun
morphology has not been examined in this study).
Perhaps a more interesting example may be seen in
Proverbs 10:27. Here the first colon has a normal two-
membered noun phrase (item + specifier type), with the
specifier being a proper noun ( יְהוָה ), which (as was noted
above) is always in the first colon. The object noun is a
lone noun specifying the time ( יָמִים ) which the Lord adds.
Thus, the quality specified by the subject results in the
extension of days (object). The tendenz for a two-
membered subject is observed in the second colon ( שְנוֹת
רְשָׁעִים [years of the wicked]). There is, hence, a feeling
of surface grammar sameness as both subjects are filled by
two member noun phrases. The beauty of this proverb
unfolds when one uncovers the deep structure of the noun
phrase subject of the second line. One immediately sees
that the two noun phrase tagmemes are different. There is
a collapsing effect which combines the first colon
character-designating subject quality ( יִרְאַת יְהוָה [fear of
the LORD]) and the time-specifying object element ( יָמִים
[days]), the patient upon which the verb acts ( תוֹסִיף
[lenghtens]), collapses into the noun phrase subject of
the second clause which specifies character ( רְשָׁעִים
[wicked]) and the time frame ( שְנוֹת [years]) which are the
patients receiving the action of the verb.
10:27a S O
יִרְאַת וְהוָה יָמִים
שְׁנוֹת רְשָעִים
10:27b S
The deep structure as recorded in the third box indicates
that there is a deep structure link between the object of
the first colon (days, which are lengthened) and the
subject of the second (years). This example is important
because it demonstrates the benefits of the tagmemic
approach, which meticuously maps surface structure
similarities (S:NP), but does not neglect deep structure
relationships (O:Pat; S:Pat). Thus, the syntactic
interweaving between the surface and deep structure has
been described; but this would have been missed if a mere
surface grammatical analysis or a sole case deep grammar
approach would have been taken. There is a collapsing of
three O'Connorian units in the first colon to two in the
second--thereby generating the common 134/123 constituent
count. This analysis, then, allows the reader exactly to
account for how this syntactic reduction takes place.
While many exercises could be carried out on the
data of Appendix VI [Types of NP's], one that has proven
very profitable is to take one tagmemic kind of syntactic
noun phrase and to examine what kinds of semantic units
fill the respective tagmemes. As the It + Pos [Qual] was
the dominant noun phrase type, it provides a good starting
point for such studies. What was found fits well with
intuitive suspicions regarding this major proverbial noun
phrase type. The data could be classified from two
directions. Either the first item unit could be used to
classify or the second possessor (quality) unit could
provide the schema.
The first approach reveals that there are four
major divisions of items so referenced and a fifth
category of miscellaneous types. The first, and most
obvious, is when the items are body parts (20 out of 69).
It is rather common to find the following noun phrases in
Proverbs: the hand of the diligent ( יַד חָרוּצִים --10:4;
12:4); the heart of the righteous/wicked/fool ( לֵב רְשָׁעִים
--10:20; 15:28; 15:7); the tongue of the righteous/wise
( לְשׁוֹן צַדִּיק --10:20, 31; 12:18; 15:2); the lips of the
righteous/wise ( שִׁקתי צַדִּיק --10:21, 32; 15:7); and
especially common, the mouth of the wicked/
upright/righteous ( פִּי רְשָׁעִים --10:6, 11, 14, 31, 32; 11:11;
12:6; 15:2, 28). A second type, not as common as body
parts, is the characterization of mental phenomena: the
thoughts of the wicked/righteous (מַחְשְתוֹת צַדִיקִים --12:5;
15:26); the desires of the wicked/righteous ( חַוַּת רְשָׁעִים
--10:3, 24, 28; 11:23; 12:10; 13:4); and the words of the
wicked/pure ( דִבְרֵי רְשָׁעִים --12:6; 15:26). A third category
is the material possessions owned by the various
characters: the wages of the righteous/wicked ( פְּעֻלַּת צַדִּיק
--10:16; 15:6); the house/tent of the righteous/wicked/
upright ( בֵית צַדִּיקִים --12:7; 14:11, 19; 15:6, 25); or the
boundaries/gates of the widows/righteous ( שַׁעַרֵי צַדִּיק
--14:19; 15:25). The fourth category would be the way of
the righteous/wicked ( דֶרֶךְ שָׂעִים --12:26; 13:15; 15:9, 19).
The miscellaneous categories are again categorized as
being possessed by the righteous, wicked, upright, fools
and wisemen. The items possessed are prayers (15:8, 29);
sacrifices (15:8); root (12:3, 12); years (10:27); light
(13:9); crown (14:24); or sometimes even qualities
themselves such as the folly of the fool (14:8, 24) or the
righteousness of the man of integrity (11:5, cf. 14:8).
The words describing the characters possessing these items
represent the major word groups which occur with high
frequency in the wisdom tradition. Thus the righteous (22
times); the wicked (22 times); fools (4 times); wise (4
times); upright (6 times); diligent (3 times); and several
other with less frequency are used as the possessors of
the various items in the two-unit noun phrases. It seems
possible to take these items of discussion and the
character qualities and, in a manner akin to the earlier
discussions of wisdom literature in this study,
reconstruct the matters of concern to the sages
themselves.
Several conclusions may be drawn from the tagmemic
analysis of the noun phrases of Proverbs 10-15. The two-
unit noun phrase seems to favor a subject position, while
the single-unit noun is more common in the object slot.
The single-noun unit may be readily used in the subject
slot as well. There is an extensive use of the two
membered noun phrase in Proverbs 10-15, which is not
normative when compared to O'Connor's results from a more
standard Hebrew poetic corpus. Thus, one wonders whether
the predominance of the two-membered noun phrase rather
than the lone noun may be a syntactic means bearing on the
question of genre. The four major noun phrase tagmeme
types were: Hd : N Mod :N[Adj] Hd : N Mod :N/Adj/Ptc
------ + ------------, ------ + --------------,
It : Pos : It : Qual:
[Qual]
Hd: N Mod : Ps/N/PN Hd : N Mod : Ps/PN/N
----- + --------------------, and --------- + ------------- .
It: Pos : It : Sp :
The first is found largely a subject and rarely in object
or prepositional phrase slots. It also is frequent in
isomorphic constructions. The second is located most
often in non-homomorphic mappings in subject and subject
complement slots. The third occurs in non-homomorphic
settings in object, prepositional phrase, and subject
complement positions. The final noun phrase tagmeme group
occurs mostly in non-homomorphic settings in all slots,
but is especially common in subject complements. It was
also noticed that the proper name (PN) tagmeme type of the
fourth category was found only in first colon positions.
Morphology was only briefly touched where it was suggested
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