Chapter 1. Introduction: Tools, Concerns, and Approach
1.5 Components of Analysis
1.5.2 Creating a Table for Text and Grammatical Annotations
The exegete hopes to select a kind of diagramming method with which he or she is competent and which is most applicable and relevant to the kinds of analyses being undertaken. The thesis does not here employ any kind of sentence diagramming for the initial segmentation of our Syriac text. Whilst sentence diagramming and/or tree diagrams can aid in making observations about usual and unusual linguistic features in a text with recurring lexemes, such diagramming seems less directly relevant to examining rare lexemes. Furthermore, most diagramming tends to separate or displace the relation of lexemes, and may even rearrange them. The syntactic
relationships that we wish to display and comment on may depend on word order, or on keeping other orthographical features intact. If we can initially avoid the rearrangement or re-
segmentation of our text we can hope to avoid imposing certain theoretical constructs onto our verse from the very beginning.157
A table is all that is required for labelling our text. Our table of labels can of course be revised as we further analyse other grammatical and semantic features of the verse. The purpose of the table (which is read from right-to-left) is to help enable our initial focus to be on the immediate
157 The present methodology aims to avoid linguistic abbreviations, unnecessary linguistic jargon, and imposing a
particular theory of syntax. There are perhaps “as many syntactic theories as there are syntacticians.” Andrew Carnie,
Modern Syntax: A Coursebook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), xii. Andersen and Forbes, Grammar Visualized, are to be congratulated for being linguistically eclectic. Also, their phrase marker diagrams, by maintaining the original word order, avoid the usual diagramming pitfalls. However, their phrase trees do split orthographical word-bundles into smaller segments, making it difficult to read fluently (being designed for computation analysis). Their approach employs a high degree of linguistic abbreviations and requires one to master a large glossary of technical terms.
68
textual context of our low-frequency lexeme. Our table enables us to have, in one compact place, three layers of structural analysis that will assist us through several stages of exegesis (clause labels and the discourse grammar labels use initial capital letters).
:Discourse Grammar Labels :Syntactic Labels (Clausal) :syntactic labels (word class) :Syriac lexical bundles :English glosses
The Syriac text can now be divided into word groups, which we call ‘lexical bundles’, by
following the natural orthographical divisions of the items already divided by spaces in the Syriac text. In some cases, however, certain segmented lexemes separated orthographically in Syriac are not meant to be treated as separate lexical bundles because they function as single units. For example,
ܗܳܬܥܳܫܳܪ ܰܒܘܶ
is orthographically two items/bundles which could be further decomposed into four elements:ܘ
plusܪ ܰܒ
plusܐܳܬܥܳܫܳ
plusܗܳܶܶ
(“and-[one of]-hour-his”). But it is naturally one phrase (‘and immediately’) and basically two lexical items:ܘ
plusܗܳܬܥܳܫܶ
ܳܪܳܰܒ
(‘and’ + ‘immediately’). The inseparable particleܘ
can be treated as belonging to its attached lexical bundle (which it is in our method) but a more complex approach would treat the two separately. There is no need to consider the second, third, and/or fourth morphemes separately from the perspective of its bundle. Thus we do not treatܗܳܬܥܳܫܳܪ ܰܒܶ
(orܐܳܬܥܳܫܳܪ ܰܒܳ
) as separate items (‘one of’/‘son of’ +‘hour/its hour’) because of the close relationship between the noun in genitive construct with the item following it. For this reason
ܗܳܬܥܳܫܳܪ ܰܒܶ
is here treated as a single lexical bundle. The same approach is applied to all genitive constructs.Enclitics fall into the same category. Thus, for example,
ܬ ܳܘ̱ܳܗ
inܬ ܳܘ̱ܳܗܳܐܳܳܪܝ ܺܟܡܳܕܳܰܟ
(Mt 1:18), even though orthographically separated from its preceding lexeme by a space, is meant to be taken together with its preceding word so that the two form a single lexical bundle. It is less clear whether or notܕ ܰܟ
should always be taken as separate to its following participle (or adjective) for the purpose of making lexical divisions. In this case we could treatܬ ܳܘ̱ܳܗܳܐܳܳܪܝ ܺܟܡܳܕܳܰܟ
as either a single lexical bundle or two bundles.ܬ ܳܘ̱ܳܗܳܐܳܳܪܝ ܺܟܡܳܕܳܰܟ
(‘whilst-betrothed-she’, ‘while-she-was-engaged’) can,69
as a single clause, be labelled as an adjectival clause but this is two steps ahead of the present step, so at this stage the phrase would presently be treated as consisting of two lexical bundles, namely
ܕܳܰܟ
plusܬ ܳܘ ̄ܗܳܐܳܳܪܝ ܺܟܡ
(conjunction ‘while’ + past state adjective ‘she-was-betrothed’) in this way our table can differentiate somewhat between syntactic word-classes (preposition + adjective + copular verb) and clause labels (‘Predicate’)—see below (§1.5.4).Glosses, corresponding to our Syriac lexical bundles, can also be added to our table but are not compulsory. The present method adds them below the Syriac at the bottom (fifth) row of the table as part of the second step (putting in the Syriac text/lexical bundles). The addition of glosses provides provisional correspondences to the Syriac lexical bundles and can help speed up the addition of all the other annotations for the text. Our low-frequency lexeme is deliberately left unglossed in order to resist prejudging its meaning. Ideally (for the Syriac expert) no glosses would be used at all so that one neither depends on them nor only sees the Syriac through the lens of English. Our corresponding glosses do not necessarily read well in English (in our table we are reading along with the Syriac from right to left) and hence they can assist to make obvious the differences between Syriac grammar and English grammar.