Proverbial poetry: its settings and syntax
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obstruent final consonant than the first (kith and kin).1 This has helped put dyads or fixed pairs in their proper linguistic context. Dyads are a method by which the poet can bind a line together via construction or by coordination when it occurs in a single colon, or bind two lines together if they occur in parallel slots in the bi-colon. While a close examination of word dyading in Proverbs will not be undertaken, it is important to be aware of this phenomenon which occurs with great frequency ____________________
and Ross, "Word Order," in R. E. Grossman, et al. Papers from the Eleventh Regional Meeting (Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 1975), pp. 63-111. in the proverbial corpus (e.g., Prov 10:1--father/mother, wise/foolish; Prov 10:2--righteous/wicked). Repetition The presence of repetition has not been appreciated until recent times. Gordis appropriately critiques Gray's systematic attempt to eliminate repetition via textual emendations.1 Numerous scholars have begun to consider how often and with what function repetition appears in the poetic texts. It is of interest that both Geller and O'Connor note that about 20% of their texts contain this trope.2 The numerous suggestions concerning the function of repetition in poetry include its use as: (1) a didactic pedagogical device;3 (2) an intra-, inter-linear binder via the principle of sameness;4 (3) a device helping to emphasize and focus ____________________
34 (1973):242. 2Geller, Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry, pp. 297-98. O'Connor gives a whole chapter to this phenomenon (Hebrew Verse Structure, pp. 361-70; his discussion will provide a model for our examination of this trope in Proverbs). Cf. Pardee, "Types and Distributions of Parallelism in Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry," p. 2; and J. Muilenburg, "A Study in Hebrew Rhetoric: Repetition and Style," VTSup 1 (1953):97-111. 3von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, p. 54. 4Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, p. 56. attention;1 (4) a discourse/strophe level feature in an inclusio, (or other means of binding the discourse/strophe together);2 and (5) a contrast heightener, via the binding of two units together in order to be contrasted (this function occurs frequently in Proverbs, where a repeated word will be modified by opposites; vid. Prov 10:1 note the repetition of "son" but modified by the contrasting "wise" and "foolish"). As there are various functions of repetition there are also various forms. One repetitional variation is the
syntactical function),3 which does not manifest continuity ____________________
Chapman, Linguistics and Literature, p. 53; Stek, "The Stylistics of Hebrew Poetry," p. 17; and Hemmingsen, "An Introduction to Hebrew Poetic Structure and Stylistic Techniques," pp. 90-91.
defines repetition as involving "the same lexeme, performing the same syntactic function whether singular or plural, suffixed or not, if a noun, in construct or not, and if a verb, no matter how it is inflected within a verbal theme or form; figura etymologica covers all other cases, notably the use of two verbal roots in different stems" (p. 109). Pardee makes the distinction between "verbatim repetition" and "weak repetitive parallelism." This writer will view repetition as "verbatim repetition," which is O'Connor's trope of repetition. "Weak repetition" will be used for words from the same lexeme functioning in the same syntactic category (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.), without noting singular-plural, perfect-imperfect type differences; and figura etymologica will be restricted to words from the same root but operating in different syntactic categories (nouns-verbs, nouns-adjectives, etc.). This is done because this writer, while viewing differences of form.1 Another variational technique is the shifting in the location of repetitional unit, whether intra-linear (Prov 10:9; 11:2), or between cola (Prov 10:1), or in successive bi-cola in a kind of catch word manner (Prov 10:14, 15), or in distant repetition where repetitions are separated by at least one bi-colon (these often function on the discourse level, e.g., Prov 10:6b, 11b). Chapman provides standard rhetorical terms to describe the positioning of such repetition: (1) anaphora ("repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive stages [lines]"); (2) epistrophe ("repetition at the end of successive stages"); (3) symploce ("repeats at the beginning and at the end" [but different in the middle of the line]; (4) anadiplosis ("links the end of one stage to the beginning of the next"); (5) epizeuzis ("repeats a word or phrase without any break at all" [juxtaposition of repeated units].2 It will be demonstrated that the ____________________ in "weak repetition" as significant, sees them as a manifestation of sameness rather than of differences. Cf. Pardee, "Types and Distributions of Parallelism in Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry," pp. 1-2. 1Ibid., p. 369. Y. Avishur, "Addenda to the Expanded Colon in Ugaritic and Biblical Verse," UF 4 (1972):1-10; S. E. Loewenstamm, "The Expanded Colon in Ugaritic and Biblical Verse," JSS 14 (1969):176-96. 2Chapman, Linguistics and Literature, pp. 79-80. Cf. also Corbett, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, pp. 472-75. Cf. O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, p. 144. Such terminology may also be helpful in describing the position of semantically paralleled units.
