Proverbial poetry: its settings and syntax

that in isomorphic syntactic mappings there was a favoring

of morphological variation and most common was the first

colon singular being mapped onto a second colon plural.

Finally, the major It + Pos [Qual] tagmeme group was

examined in terms of semantic fillers. It was found that

there was a loose correspondence between syntactic units

and semantic fillers. This major noun phrase tagmeme

exhibited an abundance of wisdom type vocabulary in rather

fixed patterns which could be rather easily observed.

Such studies on the other three major noun phrase types

would be of benefit both for contrastive purposes between

the noun phrase tagmemes and comparative purposes in

specifying more closely the syntactic-semantic features

characteristic of proverbial expression.

This partial discussion of the proverbial use of

noun phrases could be multiplied in discussions of verbal,

prepositional, and simple noun bi-colonic mappings. The

verbal syntactic-morphological variations should prove to

be of special interest. Such studies would undoubtedly

reveal much about the sage's craft and about equivalent

and variational techniques of Hebrew poetry. The data

base has been provided in the corpus. The discussions

here, however, are not directed to conclusions per se, but

to the proffering of an adequate methodology for

monitoring poetic bi-colonic syntax both on the lineal and

sub-lineal levels in terms of surface and deep grammar.

Select Grammatical Transformations

of Proverbial Poetry
As a result of observing O'Connor's syntactical

lineal constraints, a pattern of syntactic unit matching

or decrease in the second colon was discovered. This

section will attempt to trace how the number of units is

syntactically reduced or maintained through various

syntactical transformational techniques, which allow for

syntactical variation while retaining inter-lineal

semantic correspondences. The examination of isomorphisms

focused on poetic elements of syntactic equivalence. This

section will concentrate on variational techniques, which

assumes a Chomskyan understanding of grammatical

transformation and an O'Connorian method of counting

syntactic units. The observations do not reflect an

exhaustive analysis of the corpus but rather were

generated from a rather cursory reading of chapters 10 and

11. Hence, this section only represents an embryonic

beginning and is written more for the purpose of being

methodologically suggestive than of producing any

conclusive results.

O'Connor's constraint matrix, as monitored in

Proverbs 10-15, pointed to a marked tendency in the

direction of a second line reduction (e.g., 134/133 or

134/123) or a second line match (e.g., 134/134, 133/133 or
123/123) and only rarely a second line with more units

than the first (e.g., 123/134 or 133/134). In both the

contracted and expanded second lines there must have been

techniques of syntactical collapsing and/or expansion

which allowed for such shifts in the number of syntactic

units. It will be the goal of this section to examine a

few of these collapsing and expanding techniques and to

suggest the potential of such studies in terms of a

transformational approach to grammar.
Noun Phrase Reduction Transformations
The two-unit noun phrase is one of the fundamental

building blocks of the proverbial saying. Thus, in light

of the foregoing studies, it is appropriate to scrutinize

how this unit is syntactically varied in terms of

collapsing and expansion techniques. Proverbs 10:2

provides the first noun phrase collapsing technique. The

collapsing is needed in order to maintain the matching

number of units, which, if the noun phrase had not been

collapsed, would have resulted in an increase in the

number in the second line because of the addition of a

prepositional phrase in the second line. Therefore, it is

suggested that perhaps the noun phrase is collapsed in

order to accommodate the addition of the single-unit

prepositional phrase in the second line (123/133).

Here the noun phrase of 10:2a אוֹצַרוֹת רֶשַׁע (treasures of the

wicked) is collapsed to צְדָקָה (righteousness). This is

accomplished by dropping the item in 10:2a--thereby

lifting the diminutively-contrasting value of riches to

the character quality. The matching item, אוֹצְרוֹת

(treasures), from the first colon is absent in the second

colon. This causes the reader to focus on the character

quality rather than on the item possessed as that which is

most significant. The impotency of the riches (item) is

revealed when exposed by the item of the second line: מָוֶת

(death). Righteousness' ability against this greatest

foe, demonstrates its potency. The collapsing technique

observed here is the dropping of the item while retaining

the contrast in the corresponding character qualities,

thus allowing the sage to move from a two-unit noun phrase

to a single-unit nominal. The resultant formulaic

description of the transformation from Proverbs 10:2 is:

S:NP = Hd:N:It + Mod:N:Pos[Qual] ---> S:N: Ag[Qual].

A second noun phrase to a single nominal technique

is observed in the subject complements of Proverbs 10:18

(cf. also the subjects of 10:21 and 10:18).