method by which the collector bound the proverbial sentence literature together. Chiasm is a reversal of the normal ordering of a line, which stresses features of equivalence by the variation in order. Semantically parallel terms can be drawn together in patterns such as A B/B' A' or A B C/C' B' A'.1 Repetitions are frequently found in these patterns (e.g., Isa 6:10 heart/ears/eyes//eyes/ears/ heart, cf. Prov 10:11). Chiastic structuring may also function on a macro-structure (Ps 27) as well as on the bi-colon level (Prov 10:4).2 Dahood proposes that "when the poet uses the chiastic word order, the synonymy of the parallel members tends to be stricter than when the order is not chiastic."3 Thus, the chiastic ordering brings ____________________ 1O'Connor (Hebrew Verse Structure, p. 393) classifies the following types. The first colon has a 123 structure and the second may then be categorized as: front simple chiastic 213; back simple chiastic 132; back flip chiastic 231; front flip chiastic 312; mirror chiastic 321. He also notes various gappings which may occur with the chiastic ordering.
Mechanics of Semitic Poetry in Psalms 1-50," JETS 17 (1974):11-28. Also see his "Chiastic Psalms: A Study in the Mechanics of Semitic Poetry in Psalms 51-100," JETS 19 (1976):191-200; and Hemmingsen, "An Introduction to Hebrew Poetic Structure and Stylistic Techniques," pp. 99-102. 3Mitchell Dahood, "Chiasmus in Job: A Text-Critical and Philogical Criterion," in A Light unto My Path: Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers ed. H. N. Bream et al. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974), p. 120. Also cf. Dahood's article in IBDSup,
bi-colon or strophe. Semantic-sonant chiasm may interweave equivalences from the semantic and phonetic levels (Mic 4:6ab). Recently Watson has done an interesting work on such tight chiasms which involves a sound-sense nexus.1 An interesting example of what may be called "complex chiasm" occurs in Proverbs 10:31-32. פִּי־צַדִּיק יָנוּב חָכְמָה The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, וּלְשׁוֹן תַּהְפֻכוֹת תִּכָּרַת but a perverse tongue will be cut out (Prov 10:31). שִׂפְתֵי צַדִּיק עֵדְוּן רָצוֹן The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, וּפִ רְשׁעִים תַּהְפֻכוֹת but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse (Prov 10:32).
righteous," and 10:32b, "mouth of the wicked" (repetition of the word "mouth" is connected to the common antithetical pair, righteous/wicked). The parts of the ____________________ p. 145. N. Lund, "The Presence of Chiasmus in the Old Testament," AJSL 46 (1930):104-26. Lawrence Boadt, "The A:B:B:A Chiasm of Identical Roots in Ezekiel," VT 25 (1975):693-99.
Semantic-Sonant Chiasmus," CBQ 46 (1984):31-33; cf. John S. Keselman, "Semantic-Sonant Chiasmus in Biblical Poetry,"
Sumero-Akkadian," in Chiasmus in Antiquity, ed. J. W. Welch (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981):17-35.
resulting in a mouth/tongue//lips/mouth type of chiasm. However, other elements of this proverb pair would suggest that there is an A B/A B odering (i.e., the repetition of "perverse" in 10:31b and 32b and the paralleling of the righteous in 10:31a and 32a). Thus it seems to this writer that there is a chiastic effect given by the body parts (mouth/tongue//lips/mouth) but there is a normal A B/A B ordering in the character of the person using those parts (righteous/perverse//righteous/wicked). תַהְפֻּכוֹת repeats interestingly in a different syntactic slot. Thus "complex chiasm" seems to be appropriate nomenclature. Another device which orders equivalent classes in a unique manner, often on the macro-structure level, is inclusio or the figure of enveloping.1 Inclusio is actually a special form of repetition where an equivalence item at the beginning is repeated at the end of the unit. It is often used to bind larger structures and provides a convenient literary marker delimiting discourse units.2 ____________________ 1Stek, "The Stylistics of Hebrew Poetry: A (Re)New(ed) Focus of Study," pp. 19, 28. Leon J. Liebreich, "Psalms 34 and 145 in the Light of their Key Words," HUCA 27 (1956):181-92, and his "The Compilation of the Book of Isaiah," JQR 48 (1956-57):114-38.
Structure and Stylistic Techniques," pp. 96-99. Jakobson, notes the frequent "parallelism at a distance" at the beginning and end of a poem in "A Postscript to the Discussion on Grammar of Poetry," p. 28.
types of inclusio: (1) exact repetition; (2) repetition of word pairs; and (3) repetition of root consonants arranged in different order (e.g., מָצָא -- אָמַץ Ps 89:20-21 [21-2 MT]).1
Duty and Gapping The only two features of divergence or variation which will be mentioned are double-duty usage and gapping. Compensation techniques move the poem in the direction of equivalence rather than divergence. A double-duty usage is a word or phrase which is explicit in one line and implicit in the other; i.e., it is a form of ellipsis. Hemmingsen aptly points out the improper translation in the KJV of Psalm 9:18 [19 MT], which--because it missed the double duty character of the negative--totally misconstrues the meaning:2 For the needy shall not always be forgotten, And the hope of the lowly shall perish forever. Obviously the second line should read like the NIV, "nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish." Particles, prepositions and suffixes often function in double-duty ____________________ 1IBDSup, s.v. "Poetry, Hebrew," pp. 670, 672. 2Hemmingsen, "An Introduction to Hebrew Poetic Structure and Stylistic Techniques," p. 105. usages.1 O'Connor suggests that an example of a double-duty suffix is found in Proverbs 10:1. Here, he suggests that the third masculine singular suffix ("his") in the phrase "his mother" (10:1b) should be referenced back to "father" as well. Gapping is another form of ellipsis. O'Connor discusses this feature, noting the rightward gapping characteristic of verbs (SVO:SO),while object gapping is often leftward (SV:SVO).2 Earlier in his work he mentions three types: Blitz: removes the common term of a comparison 'May my future be like his future.' 'May my future be like his.' Conjunction reduction: 'Hannah sang and Hannah prayed.' 'Hannah sang and prayed.' Verb gapping: 'Caesar conquered the Gauls,' 'Nicomedes, Caesar.'3
therefore this variation leads to more engaging poetry.4 The complete line usually carries all the information needed to interpret it, but the incomplete line, with ____________________
has also done much work on this poetic device in his book, Psalms III 101-150, AB (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), pp. 368-69.
2O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, pp. 404-6. Cf. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, p. 322. 3O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Strucuture, pp. 122-26. 4Greenstein, "How Does Parallelism Mean?" p. 57. gapped elements, activates the reader's memory/expectation as he interprets the incomplete in light of his remembrance/expectation of the complete.1 Compensation techniques push gapping in the direction of equivalence. While this study will not examine the phenomenon of gapping or double-duty usages in any formal manner, it is felt that such topics should at least be broached as part of the intuitive baggage one should bring to the text to help gain a sensitivity for the types of devices the poets had at their disposal. These types of variations may affect the syntactical deep structure. Hence, they must be accounted for if one desires to model the syntax of Hebrew poetics. The semantic features of Hebrew parallelism have been briefly surveyed (semantic parallelism, words pairs, repetitions, compensation, and various orderings of equivalence [chiasm, inclusio]) as have been features of variation [double-duty, gapping]. Now attention will be turned to the syntactic features which characterize Hebrew prosody and the model which will be employed in this study will be presented. ____________________
Parallelism in Canaanite Poetry and Their Psycholinguistic Background," p. 94.