There is a clear syntactic isomorphism in the subject

tagmemes, both of which contain embedded transitive

clauses. Note, too, that the two lines match--both being

nominal sentences (Collins' II nom.: i)1,1)--as does the

total number of units (224/234). What is germane to the

discussion of noun phrase collapsing is the movement in

the subject complement of the first line from a two-unit

noun phrase to the second line single nominal ( שִׂפְתֵי שֶקֶר

---> כְסִיל ). Here the body part plus character quality,

which is so common in Proverbs, is reduced to the simple

classifying character quality (Psc:NP = Hd:N:It +

Mod:N:Qual ---> Psc:N:Clas[Qual]). This is similar to the

reduction seen in Proverbs 10:2--that is, the item, which

is a body part (שִׂפְתֵי ), is dropped. The reduction here

seems to be required by the addition of the personal

pronoun in the second line.

A third similar noun phrase reduction may be seen

in the dropping of the metaphorical element between the

subject complement and the object of Proverbs 10:11.

Here the subject tagmemes are isomorphic noun phrases ( פִי

צַדִּיק [mouth of the righteous]; פִי רְשָעִים [mouth of the

wicked]) which even contain a repetition of the body part

(פִי [mouth]). Because of the addition of the verb in the

second line there seems to have been a need to reduce the

first colon subject complement ( חַיִּים מְקוֹר [fountain of

life]). This is accomplished by the dropping of the

metaphorical item ( מְקוֹר [fountain]; cf. also 11:21, 30)

for a simple חָמָס (violence) in the second colon ( חַיִּים

---> חָמָס; Psc:NP = Hd:N:It + Mod:N:Qual ---> O:N:Pat[Qual]).

Phonetic factors are also at work in this chiastic

proverb.

A fourth and final noun phrase to noun reduction

of this type is seen in the corresponding subjects of

Proverbs 11:16 (cf. also 11:17, 25).

This beautifully matching proverb manifests the 134/133

reduction. The repetition of the verb semantically draws

the two lines together for the contrast between the

subjects and objects of the bi-colon. The subject shift

from the singular to the plural is a common pattern, as

noted above. The reduction concludes the examples of this

type, where there is a deletion of the first element

(item) of the noun phrase, whereby the single nominal of

the second colon matches the quality, or second member, of

the noun phrase of the first colon ( אֵשֶׁת־חֵן [a kindhearted

woman]; עָרִיצִים [ruthless men]). Here the opaque

specification אֵשֶׁת (woman) is dropped, being implicit in

the expression of the gender of the noun עָרִיצִים (ruthless

men); S:NP = Hd:N:It + Mod:N:Qual ---> S:N[Adj]:Ag[Qual]).

Since quite regularly there are insignificant gender

shifts in even isomorphic noun phrase constructions, the

explicit inclusion of the gender in the noun אֵשֶׁת (woman)

indicates that the gender is not insignificant here.

Thus, more generic terms like "man" (11:17a; cf. 10:23 for

a use of this process to expand), "woman" (11:16a), "lover

of" (12:1a), and "soul" (11:25a) may all be reduced in a

similar manner.

In all of the above, the common element has been

the collapsing of a first line noun phrase via the

reduction of the first unit of the noun phrase, whether it

was an item (treasures, 10:2a), a body part (lips,

10:18a), a metaphorical element (fountain, 10:11), or a

more generic, opaque term (woman, 11:16). The resultant

case grammar formulation of the NP ---> N reduction is:

Item

Body part

Metaphorical element + [Quality] ---> [Quality]

Generic element
A second type of reduction may reduce the noun

phrase by keeping the item but deleting the quality. So

in Proverbs 10:20 the subject complement goes from

נִבְחָר (choice silver) to מְעָט (little). Thus, the second

member in this case was collapsed. Proverbs 11:7 uses

this same process in reverse to expand the subject of the

second colon. The תִּקְוָה (hopes) of the first colon is

expanded in the second colon ( תוֹחֶלֶת אוֹנִים [expected

power]) by the addition of an element in the second

position of the noun phrase--providing a goal in this

case. This expansion was needed in 11:7 to offset the

deletion of a three-member prepositional phrase in the

first colon. This NP ---> N process may be formulated

[Item] + [Quality] ---> [Item]. This obviously contrasts

with the previous group which had an [Item] + [Quality]

---> [Quality] structure.