of semantic parallelism, and with the development of more exacting linguistic methods of syntactic analysis, attention has turned toward a syntactic modeling of Hebrew poetry. Most of those who are presently involved in this endeavor trace their roots to Roman Jakobson's statement: Pervasive parallelism inevitably activates all the levels of language--the distinctive features, inherent and prosodic, the morphologic and syntactic categories and forms, the lexical units and their semantic classes in both their convergences and divergences acquire an autonomous poetic value. This focusing upon phonological, grammatical, and semantic structures in their multiform interplay does not remain confined to the limits of parallel lines but expands throughout their distribution within the entire context; therefore the grammar of parallelistic pieces becomes particularly significant.1 The recent dissertations of O'Connor (Michigan), Geller (Harvard), Cooper (Yale), and Collins (Manchester), as well as articles by Pardee, Berlin, and Greenstein, have helped compensate for the long neglect of syntactic parallelism.2 Kaddari has argued that syntactical studies
____________________ 1Jakobson, "Grammatical Parallelism and its Russian Facet," pp. 423-24. Cf. Pardee, "Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry: Parallelism," p. 6. Kugel improperly views this approach as an attempt to "salvage" semantic parallelism (The Idea of Biblical Poetry, pp. 314-23, which apparently was tacked on to his dissertation before he understood O'Connor). Cf. Pardee, "Types and Distributions of Parallelism in Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry," p. 6. 2O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure; Geller, Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry; Cooper, "Biblical must precede semantic studies and he is not wrong in that assertion.1 Berlin has done a superb job of defining categories for handling the varieties of grammatical parallelism. Grammatical parallelism is composed of two components: morphological parallelism and syntactic parallelism. "Morphological parallelism is the pairing of parallel terms [semantically paired] from different morphological classes (parts of speech) or from the same morphological class but containing different morphological components."2 Syntactic parallelism is semantically paralleling stichs which have different syntax. Berlin also separates between syntactic repetition (O'Connor's "matching") and syntactic parallelism.3 Berlin further cites examples of each of these. It will be one of the functions of this study to monitor grammatical repetition (matches) and parallelism, both morphologically and ____________________ Poetics: A Linguistic Approach"; Collins, Line-Forms in
Parallelism"; Greenstein, "Two Variations of Grammatical Parallelism in Canaanite Poetry and Their Psycholinguistic Background"; and his "How Does Parallelism Mean?"; Pardee, "Types and Distributions of Parallelism in Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry"; and his "Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry: Parallelism."
Parallelism," p. 171. 2Berlin, "Grammatical Aspects of Biblical Parallelism," pp. 20-21. 3Ibid. syntactically.1 The results will be examined in categories akin to Berlin's morphological studies. The syntactic component will be also traced and classified into categories which will employ both O'Connor's constraint system and Collins' line-type approach. This should help answer the call of Pardee that someone provide a synthesis of Collins' and O'Connor's models.2 In order to facilitate the lucid presentation of the method adopted here, one must understand both O'Connor's and Collins' approaches. Hence, the following discussion is drawn from selected aspects of their methods for monitoring syntactic features of Hebrew poetry. O'Connor's Constraints and Tropes O'Connor has circumscribed the line by modeling it via a system of syntactical constraints.3 Thus, data may be compiled using his paradigm and then a comparison made ____________________ 1Ibid., pp. 21-39. As her discussion concentrates on syntactic parallelism she does little with syntactic repetition, which O'Connor has called the trope of "matching." This study will try to examine the features of both phenomena.
Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry," p. 3. 3James S. Hedges, "Correlation of Line and Syntax in Shaped Poems," in Papers from the 1977 Mid-America Linguistic Conference, ed. Donald M. Lance and Daniel E. Gulstad (Columbia, MS: University of Missouri, 1978), p. 449. between his corpus and the text of Proverbs 10-15, which represents 348 lines. While the proverbial corpus is much more limited than O'Connor's sample of 1,225 lines, this present study may help respond to Barr's rather inane criticism that O'Connor dealt with "only a poor sample of biblical poetry."1 O'Connor defines the elements of his constraint system as follows: Unit: individual verbs, nouns, etc.; along with particles dependent on them Constituent: verbal phrases, nominal phrases, etc.; along particles dependent on them Clause predicators: verbal or verbless clauses2 After applying these categories to his corpus O'Connor discovered that a series of constraints could be generated to account for all the lines (when he uses "lines" he means one half of the bi-colon) of his corpus. The lines have between Yüklə 6,58 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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