A third type of noun phrase reduction was

mentioned above in the discussion of Proverbs 10:27 where

there was a collapsing of a noun phrase subject ( יִירְאַת יהוָה

fear of YHWH) and the object (יָמִים days) into the subject

of the second colon ( שְנוֹת רְשָׁעִים; years of the wicked),

thus facilitating the 134/123 syntactic pattern ( יִרְאַת יְהוָה

+ יָמִים ---> שְׁנוֹת רְשָעִים ). Because of the complexity of

this collapsing technique, it is less frequent than the

others. The following diagrams may be helpful to picture

this phenomenon (S:NP₁ + O:N₂ --- S:NP [N₁ + N₂]:
10:27a S:NP + O:N

יִרְאַת יַהוָה יָמִים

10:27b S:NP = N + N

רְשָעִים שְנוֹת
A fourth type is of the more normal sort, as it

simply accomplishes a reduction in the unit count via the

use of a pronominal suffix rather than by the use of two

full nouns to express the noun phrase. The enveloping

subjects of the chiastically structured Proverbs 10:15

provide an interesting example of this transformation.

Here the 024/023 pattern is acheived by the reduction of

the subject in the second colon. The two subjects being

compared are הוֹן עַשִׂיר (wealth of the rich) and רֵעשָׁם (their

poverty)( חוֹן עָשִׁיר ---> רֵעשָׁם ). Notice that the 3mp

pronominal suffix refers back to the poor. Hence there is

a perfect, referential contrast between the "wealth of the

rich" ( הוֹן עָשִׁיר) and the "poverty of the poor" ( רֵישׁ דַלִים )

although, in fact, there is a syntactic collapsing (S:NP =

Hd:N:It + Mod:N:Pos --- Hd:N:It + Mod:PS:Pos).

Thus, there are basically four types of NP --- N

reductions that have been found through a cursory reading

of Proverbs 10 and 11: (1) the initial item member of the

noun phrase is reduced--whether it be an item (10:2a,

ill-gotten treasures), a body part (10:18, lying lips), a

metaphorical term (10:11, fountain of life), or an opaque

term (11:16, kindhearted woman) (N:Item + N:Quality --->

N:Quality); (2) the second member of the noun phrase may

be reduced (10:20, choice silver; or in reverse, 11:7)

(N:Item + N:Quality ---> N:Item); (3) a combination two-

membered noun phrase subject and single noun object may be

collapsed into a single, two-membered noun phrase, thereby

reducing the nominal units by one (10:27 fear of Yhwh +

days)(S:NP₁ +O:N₂); and (4) a two-unit noun phrase may be

converted into a single unit noun phrase by the use of a

pronominal suffix (10:15, wealth of the rich)(N:Item +

N:Pos ---> N:Item + PS:Pos). These four techniques

illustrate syntactical transformations which the sages

utilized in the maintenance or reduction of the number of

units in elements of syntactic equivalence.
Verbal Collapsing Transformational

Techniques

Having briefly examined noun phrase

transformations a study of the collapsing techniques used

with verbal elements only follows naturally. The number

of elements in the second line may be reduced by a

verbally suffixed reference back to the explicit subject

of the first line. While this is undoubtedly more common

in the prophetic literature (which contains more of

Collins' iii) type bi-cola than of the explicit subject

dominated cola of Proverbs 10-15), the dropping of the

explicit subject is utilized in Proverbs and does

contribute to the collapsing of the number of grammatical

elements.

Proverbs 10:3 provides an example of this collapsing

pronominalizing transformation. The bi-colon has a

configuration of 134/123--the second line being reduced--

which is a direct result of the second line's subject

being pronominally prefixed, rather than explicitly

repeating יְהוָה (Yahweh) from the first line. This verse

is also peculiar in the use of matching two-unit noun

phrases as objects drawn together by the chiastic ordering

(cf. also 10:22). This transformation may be formulated

as: S + Verb ---> Verb(S affixed). The subject of the

second line may also be deleted by the inclusion of a line

with an empty subject, as in Proverbs 11:14b. The empty

subject is usually translated by "There is X." Thus in

Proverbs 11:14b there is no match for the subject of

11:14a ( עָם [people]). Rather, there is a statement about

the existence of deliverance under certain conditions,

which allows a unit count of the lines to correspond at

133/023. The following formula reflects this

transformation:

S + V ---> [0 (S)] + Existence Predication + Psc.

Another technique which can also be seen in the

example from Proverbs 10:3 above is the dropping of the

verbal negation in the second line (cf. also 10:2; 11:21).

While this does not affect the number of syntactic units

according to O'Connor's method of counting, it does give

the reader a sense of shortening in the second line.

More interesting is the lineal collapsing as a

result of a verbal shift from a transitive, first-line

verb to an intransitive, second-line verb. This allows

the second line to drop the object. Proverbs 10:27, which

was examined above, exhibits this phenomenon, as does

Proverbs 10:4 (cf. also 10:21, 24 and 11:12).

In Proverbs 10:4 the normal two-membered noun

phrase match is observed between the "lazy hands" of the

first line and the "diligent hands" of the second. The

rather transparent verb עֹשֶׂה (makes) requires an object

specifying the product of what is made רָאשׁ (poor). The

second line collapses the verb and object of the first

line ( רָאשׁ עוֹשֶׂה [makes poor]) into a single semantically

"equivalent" but syntactically reduced element תַּעֲשִׁיר

(makes rich). The shift from the Qal verb in the first

line to a Hiphil in the second also aids the

transformation. Thus, there is a deep structure semantic

equivalence contained in a beautifully hued syntactic

variation. The formula, S + V(trans) + O ---> S +

V(Intrans), reflects this type of transformation (cf.

10:21; 11:12).

Another object-dropping type of transformation may

occur when the active verb of the first line goes to a

second line passive verb. This can be seen in Proverbs

10:8 (cf. also 10:10, 31). Here the syntactic

configuration yields the common 134/123 line type, with

the units of the second line reduced. While this bi-colon

does not provide a syntactic match (SVO/SV), there is

clearly an isomorphic matching of the two-membered noun

phrase subjects ( חֲכַם־לֵב [wise heart]; אֱוִיל שְׂפָתַיִם [foolish

lips]). The deep structure of the subjects differs,

however, which is why the S:NP's are only homomorphically

linked. The first line tells the active processes

performed by the wise hearted (agent), while the second

tells what happens to those of foolish lips (experiencer).

Thus, there is a surface grammar equivalence and a deep

grammar variation. The verbal elements participate in

this variation. Indeed they homomorphically match, in

that they are both predicating verbal units. But the

shift from the active to the passive allows for the

dropping of the object in the second line, although the

subject actually receives the action of the verb in the

second line, as does the object in the first. This

formulation may be described as S + V(active) + O ---> S +

V(passive).

The abundance of nominal sentences (as shown from

the comparisons with the corpora of Collins and O'Connor)

also allows for certain grammatical transformations. This

can be done with great variety. Quite often the number of

syntactic units is maintained (cf. 10:1, 6, 11, 13, 28)

even though there is a grammatical shift, which the reader

would normally expect to decrease the number of syntactic

units (SVO ---> SPsc). Proverbs 10:1 contains a familial

example of this phenomenon:

While there is obviously no lineal matching (SVO/SPsc),

there are clearly inter-lineal syntactic parallels between

the isomorphic subjects. One should also observe the

semantic equivalences ( יְשַׂמַח [make happy]/ תּוּגַת

[grief]; and אַב [father]/ אִמּוֹ [his mother]). Notice, then,

that the verb is mapped semantically onto the head noun of

the subject complement noun phrase. Thus, though there is

a grammatical variation between the verb and noun, the

semantic force draws them together in the semantic deep

structure. So there may be an SVO ---> SPsc shift with V

---> Psc [N_V + N_O], where N_O reflects the semantic force

of the first line object and N_V the semantic force of the

first line verb. Because of the great variety of the

types of transformations which take place between the

SVO/SPsc, more study should specify exactly how this

parallel is achieved.

Another less syntactically involved technique of

collapsing the unit count is the two-fold repetition of a

pattern in the first line, which is followed by a single

pattern in the second line. Proverbs 10:26 provides a

clear example of this pattern, where the SPsc nominal

clause is repeated twice in the first line ("As vinegar is

to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes"), and is followed by

a single nominal clause ("so is a sluggard to those who

send him"). A punchiness is gained by a long,

repetitional, metaphorically varied first line, followed

by a short (022), non-metaphorical application. This may

be formulated as A + B ---> C (where A, B, and C represent

grammatically complete elements of similar character).

One final, and perhaps most obvious, method of

lineal collapsing should be briefly mentioned. Gapping,

while not as prominent as in other corpora, is used to

reduce the second line in Proverbs (cf. 10:9, 23, 29).